which gas is best?

K

kastleback

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2003 mazda protege 5
i dont know if anyone already did this but i was wondering what gas you guys would prefer. ive been using sunono gas and it has done well for me.
 
I usually go to shell and valero, and price is the main deciding factor. Every station around here now has 10% ethanol which is bulls***, I hate that crap, makes my car run noticeably worse.
 
I usually like to stick to BP, but will go with Mobil if need be. I don't care what type of list Kwik Trip makes it on, I refuse to use their gas after having to go somewhere else one winter because their gas FROZE.
 
hornsfan10609 said:
I usually go to shell and valero, and price is the main deciding factor. Every station around here now has 10% ethanol which is bulls***, I hate that crap, makes my car run noticeably worse.
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The ethanol level is %10 here as well.

ethanol burns at a higher temperature than regular gasoline. our cars were designed prior to the introduction of high levels of ethanol. Therefore, our cars use inadequate spark plugs that are not designed to handle the increased ethanol level.
upgrade your spark plugs and it'll take care of the problems your having. I did and I noticed a 3 mpg increase, as well as better throttle response. I forget the name of the plugs, but if you look in my posts it shouldn't be too far down the list. the title probably has something to do with mpg or plugs.
 
SocialStealth said:
The ethanol level is %10 here as well.

ethanol burns at a higher temperature than regular gasoline. our cars were designed prior to the introduction of high levels of ethanol. Therefore, our cars use inadequate spark plugs that are not designed to handle the increased ethanol level.
upgrade your spark plugs and it'll take care of the problems your having. I did and I noticed a 3 mpg increase, as well as better throttle response. I forget the name of the plugs, but if you look in my posts it shouldn't be too far down the list. the title probably has something to do with mpg or plugs.
Click to expand...

The ecu must be tuned to burn the ethanol, I have brand new spark plugs and haven't noticed any increase in power or mpg. I have seen racecars that run E85 that are tuned for it and make tons of power because of the higher octane, but cars that aren't designed for it get worse mileage and make less power, plus it can damage fuel system components. That and I hate government conspiracies to make money for farmers of certain crops. There is too much corn being produced in our country and the growers wont change what they grow so they try to increase demand of their product to make it worth more money. Nobody in this country wanted ethanol in the first place, it was forced on us by the govt.
 
hornsfan10609 said:
If you don't trust the gas makers to clean your injectors, how can you trust the other companies product's? They all claim the same thing.
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LOL! In truth, you can't. However, I can't see gasoline companies putting much effort into adding a truly effective additive to fuel. It cuts into profits! There is no additive that is going to be completely effective in cleaning your fuel system, valves, or your flux capacitor - not even the ones you add yourself. I would still be more likely to trust a good manual additive before I trust the oil companies.

Also, the cheaper OTC fuel system cleaners have been found to be corrosive to components in your fuel line.
 
bradicus18 said:
LOL! In truth, you can't. However, I can't see gasoline companies putting much effort into adding a truly effective additive to fuel. It cuts into profits! There is no additive that is going to be completely effective in cleaning your fuel system, valves, or your flux capacitor - not even the ones you add yourself. I would still be more likely to trust a good manual additive before I trust the oil companies.

Also, the cheaper OTC fuel system cleaners have been found to be corrosive to components in your fuel line.
Click to expand...

So you don't trust the gas companies' treatments and you don't trust OTC treatment, but you think we should use fuel treatment. Exactly what do you trust? :)
 
slavrenz said:
So you don't trust the gas companies' treatments and you don't trust OTC treatment, but you think we should use fuel treatment. Exactly what do you trust? :)
Click to expand...

Nope, you can't trust marketing for just about anything....at least not 100%. Look at all of those Amsoil Oil tests that are out there....performed by Amsoil. If you go to forums like Bob is the Oil Guy or where ever, you will find lots of great information and a huge variety of oil opinions. I'm not saying anything negative about Amsoil. In truth, there are a lot of good oils out there.

Anyhow, this is a post I found by a guy that conducted his own tests on the automotive forums. I'm not saying anything definitive. I am saying it is worth thinking about and not believing all the hype.

As a worst case sample of material which might be found in gasoline I used ordinary tar. The brown deposits we find coating carburators, and which collects in fuel injectors and on intake [COLOR=blue !important][COLOR=blue !important]valves[/COLOR][/COLOR], are the highest boiling components in gasoline. They are tar-like materials which distilled along with the lighter gasoline. The best solvent I've ever seen for these was methylene chloride, but it's expensive and I'm sure it's being phased out to protect our ozone layer. In any case, if you used it on a modern [COLOR=blue !important][COLOR=blue !important]car[/COLOR][/COLOR] the chlorine freed during combustion would corrode the [COLOR=blue !important][COLOR=blue !important]oxygen [COLOR=blue !important]sensor[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR]. Amoco advertises a cleaner gasoline and I'm sure it's because they've reduced these tar-like compounds. All gas these days contains at least a little detergent of some sort to help keep these deposits from building up too much.

