Top Tier Gasoline

 

from the list, only shell has gas stations in the central ohio area.

 

Interesting how few of those top tier names are readily available in the Seattle area. With all the mergers and rebrandings, Shell and Chevron are still somewhat common. But most of the gas is sold at independent or small regional chain stations, or convenience stores, supermarkets or Costco up here. I make an effort to go out of my way and pay a few cents more a gallon to fill up at a Chevron whenever possible, just because of the Techron additive package. I have read a lot on the merits of Techron and motorcycles.

Another pet peeve of mine is that ethanol is added to all auto gas produced by the refineries in Washington up by Anacortes. Some of the small regional chains here say they get ethanol-free gas shipped in from the refineries in the Rocky Mountain states, but I have my doubts as to the consistency of supplies from there. The local stations listed on the pure gas website still have the ethanol stickers on their pumps, and the person behind the counter cannot tell you if ethanol-free gas is in their tanks or not.

 

I heard from an employee that works for one of chevrons competitors (at an actual terminal, not a gas station) that chevron's gasoline is better because of their additives. And that he uses it in his vehicles.

 

Add ConocoPhillips' 76 brand to the Top Tier in the Seattle area. I don't know if ConocoPhillips' Circle K stations are the same gas.

 

"Top Tier" sounds a lot like a branding pay-to-play scheme to me... like the "Who's Who," or Better Business Bureau.

A TT gas dealer in a remote area whose gas is laying around in their tanks longer before you buy it might have crappier gas than a non-TT who's moving enough to get a delivery every day. IOW, I'd rather have fresh non-TT gas than TT gas with a bunch of condensation and rust in it.

For that matter, I'm more interested in this: http://pure-gas.org/

 

I'm Not Picky

I've been putting gas in my cars and motorcycles for years and never experienced a problem or felt I got better performance from a particular brand. I think it would be beyond the realm of a typical rider or driver to be able to determine whether or not a specific brand made a measurable difference in an engine's performance or longevity.

My criteria has always been price and convenience.

I do acknowledge, though, that there's always a chance buying gas that has been contaminated with water.

Gas, go and have fun.

 

If you read the Top tier website you will realize it wasn't' created by the Oil Companies but rather by Auto Manufacturers.

The minimum additive package that is mandated by the EPA in the USA relates to what was needed in engines Twenty Years ago (? not sure of the exact time-frame) and doesn't really meet what is required by modern engines. So the car companies got together and decided on a set of standards called top Tier.

I'm not sure that our bike engines need it but the additives are better at reducing deposits in the engine keeping injectors, etc clean. Given a choice I would always use it but wouldn't lose sleep if I couldn't find a top-tier station while riding.

As footnote, I have been selling Porsche's for the lat 17.5 years. Porsche started recommending oil changes on our cars yearly or 24,000km/15,000miles in 1993. In 2005 they went to two years or 30,000km/19,000 miles. In 2008 Porsche had noted the degradation of oil and spark plugs in North America and went back to yearly or 15,000km/9,000 miles althogh from what I understand stayed with two years/30,000km in Europe. This is because of how poor quality North American fuel has become and likely part of why Top Tier was created (btw Porsche was not part of Top Tier.)

..Tom

 

Here in Indiana, Indianapolis, all gas runs like crap !!! On the northwest side of town there is a Rock Island refinery which supplies gas to all brands. They all fill-up from the same rig. Since most all oil is now transported via underground pipe lines it all gets mixed up so you'll never truely get brand specific fuel.

 

... On the northwest side of town there is a Rock Island refinery which supplies gas to all brands. They all fill-up from the same rig. Since most all oil is now transported via underground pipe lines it all gets mixed up so you'll never truely get brand specific fuel.

I've heard this often, too: that all gas comes from the same place/ refinery. Each retail brand just puts in their additive package.

Literally: tank truck pulls up to the refinery and fills up his 10,000gallons (or whatever). "Additive package" is in a 5 gal bucket he dumps in the top after filling up. He drives to the gas station, the 5 gal of additive are sloshing around mixing with the 10k gal. At the gas station, he dumps his truck's contents into the station's underground tanks, then heads back to the refinery to repeat the process... potentially for a different "brand" of gas.

Gas is a commodity - like wheat, or corn, or coal. One company's coal is not necessarily better than another's... especially if they're all mining the same vein.

 

Interesting:

WIKI article

I still think it's all marketing voodoo, but that's just me.

