JHZR2
Staff member
Hi,
Im posting this here because i have a feeling it has to do with manufacturers' additives, and involves fuel additives.
Lets start with an example. My 04 saab 9-3 and my brother's 94 mitsubishi 3000 GT VR-4 see noticable mileage improvements using v-power. My 91 BMW, which also needs 91+ octane sees no improvement with v-power gas. neither my bmw or saab get very good mileage on amoco ultimate.
No car gets very good mileage using top-tier conoco gas.
my father's van does quite well on regular gulf gas, but when using the supposedly superior regular shell gas (top-tier), his mileage drops quite a bit.
My GF's acura, and my pickup truck do much better on hess gas than on sunoco, citgo, etc.
My BMW has a noticable improvement in butt-dyno power when using lucas or FP. My GF's acura sees a slight mileage improvement, but none of my family's other cars show any improvement in either power 'feel' or in MPG figures.
All vehicles reside in the same region, have MPG meticulously logged every tankful, and run extremely well. Mileages on the cars vary from 5000 to 185k, all are up to date in everthing, pass emissions, and only ever get name-brand gas.
so, what makes different cars 'like' or 'dislike' different gasolines? They all ought to come from a few, same, local refineries. sure, additive levels can be low, but we do buy a lot of 'top tier' gases, and do often use FP or lucas fuel additive.
I can almost understand the better feeling of power in my BMW, as the fuel is injected onto the backs of the valves, to improve combustion somehow. It seems to me that this method would lend itself to having deposits form easily. But what about the other cars. There does not seem to be any rhyme or reason to why different fuels, especially the supposedly better, top-tier type fuels would give worse results. But thats what we see. Further, all the engines should be fine, as they have always had name brand gas used ONLY, and the fact that it does not seem to have any improvements using an additive tells me that there was never much to clean inside, thus the lack of improvement.
But Im curious to others' ideas of why different fuels seem to do better/worse in different cars.
Thanks,
JMH
Im posting this here because i have a feeling it has to do with manufacturers' additives, and involves fuel additives.
Lets start with an example. My 04 saab 9-3 and my brother's 94 mitsubishi 3000 GT VR-4 see noticable mileage improvements using v-power. My 91 BMW, which also needs 91+ octane sees no improvement with v-power gas. neither my bmw or saab get very good mileage on amoco ultimate.
No car gets very good mileage using top-tier conoco gas.
my father's van does quite well on regular gulf gas, but when using the supposedly superior regular shell gas (top-tier), his mileage drops quite a bit.
My GF's acura, and my pickup truck do much better on hess gas than on sunoco, citgo, etc.
My BMW has a noticable improvement in butt-dyno power when using lucas or FP. My GF's acura sees a slight mileage improvement, but none of my family's other cars show any improvement in either power 'feel' or in MPG figures.
All vehicles reside in the same region, have MPG meticulously logged every tankful, and run extremely well. Mileages on the cars vary from 5000 to 185k, all are up to date in everthing, pass emissions, and only ever get name-brand gas.
so, what makes different cars 'like' or 'dislike' different gasolines? They all ought to come from a few, same, local refineries. sure, additive levels can be low, but we do buy a lot of 'top tier' gases, and do often use FP or lucas fuel additive.
I can almost understand the better feeling of power in my BMW, as the fuel is injected onto the backs of the valves, to improve combustion somehow. It seems to me that this method would lend itself to having deposits form easily. But what about the other cars. There does not seem to be any rhyme or reason to why different fuels, especially the supposedly better, top-tier type fuels would give worse results. But thats what we see. Further, all the engines should be fine, as they have always had name brand gas used ONLY, and the fact that it does not seem to have any improvements using an additive tells me that there was never much to clean inside, thus the lack of improvement.
But Im curious to others' ideas of why different fuels seem to do better/worse in different cars.
Thanks,
JMH
