does it matter who you get it from, i.e. Amoco, Mobil, Clark, Shell, Speedway, Stop N Go, Saddam, etc... I usually go to who da hell ever is cheapest!

 

As long as it is a recognizable brand, buy whatever is cheaper at the octane level you need -- at least 91. Two or three or more of those on the list may come from the very same refinery. Gasoline is refined to government standards -- a high end, a low end and blends of them for the others. It becomes Amoco or Texaco or whatever as the truck leves the dock and each company's secret ingredients are added.

 

lol saddam.

 

I have a friend who works for Exxon/Mobil. He told me that all gas is the same at the refinery. BUT he said each company adds their own additives. He said the best gas to use by far is CHEVRON. Their additives are far superior to other gas manufacturers. Car manufacturers in Detroit have Chevron trucked in from Kentucky to use in the governments epa test. They truck it in because it is not available in the Michigan area. Just my 2 cents.

 

thanks everyone!

 

There is no Chevron station where I live

 

my family uses arco, which i think is only available in the SW as far up as utah i think. we've been using it for over 10 years and none of our cars have any performance/maintenance problems. the reason arco's cheaper is because it has much less overhead than other brands, it does not rely on brand loyalty to sell (and it also doesn't sponsor much (if any). it's one the cheapest ones of the major companies and relies more on a competitve advantage from a cheaper price to attract customers.

i don't know if any of you are familiar with california prices, but recently in LA the average price over here for 91 octane is about $2.40.

 

I heard bad shit about Diamond Shamrock, something about lead in the fuel. I refuse to buy their gas. I usually use Chevron, and when not available, Shell or Texaco

 

Chervon is the same as Texaco I think. There weren't that many Texacos when I was in Illinois either.

Amoco is probably the closest equivalent in the Midwest.

You may be able to get the Techron additive at Wal*Mart. I have seen it in Wal*Mart stores but you will have to add it in whenever you fill up.

on the Chevron (Techron). Of the fuels I am able to get here in SoCal the car runs noticiably quicker and better on Chevron than anything else. It's what I prefer when I have the extra cash.

Recently I have been using Costco gas and it's not too bad either. Prices finally fell there from the all-time high of $2.489 to $2.389. Slowly but surely.

 

Don't remember seeing any Texaco's here...I'm sure there's a few around Chicagoland/burbs... Amoco is pretty much what I use... I should sign up for the BP CC for cash back on getting gas there...

 

Lead has to be intentionally added to fuel during the refining process. It doesn't get there by accident. At the present time there are only a small handful (less than 10%) of refineries in the US that still make leaded fuel, only one significant manufacturer of tetraethyl lead in the entire world, which transports its product on only 3 ships. The only legal application in the US is for 100LL aviation fuel, and outside the US lead use is being phased out rapidly as well.

Leaded aviation fuel is legally segregated from all other with special EPA controls all around. It can't be transported on any pipelines that are also used to transport unleaded, which means that it pretty much always travels around the country by truck or barge. The equipment that is used to make and transport it can't be used for any unleaded fuels. The cost of cleaning up lead contamination to a truck or storage tank (let alone a pipeline) is staggering. It's one of the most tightly controlled substances in petroleum refining, and the vast bulk of refineries and fuel companies just won't even touch the stuff.

During the early years of unleaded fuel it was pretty common for the two to get mixed accidentally. I suspect that's where the story you heard originated. Those kinds of "rumors" can persist for decades. But given that only about .3% of the gasoline sold in the US contains lead, and that no gas station or "normal" distribution mechanism has been allowed to handle leaded fuel in more than a decade, I'd say the chance of you running into leaded fuel at any gas station is virtually zero.

Which is not to say that Diamond Shamrock doesn't have other issues, or that individual gas stations aren't doing stuff like selling regular as premium, etc. But I wouldn't worry about lead.

VBTSX

 

too add to VBTSX's post you will pretty much only find lead in race fuel...you can buy it and you will notice that the car will run alot stronger on it...but you WILL mess up your injectors and a few other things. Highly NOT recomended for daily driver use no matter what the octane level is.

 

actually it doesn't become BRAND X or Y until the truck adds the additives at the pump. So tanker trucks are all carrying the same stuff. you want to go to a place with high volume to minimize the amount of water that condenses in the tank (gas station).