 

When i did my 10 US State tour in July i went through a lot of questionable gas stations. A few days after getting home i let my bike sit a few days and when i started it up, the fuel pump started making a whining noise it never did before. I filled up with non ethanol gas (92 octane) for the next few fills and now that whine from the pump has completely gone.

The type of fuel used, the way it is stored, and the purity of it, can make a big difference in your engines life.

 

I filled up with non ethanol gas (92 octane) for the next few fills and now that whine from the pump has completely gone.

Just curious: How do you think using a higher octane fuel fixed your electric fuel pump?

 

I work for a refinery. Gas is gas, and as long as it meets spec, it is impossible to differentiate, other than the additives. Cargos of gasoline are bought and sold among all the majors based on supply and demand at any given time. I'm not convinced that Techron, nitrogen or any other additives package is any better than the next, but to each his own.

If you want to get into the nuts and bolts of differentiating gasoline, to my knowledge, the only discernible difference between gasoline properties would be that which has been cracked vs. that which wasn't. I'll let you google cat cracking, but for those in touch with your inner engineering nerd, it has to do with the olefins and aromatics. Nobody here will ever notice the difference in their bike, though.

Rodknocker, I'm sure you mean well, but I think you have some loose ends to tie up on the futures markets.

 

A check of service stations on my GPS found several Mobil stations within 5 miles of central Columbus but that was about it besides Shell.

 

Another point to mention. I filled up my tank yesterday with the more expensive ethanol free gas again, and it cost me less than filling up with the ethanol gas (same number of miles). I am getting better gas mileage and that offsets the extra price for the gas.

Chevron includes Techron in their gas. Could that clean things out? Might be the fix for noisy plugged fuel pumps.

 

If he doesn't answer up himself, I remember BigB saying he likes Techron best (compared to SeaFoam, etc.) as an off-the-shelf gasoline additive. Of course, "Techron" OTS is not necessarily the same as an additive package added to 10,000 gallons of fuel as it is pumped into an underground storage tank.

 

All the Top Tier fuels provide better cleaning additives than those that can't pass the requirements, especially in lower octanes.

 

I find it curious how people keep talking about how can an additive package be any good when a gallon is added to an 8000 gallon tanker truck. It all goes to concentration, of course. The Techron that is added to the tanker truck is far more concentrated than the Techron that is packaged for commercial sale in the 8 ounce bottles. The gasoline companies have standards for the dilution ratio to achieve the desired level of additive and the Techron comes pre-packaged from Chevron. All the tanker driver has to do is open the jug and pour the whole thing into the tanker.

 

...a gallon is added to an 8000 gallon tanker truck. It all goes to concentration, of course. The Techron that is added to the tanker truck is far more concentrated than the Techron that is packaged for commercial sale in the 8 ounce bottles. The gasoline companies have standards for the dilution ratio ....

If it were FIVE gallons, the additive package would still only be .063% of 8k gallons. 99.937% gas, .063% additive. That additive either glows in the dark and requires a hazmat team to open the bucket, or it's really not bringing that much to the party.

Your 8oz bottle:
Treating 20gal, at 0% dilution it's still only 0.3%.

On top of that, if they are diluting that 0.3% down to match the .063% from the depot there's far more "dilutant" than actual active ingredient.
...and what's the 'dilutant' - water? alchohol?

Clearly I'm skeptical of additives making much difference. I'd love to see data (not anecdotes) collected by someone with no conflict of interest which finds to the contrary. I bet the age, moisture content, and level of contamination (or not) has more to do with gas being noticeably "good" or "bad" than any additive package.
The allegiance many feel to their particular brand or "additive" is the result of superstition, habit, marketing hype, groupthink, confusing correlation with causality, or some such whatever...
IMHO, only, of course.

 

sooo...with all of this talk about gasoline, maybe I'm just a total newbie, but if you pull up to any old gas station which gas are you going with? Highest octane possible?

 

Higher Octane prevents pinging in engines designed for it or provides more power for engines with knock sensors. V-Stroms do neither. A good additive package that keeps the engine clean using regular is my preference so I use regular from a Top Tier company. See Top Tier Gasoline
Some people say high octane gives them better mileage but I don't believe the added cost is worth it if that's even true. If the engine isn't pinging, higher octane won't help.

 

I was always told that higher octane gas burns slower then low octane. Thats why high comp motors use it and increase spark advance. So if you run the lowest octane possible to keep from nocking you should be good. As far as the ethanol, I thought an engine running only ethanol burns a lot more of it to do the same thing a gas burner could do. So it seems right that non ethanol added fuel would give you better gas millage. I think.

