It doesn’t bother me if you don’t believe me, that’s your prerogative. Fact is some states don’t do any octane testing whatsoever. The oil companies are so powerful that they have the rules written in their favor.
In Texas for example, their is an octane tolerance they use before they cite the gas station with fines. How do I know? Because I bought bad gas nearly a decade ago and I got to see the state test results. The test showed water content, metal content, unidentifiable content, and octane rating. The octane rating had an allowable tolerance, the other measurements did too I believe but the octane is what stood out to me.
What’s funny is a lot of people here talk about how their engine runs differently from one tank of gas to the other, with different levels of smoothness, power, and fuel economy. Pretty sure octane would have a lot to do with that.
If you really want to know about the octane you’re pumping in your tank, call up your state government and ask about it. You might find that your state doesn’t even test for octane, so there are no guarantees. Why? Again because the oil companies are that big and have lobbied for laws in their favor.
Read this if you want, sure a lot has changed since then but it will give you a clearer understanding of what you actually pump into your tank. FYI, for this testing alone they used a six-tenths octane point tolerance.
https://www.gao.gov/assets/rced-90-50.pdf