Shell V-Power test

[fowljesse]

FWIW, I read a while ago, that gas is essentially the same before additives, BUT, the bigger, better companies buy the purer, more expensive gas at the top of the barrel, and the other companies buy, descending to the cheapest. At the bottom, water and contaminants settle. So, the cheaper gas contains more water, and junk. I'll give a quote when I get the book from the library.

[GasSavers_JoeBob]

A little thing I've noticed about Shell and the way they market their gasoline...they show a "typical" valve which is all covered in sludge. I had a chance to look at my valves recently. They looked pretty much like the clean valve (the one from using V-Power gasoline)...yet a look at my gaslog shows that I'm not particularly picky about what gasoline I use...

[Rick Rae]

Just wanted to let everyone know I had to give up on this test (and maintaining my gas log, and participating in the fuel economy challenge) for the time being. My work now includes doing gas station audits, each of which requires adding fuel to the tank. I have little control over what brand of gasoline gets added when. A gallon here, three gallons there makes it impossible to keep this test or my gas log accurate. I'll pick up where I left off if/when my situation changes.

Regarding comments about ethanol: That's been discussed; read the thread for details.

Originally Posted by 8307c4

I also believe on a VW premium is required

A quick Google search would have clarified the issue for you:

Premium fuel is required for all VW's EXCEPT: the 2.0 liter non turbo, 2.5 5 cylinder motor and of course, the diesel. This has been true for several years and is still true today.

Source(s):
25 years on/off in Volkswagen dealership service departments from 1980 till December, 2005.

Citation

For the record: Yes, my manual explicitly states that the engine is designed for 87 octane fuel.

Rick

[vipag]

The recent referencing to nitrogen enrichment in motor gasoline has to do with the deposit control additive that is required by federal law to be used in the gasoline. All commercial deposit control additives, which help control deposits in injectors or carburetors and on intake valves and intake ports, contain nitrogen. Nitrogen enrichment is nothing new. But, nitrogen alone does not provide the engine keep-clean and cleanup necessary to help with good performance, maintaining fuel economy, and keeping emissions low. The basic polymer in the deposit control molecule also plays an important role. The molecular structure of polymer also can affect the amount of combustion chamber deposits that form and possibly affect intake valve sticking. Some deposit control additives contain several components to optimize performance. The concentration of the deposit control additive in the gasoline is another critical factor. So, just promoting nitrogen enrichment doesn?t provide a meaningful assessment of a deposit control additives? performance.

[bowtieguy]

a few of us agree w/ that accessment...

http://www.gassavers.org/showthread....light=nitrogen

[bowtieguy]

i too have tested shell for quite some time now, tho only 87 octane. the test was to compare their 87 to others.

a chevron has just reopened in my town, so now i will test it for a while. i THOUGHT it yielded better fuel mileage a few years back...i now have a different vehicle, however.

[shatto]

I have run every vehicle I own between San Francisco and LA. The trip, on I-5 includes the climb over 4,000 feet on 'The Grapevine' at the south end of the Central Valley, and I have used one tank of 'Premium' gas in each. This includes a 60's vintage Chrysler with a big-ol Hemi, and each vehicle posted worse mileage using high-test.

Until I see a lot more than an infomercial, I do not believe any gas is better than any other.

[shatto]

You guys who took chemistry should have no trouble verifying this. Gasoline is gasoline is petrol, regardless the name on the refinery.

What makes it Chevron with Techron or Shell with V-Power, besides the advertizing campaign, is the additive package added as the gasoline is put into the tanker truck.
All gas stations occasionally receive shipments from competing company refineries when their own refinery is down for maintenance or demand requires so,
no matter how much we want, we may be using the base product from a refinery we don't like.
Some additives such as Ethanol, and the now discredited and removed MTBE, are government mandated and the rest are the detergents and such that are there to prevent sludge and varnish and improve combustion and so-on.
Summer and winter gasoline formulations and the 'boutique blends' required by some municipalities affect performance and there might be better detergents in a brand's grades of gas so your expensive cars engine might have a cleaner fuel system than the clunker you abuse.

All gas pumps have a filter per hose. I think that water would plug the filter, certainly dirt does, so the chance of filling your tank with water or having enough silt pumped into the gas tank is pretty much urban myth.
The water in our tank is from condensation and ... dirt? ... anyone who has replaced a fuel pump has seen the ridiculously small filter that is there just because there is so little chance of dirt in the fuel.
So, using additives in the gas tank rarely does more than lighten ones wallet.


No less an expert than the engineer, once with the super high-tech Lawrence Livermore Lab, Bill Wattenburg PhD., has said that using premium gas is a waste because the cars computer adjusts ignition and fuel ratio to keep the engine running optimally and, unless you actually need the performance potential of the engine for towing or high speeds, usually, it will run fine on the lowest available octane. He proved this with his Mercedes.
I have similarly proved that adding high-test to a low test car is a waste of money; using a full tank between LA and San Francisco in my: Tundra, Dakota, Chrysler, Volvo, Mazda RX-7, Fiat, Pontiac, I recorded the same or worse than average gas mileage for each of those vehicles.

The oil companies do that because they know that you will stop using their products if your engine gets gunked-up and runs badly so if yours is driven regularly, long enough to get to running temperature, you oughtn't have problems with fuel.

[shatto]

Could someone explain why this post popped into my email, unannounced after sitting since 2011?