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obviously it is varying all over the place. I'm paying anywhere from 20-30 cents per gal extra for premium (yes i need it) regardless of what banner i buy it under.
The bigger concern i have is the lack of non-ethanol (being a boat owner). Even living in an area with large lakes, where boating is big, it is very difficult to find 100% gas (regardless of reg-premium) let alone get it at a place where water isnt an issue. But i digress....
I cannot find a non-ethanol station around me anywhere. They all use it. We don't have shell stations around here. One thing I wonder, does the EPA mileage estimates account for ethanol, or are they based on 100% gasoline, and therefore unrealistic to achieve in most parts of the country anymore?
Heard from a friend (owns a motorcycle shop) who said he has a customer who is a shell employee who told him the low octane shell fuel in 10%, mid grade is 5% & the premium or V Power has no ethanol. I run the highest grade I can Finn and my Harley seems to be doing well on the V Power fuel. Anyone else heard something like this guy is saying?
Who knows, they all claim that there may be up to 10% ethanol in any of the blends. I've never seen anything published that says regular contains x% ethanol, premium contains y% ethanol, etc. The ethanol content also varies batch to batch so the gas you buy today may be 10%, the gas you buy tomorrow may be 6%, the gas you buy the day after that may in fact be 0%. Overall though, it is VERY hard for manufacturers to hit the stated octane ratings without ethanol do to various state and local ordinances banning octane boosting additives like MTBE.
Not saying the guy is a liar, his plant, for a stretch may have been doing that, but I would not accept it as anything approaching a universal truth.
. One thing I wonder, does the EPA mileage estimates account for ethanol, or are they based on 100% gasoline, and therefore unrealistic to achieve in most parts of the country anymore?
well for what it's worth, the past few new cars/suv's we've had ive hit rated or better for mpg's running whatever gas was recommended that i could find in my area at the time. And i can pull 28 in our s2000 (though i'll admit heavy in the vtec may lower those #'s lol). And that's premium but usually with ethanol in the mix.
i have also seen thru a local small engine repair shop a vial of "ethanol free" that in fact did contain some.... so guess for boat owners just run the additives the motor manus recommend and hope for the best
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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I think more stations are upping the price of Premium grade because now it has become a fuel only used for performance cars. Back when carberaters were king many small engine cars had to have high grade gasoline. My sister had an '86 Chevy Nova and '83 Nissan Sentra that would die in traffic if anything below 91 octance was used. Today with fuel injectors and better designing even a 1.5 engine will run great on 87 octane
I think more stations are upping the price of Premium grade because now it has become a fuel only used for performance cars. Back when carberaters were king many small engine cars had to have high grade gasoline. My sister had an '86 Chevy Nova and '83 Nissan Sentra that would die in traffic if anything below 91 octance was used. Today with fuel injectors and better designing even a 1.5 engine will run great on 87 octane
If anything more and more "common" cars come with premium fuel recommendations recently, not the other way around. The reason why the price spread between regular and premium is growing is because we're running out of "easy to refine" oil and it's getting harder to produce higher octane fuel from the oil that's left.
I have to laugh, sort of. An area station, close to the large lake here, does not offer ethanol free gas for all the many boaters. BUT it does actually sell racing fuel for the few performance boats/cars that may buy it.
I havent seen that at a pump for years
Yep, the tanks are seperated by grade(octane) then the guy in the little building flips a switch that adds the additive for whatever brand, the totes hold 500 gallons of additive that go to small pumps that inject the additives in the raw gas as it's pumped in the tankers that deliver to your station.
Additives are being used more and more in the refinry process with truely amazing results. Equipment that used to be pulled out for cleaning and repair are now being run for years free of corrosion or build up, it's impresive to see for those of us in the business.
Are the additives in the different gas brands worth it? I don't know, but the additives in the refining process are saving the oil company's millions. One side note, only synthetic oil is used on the equipment in the refinery's. Conventional oil is a lot cheaper, these folks don't spend extra money unless there is a benifit for them.
I work for a fuel transportation company. We load our trucks at loading racks which have separate accounts for each supplier. Murphy generally has their own accounts, as well as Shell, BP, Conoco, Exxon, etc. Our company does not like to load separate fuel account types on the same truck to avoid mixes of different product, so delivering to differently branded locations will result in multiple trips. However, customers will sometimes allow differently branded fuel to be brought to their location, so you may have Exxon gas when you go to a Shell station or other things.
You can also go to a station with cheap general nonbranded gas and end up with branded in your car. It is pretty much a crapshoot. It all has to do with pricing and availability. If allocation is bad, then customers will allow for any sort of gas to keep their stores pumping. At high volume stores you might even end up with nonbranded very cheap gas at a branded location. Thats just how this business works. The Decals on the station are fairly accurate to what you will get in your car but hardly definitive.
The reduction in ethanol presence also has to do with pricing and availability. If ethanol fuel availability is lower, a store might resort to conventional fuel to keep it full but you will hardly ever see ethanol fuel go into a conventional store because it requires expensive filters in the tanks to avoid phase separation. Just a little bit of water in those tanks is enough to ruin ethanol fuel.
There are other little quirks to the business, such as occasionally receiving premium at the regular pumps, but that is a more rare occurrence. I have seen all kinds of weird stuff over the years though, especially during hurricane evacuations, when ANYTHING GOES as long as it is gasoline.
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