Originally Posted By: y_p_w
Originally Posted By: Tdbo
If it is clean and does a high volume, why not?
Shell is the blessed "Top Tier" fuel. So why sit and second guess whether or not a "Top Tier" fuel purveyor is actually pumping "Top Tier" fuel without a valid reason to do so?
There's a lot of mistrust and conspiracy theories out there. A lot of people are fearful that they might be lured into a gas station with lower prices only to get cheated. When something is cheaper, there's always a strong suspicion that there's "a catch".
People are fearful of:
- inaccurate pumps
- bad/old/contaminated fuel
- intentional delivery of lower octane fuel than labeled
- intentional adding of water that isn't filtered out
- fuel that doesn't contain the promised level of detergents
It's really not that hard to understand. The customer is left wondering if the equipment might have been altered. You have little way of knowing if the fuel is what's advertised without expensive tests. The only real thing keeping the gas stations honest are spot checks by county weights and measures and checks for gasoline quality by government regulators.
I understand that all that is probably the case. But if that is the case, then what is the purpose of "name brand" stations, let alone "Top Tier" stations?" Price is generally determined by competition in a given area. If a group of stations in a given area are vying for business and adjust their pricing to aggressively seek that business, the consumer wins (and that is a good thing.)
If a station is putting out a product that is not above board, usually the word gets around quickly (at least so where I live.) Therefore, the marketplace will take care of that when people stop frequenting the station with the substandard product. While, IMO, exercising reasonable caution and being prudent is a good thing; people need to explore a given situation rationally, and not be needlessly paranoid all the time.