Shell V-Power test

[VetteOwner]

lol yea i am deff not a good canidate for testing gas stations. i just filled my truck up today around 15 gal, wrote it in my book in my truck and the last time i filled up was the 1st of aug! hehehe and was $48, which isnt bad per month! went 417 miles or so, 27 mpg woohoo! (this si in a 2.2L 5 speed s-10 truck)

[n0rt0npr0]

Interesting. I've already held and tested this theory with Redline FI cleaner on my old 89 Chevy Celebrity, BUT I'm going to fill up today and add the walmart stuff to see if it does anything positive.

Redline cleaner decreased my mileage by over 2mpg. Hoping you are right! We'll know in a week.
~Will

Originally Posted by bfg9000d

Sometimes if you are patient enough you will see the gas truck hit two or three gas stations around the area all with different name gas stations. In essence gas is gas and it all comes from roughly the same place. Just go buy a bottle of walmart supertech fuel injector cleaner. Throw that in your tank. With that mix in you have the best tank of gas over and above what any gas station could give you. Try that you might be surprise.

[scientist1]

Interesting test. It is hard to control all the variables and use just one vehicle to test the performance of these additives. Typically, the companies who actually test thier products will use several types of testing including small engine testing, dynamometer testing, and road tests. There is also some interesting horsepower testing going on.

Techron and V-power are not exactly the same thing and they sometimes change. Techron is Chevron's additive package and was originally based on polyetheramine chemistry. I believe that they now use a combination of this chemistry with the less expensive PIB chemistry. V-power orginally had a friction modifier in it along with PIB detergent. I believe that Shell had to remove the friction modifier because they had some issues with it. Now V-power is a detergent package.

Since Texico is now owned by Chevron, I assume that they have moved to Chevron's additive package.

[scientist1]

The higher octane should not change your mileage one way or the other theoretically. What the higher octane fights is preignition. It will allow the car to fully compress the gas before ignition which, if you were having problems with preignition, will make your car run smoother and give you better mileage. If your car is not preigniting the fuel, then there will be no difference.

Some station do put a better detergent package in the high octane gas, so it should keep the fuel system cleaner and thereby help the car to run better.

All stations are supposed to put atleast a minimum amount of detergent in their gasoline, but studies have show that there are many that don't meet the EPA requirement. Most of the time the big name companies monitor their stations to make sure that they are putting the companies additive package in the gas. At the cheaper stations you will be lucky to get the minimum amount which will not keep your engine clean.

Buying the gas additives, STP/Gumout/Prestone type, will usually at a minimum double the minimum detergent in your gas. I have looked at several of these products and found that some have more additives than others. STP, Gumout, and Techron were usually the better products. I couldn't find any detergent in Lucas.

[Rick Rae]

Third Shell regular segment complete; 34.47MPG over 350 miles.

Rick

P.S. I was just studying my Gaslog and noticed my last three fills have been at 330, 330, and 350 miles. Strange as it seems (even to me!), I'm not rounding or fabricating numbers; that's just how it worked out.

[Rick Rae]

Fourth Shell regular segment complete; 34.33MPG over 362 miles.

Rick

[n0rt0npr0]

Completed the run with wallyworld FI cleaner, fuel mileage ended up going down from last tank 1.3%.

[bfg9000d]

did you do just one tank? also have you had and oil change since you been doing the wallyworld fuel injector cleaner? This stuff has to be use for several tanks and atleast one oil change.

[Pyrorocketeer]

Certain cleaners throw engine codes in my honda. So something must not be runing 100% while on the cleaner. The real test is the tank after.

[Rick Rae]

Fifth and final Shell regular tank complete; 33.29MPG over 315 miles. Refill was with random el-cheapo regular (Costco member gas; pump was stickered 10% ethanol).

Capsule summary, using five fills for each section (dates are dates of fills):

06/11 - 06/30 Random Regular: 1439 miles and 44.13 gallons at 32.61 MPG.
07/06 - 07/31 Shell V-Power: 1577 miles and 45.30 gallons at 34.81 MPG.
08/06 - 08/27 Shell Mid-Grade: 1664 miles and 48.26 gallons at 34.48 MPG.
08/29 - 09/20 Shell Regular: 1687 miles and 49.69 gallons at 33.94 MPG

Rick