Around here, Costco's gas is consistently the lowest around according to gasbuddy.

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Originally posted by Palm:

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Originally posted by Skins2881:

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Originally posted by V-Tail:

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Originally posted by Skins2881:
What is top tier? Is there a symbol on the pump or something?

Per TatorTodd's post on the first page, https://www.toptiergas.com/consumers/

Is this the sticker? I've never noticed it on a pump.

That is the sticker. It is definitely on Costco and Shell pumps, at least it is at the stations I go to.

There are 54 brands of gas in US that are Top Tier. If it's on the Top Tier list it's Top Tier everywhere as they'll have an additive tank at distribution terminal(s) in that market.

IME, the location of the stickers at the service station is inconsistent which is why I go by brand. The GasBuddy app used to have a feature where could turn on a filter where it only showed Top Tier (it made it very easy), but they took that away.

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Originally posted by tatortodd:

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Originally posted by smschulz:
But what actually goes in to the tank is all the same pretty much.

Did you read before posting?

Maybe with the regulations now with the stations, there's no difference. I think it's put a lot of the old stations out of business.

I think the difference is in the tanks under the gas station. Before the regulations that killed off independent gas stations, some stations had crappy rusty tanks that fouled the gasoline. Getting gas from a station near Mission and Army (now, Chavez or MLK), my car would stall shortly afterwards.

I believe the regulations you're speaking about were from 1987 water quality amendment to the clean water act (it was many moons ago). That resulted in double or triple wall underground storage tanks (mostly fiberglass) with interstitial space monitoring. Not sure if all of Commiefornia required it, but Orange County (where I lived 3 years) even forced double wall pipes.

You can still get contaminants at gas stations such as water (e.g. condensation), particulates (e.g. filling your car while tanker truck filling tank), or some really rare screw up where all of the holes in swiss cheese line up (e.g. governor "asks" refinery to defer turnaround, refinery's catalyst bed goes to shit, catalyst beads end up in pipeline, distribution terminal receiving gasoline into same tank as delivering to loading rack, tanker truck clog up a bunch of vehicle's injectors).

The conventional wisdom is that the majors will give you a little better package of additives than generic. It may not matter an awful lot. My dad used to insist on Shell gas, but he was a 43 year Shell employee. He still prefers Shell when he can get it conveniently, but even he has relaxed his old rule.

What does matter is the rare service station owner who dilutes the gas with water. It isn't common, but is a disaster.

I buy name brand. It does seem that among name brand gasolines, that my truck gets better mileage with Shell.

Top Tier only, and 93 only for me. Only in a dire emergency would I stop at a no-name filling station these days...

And how does one get to be "Top Tier"? Buy paying someone else I assume? Like the "Heart Smart" logo?

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Originally posted by cas:
And how does one get to be "Top Tier"? Buy paying someone else I assume? Like the "Heart Smart" logo?

Nope.

Who ever has the lowest price is where I fill up at.

All I can add is that I have been driving 52 years on the cheapest gas available without any fuel system issues ever. 19 year old Chevrolet van has never seen anything else since new nor has the wife's 14 year old Toyota Solara seen anything else since it was new.

I used to run Sinclair until they stopped giving away dinosaur soap!

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Originally posted by tatortodd:

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Originally posted by cas:
And how does one get to be "Top Tier"? Buy paying someone else I assume? Like the "Heart Smart" logo?

Nope.

According to the link, the answer is yes. How else do you suppose one becomes a licensee?

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Originally posted by trapper189:

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Originally posted by tatortodd:

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Originally posted by cas:
And how does one get to be "Top Tier"? Buy paying someone else I assume? Like the "Heart Smart" logo?

Nope.

According to the link, the answer is yes. How else do you suppose one becomes a licensee?

I said nope because it's a lot more sophisticated than Heart Smart (e.g. actually involves quality control testing) and is much more involved than merely paying someone.

I had an old car whose carburetor would only work when I used Chevron. If I used any other gas, the car would stall and stop. Including top gas stations (Shell, 76, Mobile). Would have to pull over and wait (can't remember what I would do to get the engine running again - was about 35 years ago).

Since then, I've only used Chevron. Don't know if it still matters or not but sticking to Chevron hasn't really hurt either. It's marginally more expensive but that's okay.

About 25 years ago I would chase the cheapest gas.

After getting 1/3 of a (fuel) tank of water from a small no name convenience store pump, and having to deal with the aftermath, I decided the "cheap" gas isn't always the cheapest.

I'm not terribly brand loyal, but now I do stick with one of the top tier brands.

My car requires 91 octane fuel or higher. So I use that, around here it's 93 octane with 100+ octane here and there, mostly non ethanol gas in that range, but they are nowhere close enough to be practical.

Around here it Shell, Marathon, Chevron, Valero, BP, Sinclair, Thornton's and Super America, Kroger and Murphy's. There are more, but these are the ones reasonably close to me, with the BP and Sinclair being out of the way.

I have an app. on my phone to keep track of car maintenance, fuel economy and the like. I can say that I get the best gas mileage from Shell, by 2.5 mpg better than the next best which is Marathon, which is 1 mpg better average then just about all the rest except for Thornton's, Valero and Super America which gets 2 mpg under the rest.

The car gets an average of 26.7 MPG by the app., with the Valero it was barely 23 MPG, the actual figure was 22.99 MPG.

So, I mostly use Shell or Marathon, both of which are the closest and most convenient to me.

ARman

The only thing different between branded gasoline and non-branded gasoline is the amount of the additive (detergent) injected into the gasoline while it is being loaded into the delivery truck.

Top tier is also a higher detergent gasoline and meets the same percentage as the branded fuel.

No facts here. I grew up always only buying gas from Exxon or Chevron. Now I buy gas from HEB (Texas grocery store chain) for usually 30 cents cheaper per gallon. I have been doing this for 20 years and noticed zero difference from when I bought gas at brand name locations.