Gas Stations that have BAD Fuel
 

Okey dokey, is everyone already good and pissed at me yet?
I am speaking of fuel but I will say GAS.


This boils down to two types of thinking.

#1) Many people fully believe that ALL GAS delivered in a large area from a refinery or pipeline is the same. Thus no matter what gas station you go to brand loyalty is not there because the product is the same all around. EH?

#2) Many people also believe that certain brands of gas/fuel add things to the gas to make it bur better, or maybe even clean the valves of a motor. Others believe that even Independent gas station owners add things to their gas after it is pumped into the tank.

I lean to #1 being likely to be correct but.....

I drive a 2009 Cobalt XFE. Last year my car insurance fully paid for it after a wreck from brakes failing me. I got as high as 45.7 MPG last year by using some of the techniques on this site. So for 2010 WHY was my car getting 30,31 MPG??? I was driving the same and I realize the airconditioner hurts it, but 15 mpg?? My air conditioner is not that hungry, it eats more like3 to 4 mog on the hottest day. With less than ten thousand miles where did my mileage go? Oil changes good. Tire Pressure good- high side.

It turns out my own father started advising me to get gasoline at Kroger because of all the discounts he gets due to all the food they buy. By using his CC# it saves 15 cents off what is normally the going rate posted. This year all cars got less mileage. I found it interesting that not only were all the cars and pickups on Kroger gas getting less MPGS this year, but in each case the mileage was down almost the exact same percentage! Even the lawn mower and weed eater were burning more gas!!!!!!!

So I paid more for another brand and filled up. I reset the gas gauge too. From that day forward my mpg has gone up. I got a second fill up and a Speedway. Today my car is parked and it last had 40.2 MPG AVG -- FINALLY I am getting back to being close to what I got last year!

I may speak to somebody in charge at Kroger gas and I'm telling them. Like what is going on, do they use 90% Ethanol or what?

Any other stories about not so good fuel?

I've also had bad luck with Kroger and (certain) Sheetz gas. Not 15 mpg, but maybe 10% on worse case scenarios. What sucks is its' hard to determine gas as a culprit because it's nearly impossible (very difficult) to do A-B-A-B tests with it.

I try to stick with Shell/BP/Sunoco/Chevron for that reason, even if it's not working, all the gas in my town is within 1 cent of each other anyway, so there is no point in driving up to the grocery store to get watered down gas anywho. (:

How long has the fuel sat in the station's tank? Those VOCs don't just sit around and wait to be burned.

Jammer -

My friend hated (pre-BP-owned) Arco gas here in Los Angeles. He bought Arco regular 87 octane and said it hurt his 2nd gen Dodge Neon. I used Arco in the early 1990's in my 2nd gen CRX, but I used 89 or 91 octane without problems.

CarloSW2

The reason is that Kroger gas is e10.

Thank you. You may of won the prize. I need to now go and google what that means. :D

Thanks for the replies. I admit my car does sit a lot, it may take me over 2 weeks to burn a ten gallon tank. That is when I top 40mpg. However it's important to note that my father's pickup and Cadillac were also BOTH off the same percentage, AND the lawn mowers and weed eaters were using way more gas than last year. I keep thinking there must be more ethanol in their gas. For now I'll look up exactly what "e10" is made of. :D

Cheers! :thumbup:

Okey dokey I have the info: Common ethanol fuel mixtures - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I see you live in Kentucky as well as me. Is e10 not mandated in this place? I honestly thought there was some kind of law here that claimed e10 (glad I double checked the definition) had to be sold at all stations. Honestly I do not believe e10 is the problem, as every pump I see here is 10% alcohol. I think I need to move the thinking on to another level. Like, maybe the pumps that do not say anything about the 50% water. :D

Peace.

I occasionally run kroger's gas with the 20 cent discount. I have to run premium though, so hopefully no ethanol. Their pumps don't mention e10 anywhere here though.

Sorry for the chain of replies, as I overlooked this one.

To answer your question the fuel seems to be pumped at the station at issue at least twice a week, maybe more- it is one of the most popular gas stations of this area because it is in the city and many get a 3 to 15 cents off discount depending on how much they spend on groceries.

Opps, as the previous poster has pointed out, it may be 20 cents a discount. It's either 15 or 20 cents off the market fuel price of this area, either way it's enough to motivate people to fill up when they drive into town to get food.

My local walmat gas has this same issue. I normally use Speedway. Both pumps say 10% ethanol (most stations use it). The walmart gas gives me 5-10% worse gas mileage. the difference is very pronounced with smaller engines like the chain saw or my old scooter. These smaller engines would run very rough & not want to start with walmart gas.

They must add something or buy the old cheaper stuff.