 

Ethanol has only 66% of the energy in gasoline/petrol. Fuel our bikes can use that has ethanol will contain 10% or less unless somebody makes a mistake. That is a small mileage hit. If only some grades in your area contain ethanol, that may be worth looking into but it still might not make economic sense.

High compression engines use high octane because it is much less likely to self ignite before the spark or flame front ignites it. It's about detonation or pre-ignition, not flame front speed. Retarding the timing can help fight pinging by lessening the time the mixture has to self combust but every scholarly work I've read says high octane does not burn slower. Flame front speed can vary due to the fuel design but it's not about octane rating.

I thought higher octane burned slower for about 40 years. It's fairly recently that I learned differently.

 

I have an issue with my K11 that I thought was fuel related but Greywolf's last post makes me think it's not. I'll post another thread.

 

There are no K11s. The L series began in 2010. A 2011 bike is an L1.

 

Thanks. I thought it was a way of saving keystrokes. Is L1-11 right or is it 2011.

 

http://www.vstrom.info/Smf/index.php/topic,11834.0.html

 

On-board Energy Sources Sub Topics - SAE Technical Papers

An excellent place to start is reading some of the papers on gasoline and fuel additives at the Society of Automotive Engineers at the link above. Unless you are a member or want to purchase the papers, you can read only the abstracts. But they are interesting nonetheless.

PS: Before I forget to mention, I believe that Chevron requires that the Techron concentration in their gasoline is at a minimum of 400 parts per million when added to bulk gasoline at the refinery racks. This works out to a little over three gallons of concentrated Techron for a 8000 gallon tanker. Techron is a polyether amine as are many of the other fuel detergent additives, in a carrier base of naptha, benzene and xylene.

 

Thanks for the link!! Looks like there's enough there to keep my lips moving for months.

If you would indulge one final idiotic question: how does a fuel additive "work"?

I assume the additives generally burn with the rest of the fuel on the power stroke - or are the flash points and expansion ratios (or whatever) such that the fuel is burned too quickly for the additives to be consumed?

If totally consumed in the explosion, is the mechanism of improvement:

1. that the additives change the burn properties of the mix (like an anti-knock slowing the burn rate or burn initiation)
2. the combustion PRODUCTS of the additive remain behind as a coating or something
3. there are no significant contributions from combustion PRODUCTS - the action of the additive is as a surfactant (or something else) in liquid form as it's passing thru all the plumbing upstream of injection.
4. Some combination of these.

FWIW, I've found that the oil industry does a pretty good job at keeping their IP well-shielded. Your link suggests maybe that the barrier to entry isn't freely available info, but instead technical education.

Not trying to create a homework assignment - just curious.

 

Speaking solely about the fuel detergent additives, such as Techron and the like, the mechanism of action is your third point. It is essentially a chemical cleaner, dissolved in the gasoline, that cleans the carb/fuel injector/valves to promote better combustion, better gas mileage and reduced output of pollutants. This has been required by the EPA since 1995.

As you know, there are a bunch of other gasoline additives used to oxygenate gas (for pollution purposes), stabilize it for storage, control corrosion in fuel sytems or modify the burn rate (knock). I think these are fairly universal across all makes and refiners of gasoline, except that there can be regional differences, especially in the oxygenating agents for areas of higher or lower pollution.

Just last night at a party, I learned an interesting fun fact. I live in the Seattle area, and the headquarters of Costco are not that far from me. I met a guy who works in the corporate buyer department and one of his areas of responsibility is making deals for auto accessories. He said to check out the Costco website for way more auto stuff than is sold in the stores. But then he told me something interesting. Costco takes a lot of pride in the gasoline sold at its stores. There is a 'Costco standard' for gasoline quality that he says exceeds even the top tier gasoline criteria. He said it is better gas than Shell, or Chevron or the other big national brands, and the additive package is unique to Costco. It was initially developed to meet air quality standards for urban areas and it is now available at most of the Costcos that sell gas. He said to look for a sticker or whatever on the Costco pump that says 'Clean Power'. It is supposed to have a higher detergent fuel additive concentration than even the top tier gasolines. I rarely go to Costco to get gas because of the lines, but maybe I will check out my local Costco to see if they sell it.


Edited to add: Check this out: http://www.calcupa.org/presentation...resentations/CUPA-2012/143/kirkland_signature_clean_power_gasoline_additive.pdf

Very interesting information about the Costco gasoline.