Dimethylformamide is listed in the literature as being a good [COLOR=blue !important][COLOR=blue !important]engine[/COLOR][/COLOR] cleaner and is "especially good at dissolving carbonaceous deposits". I haven't used this myself because it is a bit too toxic. Instead I used N-methyl pyrrolidone, which is also good.

For my tests, I tried to use a wide variety of products, well known and unknown, expensive and cheap, and also some pure solvents in order to represent a good cross section of products on the market. Note, carbon itself (such as soot and other thermally decomposed material) is not soluble in ANY solvent but solvents like dimethylformamide and N-methyl pyrrolidone do a good job of breaking up clumps and dispersing the fine particles to release the heavy tarry materials trapped within them. However, some of these solvents are too harsh to use freely in the fuel system. (Someone in one of these forums told me that when the auto industry looks for good cleaners, they mostly look for solvents that will not attack the plastic and rubber parts in the system.)

Most cleaners (the safer & slightly less effective ones) usually have common solvents in them like toluene, alcohol, acetone or methyl ethyl ketone, and naphtha. If you want to use these to clean your system, you can get more for your money by buying the pure solvents at a hardware store and mixing them yourself. I have never had a problem adding toluene, acetone, alcohol, or naphtha to my gas tank in quantities up to one quart per 16 gallons.

Most of the straight solvents I used are at least as flammable as gasoline so be careful if you use them. The alcohol used was pure, 100% isopropyl alcohol. This has no water in it, it is not the same as "rubbing alcohol".

These test results are as fairly and accurately done as I could manage with the equipment I had available, and the other data presented is also accurate to my knowledge. Your car may have different plastics in it than mine does so if you choose to make your own cleaner, do it at your own risk.

TEST RESULTS

RELATIVE EFFICIENCIES AT WHICH VARIOUS CLEANERS WILL DISSOLVE HIGH BOILING RESIDUES FROM GASOLINE AND CARBONACEOUS DEPOSITS FOUND IN USED MOTOR OIL, (10=BEST):

10 Gunk Gas Treatment
10 Toluene (a common ingredient)
9 Castrol Syntec Power System
8 Duralube Fuel System Cleaner
7 Gunk Fuel Injector Cleaner
6 Redline SI-1
5 Gunk [COLOR=blue !important][COLOR=blue !important]Air [COLOR=blue !important]Intake[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR] Cleaner
4 Naphtha (a common ingredient)
4 STP Fuel System Cleaner
4 Seafoam Motor Tuneup
4 Trak Fuel Injector Cleaner
4 STP Intake Valve Cleaner
4 CD-2 Emission Cure
4 Prolong Fuel System Treatment
3 CD-2 Fuel Injector Cleaner
3 Techron Concentrate
0.5 Butyl Cellosolve (a COMMONLY used "AUTO INDUSTRY DETERGENT" for oil and grease)

THE FOLLOWING CLEANERS DO NOT HURT NYLON (LISTED RANDOMLY).
(The letters in parentheses indicate how well they dissolved the material from used oil, A=best.):

Toluene (A)
2-Phenoxyethanol (A)
Duralube Fuel System Treatment (B)
B-12 Chemtool (B)
Trak Fuel Injector Cleaner (C)
Techron Concentrate (D)
STP Intake Valve Cleaner (E)
Seafoam Motor Tuneup
CD-2 Emission Cure
Prolong Fuel System Treatment
Aromatic distillates
Naphtha
Butyl cellosolve
Acetone

THE FOLLOWING CLEANERS WILL DECOMPOSE THE NYLON SOCK IN THE FUEL TANK. Listed in order of increasing severity:

STP Fuel System Treatment
CD-2 Fuel Injector Cleaner
Gunk Fuel Injector Cleaner
Castrol Syntec Power System
Redline SI-1
Gunk Gas Treatment
Monoethanolamine
(The monoethanolamine is the worst here. It turns nylon black on contact. It is significant to note here that the "best" "detergents" in use today are similar, strongly alkaline organic solvents). Another use for the current bunch of organic amine "detergents" is cleaning deposits out of cylinders, so I hear.

I had originally been using the STP but now just use seafoam mainly because I used to work at a place that sold it. I'm not sure if the Duralube stuff is still out there or not. This was on a post from 2002. I have also read other places that the B12 stuff is effective.

The point is, like the article I posted before, the additives are probably not as effective as they are leading you to believe. Use a name brand fuel station that has plenty of traffic to (I hope) avoid getting poor gasoline quality.
 
I used to be a huge fan of Amoco Ultimate, back when Amoco was a separate entity. Back in the early 90s, it was the cleanest, purest gas you could buy. That ad campaign seemed to fall by the wayside when it became BP.

Now I use Chevron, as Techron has always done good things for my cars and bikes.
 
Bob is the oil guy is one of my favorite websites. I use stricly Mobil 1 because of what I learned on there.
 
After working on the pipeline side of the oil industry for about five years I don't really think it matters much. All the major oil companies use the same basestock and then add there detergents at the terminal. Some of the pipeline companies us all the same basestock no matter which refinery it came from. I was told that its about a quart of detergent to a full semi load (6,000 to 8,000 gallons).
 
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