I do not think in KY that it is mandatory for pumps to have E10 (up to 10% ethanol) but I'm not sure it could also be a by county thing. The one by me is e10 on the cheapest grade gas and is the only station that I know that carries E85 (up to 85% ethanol).

My car has never noticed if there is ethanol in it but that was before I tried to get good mileage. I actually thought that my car got the best mpg on Thorton's gas and I know that they are an E10 gas (it says it on the pump).

Here in the next week or so I might try and run Krogers and Thortons gas see if it turns up anything then go back to the Marathon gas that I have been running.

I swear every pump I see around here claims 10% Alcohol, I honestly thought it all was tied to some Federal mandate to get Americans off of oil- by slowly increasing the amount of alcohol in our "gas".

This may not be the correct forum, but while on the subject of alternative fuels I wonder how much bang per buck we can get out of those Algae farm fuels? I read that Algae needs just a pinch per plastic bag of fertilizer (chemicals no doubt) plus water, stapled to large white walls inside large green houses that managed to grow the pond-scum in a few days.... The way things are going I much rather have my fuel competing with frogs than I want the fuel to compete with the world's food supply... Thus Corn, Cane, sugar most of the alternatives compete with the food supply. It would be really cool if Algae-fuel would burn with more of a bank than moonshine (ahem) I mean corn-alcohol does.

I must concur that the small gas engines seem to be running the worse on this e10 stuff. Does raising the octave from 87 up higher really help any with small econo-box engines?

raising octane has not helped for me, but I have not done much testing.

Raising the octane up from 87 can help IF the higher grade gas is of better quality Fuel Rating - Octane Comparison - Dyno Tests Graphs - Hot Rod Magazine .

A few years ago I was commuting 90 miles each way to work, all highway. With my Silverado getting 18MPG I was burning 10 gal/day and had to refill the tank every other day. I switched back and forth between Speedway and BP and kept records of every tank. After 7 tanks of each I averaged out my miles and gallons and found that I got 1.5 MPG better with the BP than the Speedway. I'm not sure why but there was enough data that weather should have been factored out.

When doing this type of comparison remember that you have to add up your total miles and total gallons then calculate MPG, don't just average the MPG of each tank, especially if you fill up at different intervals, ie half a tank one time and 1/4 the next. You can't average averages. It don't work.

Minimum ethanol requirements are mostly mandated at the state level. Oregon and Washington mandate E10, and I noticed a sharp decrease in mpg once the changeover occurred.

Running a higher octane than what your engine was engineered for will not help anything. I always recommend running the minimum octane that your engine is rated for. For example, Acura recommends I run 92 PON, but the minimum required is 87 PON. I run 87 and surprisingly, do not notice a decrease in mileage. Since my timing is computer controlled, I do not have pinging or any other symptoms of running a low octane.

FYI- ethanol contains ~2/3 of the amount of energy as gasoline. This means an engine running 100% ethanol would get only 66% of the MPG that a gasoline engine would.

Please do not perpetuate that myth, as it is not as cut and dried as it appears. And, it's incorrect.

My comments on ethanol contain no myth, only facts. The fact is that ethanol contains 2/3 of the energy per volume as gasoline. The expenditure of energy is the only method of performing work (driving). The conclusion of less MPG follows from the true premise of the substantially lower energy content of ethanol.

Please do not spread any myth that is contrary to science and logic. Should you disagree with the facts I have presented, the burden lies on you to debunk them with evidence.

redpoint5, where is your source? The burden is on you to prove your numbers (ethanol is not guilty until proven otherwise).

Actually red is correct pure ethanol has about 66% the energy of regular gas.

The problem with his statement is that we are running E-10, the difference in energy between E-10 and E-0 is only about 3.5%. So if your getting 50mpg, you should loose only 1.75mpg. Some cars like one of mine lost more because they don't seem to like E-10 for some reason or another.

One thing to keep in mind is if you are running E-100 you would have an octain of 122, in which you could run a much higher compression and possibly more than offset the lower energy per gallon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol#As_a_fuel

bingo! if the car is designed to use E10 it will have a higher compression ratio, and just change the timing if it gets E0. Some cars run better with E10 (mine).

Here, as well as any other website you might find:
Exact Low Energy Content of Ethanol

Formula 1 car, yes please. MPG be damned. Actually, an efficient car could probably be made using pure ethanol for the very reasons you mentioned. It would be interesting to see how far that technology could go, although I don't think it can make up for the 1/3 energy density hit.

Good article. Its the BTU numbers that matter as octane is just a knock rating.

A. 76,000 = BTU of energy in a gallon of ethanol
B. 116,090 = BTU of energy in a gallon of gasoline
C. .655 = 2/3 = GGE of energy in a gallon of ethanol. A / B.
D. 1.53 = Gallons of ethanol with the energy of 1 gallon of gasoline. D = B / A.

