FWIT - I found this on Al Gore's amazing internet..
"I HAVE OWNED VIRTUALLY ALL BRANDS OF STATIONS AND HERE IS MY EXPERIENCE
First of all let me say that i am not a mechanic or car buff. I have however owned Chevron, Shell, Valero, Exxon and Independent (no name) gas stations and still own several. First of all let me say that someone made a comment about Shell or another owning the land so they control what can go into their tanks. That is absolutely false!! When a gas station owner signs a "fuel agreement" with a major company, you can only receive fuel from that company and not just anyone. If you did, that is illegal. You must and can only receive that fuel that you are contracted to receive. So that statement or comment is absolutely not true and not a factor.
Second, the only additive that has been SCIENTIFICALLY proven to reduce build up and lower emissions is TECHRON by chevron. I know the following is not scientific however i cant tell you how many hundreds of times i had people come in to my store (when i was a Chevron) and swear that their car got 5-10% and even higher gas mileage compared to Arco or unbranded (includes grocery stores, Costco, Walmart, etc) and much better performance as well. Generally speaking all generic gas is the same however i will tell you that in at least CA they are allowed to add "fillers" to their generic gas (basically adding impurities to decrease the percent of pure gas).
I (like an idiot) let my wife convince me that we get over a dollar per gallon off Safeway gas because we shop there for our grocery (i think they give like 30 or 50 cents of per gallon for every $100 one spends in the store). So we had a bunch of "gas credits" saved up and for like 3 or 4 tanks, we both put in only Safeway gas and here is our experience. My wife's car dropped from average gas mileage of 20 to high 16's and my brand new car (4 months old) dropped from average of 27 down to 22!! That is not an exaggeration it was actually a hair worse than that. When i took my car in to the dealer (who is very reputable in our city, they are number on in either CA or Northern CA) the service manger told me he had another customer a month earlier complaining of the same thing but also noticed a huge drop off in performance (thinking back i realized my did as well). The manger dipped the guys tank and stated that his Spectrometer (or whatever device he used to check purity of gas) showed that the gas was only 76% pure and had "fillers" of 24%. He then took the same device and dipped his tank (he only uses Chevron) because the client was skeptical and low and behold the device jumped up to 100%!!
That all i needed to hear. I told my wife that i don't care if Safeway is giving gas away (well maybe if its free
, I will only use Chevron in both of our cars period. Think about it, why would the major auto companies go thru the hassel and cost of shipping gas from over 500 miles away (from Michigan to Kentucky where many of the new car testing is done regarding EPA stuff and more) since the 1970's if there is no difference in gas. They have Shell, 76, Exxon, BP in Kentucky and yet they only use and want Chevron. They are the true experts and not I.
Another quick item to think about. Chevron is the same price as the other majors here and only Arco and Independents are about 5% cheapest at the most (usually only 2-3%) however if your mileage drops from 30 to say 27 that is a 10% drop in mileage so that is actually costing you more money to buy the cheaper gas and that does not even take into account all the other benefits of Techron on most likely reducing mechanical/maintenance costs down the road.
That is all i need to know. Anyway the choice is yours. Hope that helped someone."
from sonny1130 15 months ago
http://askville.amazon.com/gas-station-c...requestId=34898