How much should you pay for E10 and E85?

If regular gas is $3.00/gallon you should pay
$2.90 / gallon for E10 (10% ethanol).
$2.13 / gallon for E85 (85% ethanol).
If regular gas is $2.00/gallon you should pay
$1.93 / gallon for E10 (10% ethanol).
$1.42 / gallon for E85 (85% ethanol).
Then you will be paying the same amount per mile driven.

The formula is this: For EX, where X is the percent ethanol

Ethanol price should = Gasoline price times (100 – X + X/1.52)/100

BTU content does NOT directly translate to BSFC! You say ethanol has 33% less energy BUT I challenge you or anyone else to prove that results in an exactly 33% fe reduction. Cuz it DOESN'T. Ethanol is an oxygenated fuel and burns a bit differently.

I have a '97 Merc Villager that gets between 20-21 mpg. When I ran e-85, I managed 17+ mpg (17.4 I think). My algebra is a bit rough, but e-100 would have netted 13.2 mpg, so 17 mpg isn't bad.

I ran e-85 in my 98 Maxima (remember, neither one is an official "flex fuel" vehicle, just fuel injected.) I got 22 mpg, when I was getting about 25 mpg. This figure is a bit unreliable since I was stuck in a bad traffic jam for a while on this and I was running the AC pretty heavy. Again, nowhere near the 33% reduction; it was actually a decent tank. I had a vacuum leak at the time, and that made things a bit rough in that it kept dying on me. AND I wasn't on an economy run, more like a lets get our butts home ASAP run.

While it may have less energy to burn, it does burn a bit differently, and may offset its lower energy content with a slightly more efficient burn per available BTU.

I LOVE anecdotal evidence, conclusions come so easily with them. The site I liked to has wonderful anecdotal stories of getting exactly the calculated mileage based on energy content.

I have made NO statements about what mileage to expect from running ethanol. Instead, I simply stated some facts for people to consider. Further, I have conceded that the higher octane should allow for efficiencies that exceed the calculated energy mileage.

My worthless anecdotal story is the greater than calculated drop in MPG when Oregon mandated E10.

I was initially excited about ethanol as a fuel, but the more I learn about it the less enthusiastic I become.

If you say so :rolleyes:

Looking at the fuel logs of some Volvo flexfuel cars, their real-life FC is between 15% and 30% worse on E85 than it is on regular gasoline.

This could be tested somewhat easily by running a gas powered generator with a pre-measured amount of of fuel. Warm up the generator let sit for ~5min run with 1/8gal of gas time from startup to empty, do the same with E10 and E85. Calculate the difference in time to get the change in FE, the FE will not be in mpg but idle run time.

problem with using a carbureted engine for this expirement is that the carb isn't set up for alcohol, while a fuel injected vehicle will adapt to the fuel to an extent. I somehow doubt a carbed engine can run on e-85 without being adapted to it.

And I think euromodder is about right on the 15-30% decrease in FC; I personally saw a decrease of 15% running the stuff compared to regular gas.

Find a Car

NIssan Titan pickup 2008 flex fuel
9-13 EPA on gas
12-17 EPA on gas

Looks like about 75% on E85 versus Gas. Works out fairly close to the actual energy content percentages, if you consider E100 instead of E85. Maybe slightly less due to larger throttle opening using E85 for slightly higher BSFC.

regards
Mech

I agree with you ceasing to spreading myths, energy density does not directly relate to fuel economy.

Then what does?

regards
Mech

Nothing by itself, you can have an inefficient motor running on an energy dense fuel compared to an efficient motor running on a low density fuel and have the answer end up moot or even in favor of the lense dense fuel. You can even run the same motor on different fuels and due to complex engine management and odd behaviors of the fuel mix itself end up with the same fuel economy or better than expected comparitively.

There were peer reviewed papers on this subject of how ethanol blends commonly get better than expected fuel economy due to vapor pressure phantoms AKA the mix did not have the expected volitility.

There are also situations like comparing my fathers 1985 Yugo to my 010 cobalt. My cobalt is over 1000's heavier, has double the motor runs on e10 and get 15mpg better than the Yugo did on the real gas available in the late 80's and early 90's.

I would also estimate if his yugo was on the road (its in the garage with a frozen brake and rotten hoses) it would get this 20% worse economy on e10, yet my cobalt gets better on 89 octane e10 than it does on 87 octane e5ish.

All antidotal in this case but a million monkeys can't all be wrong.

I think a factor that may be throwing our figuring and pondering into the unknown is the flux of the actual mix of e85.

WIthout a static ratio of dino fuel to corn fuel, it is difficult to nail down any figures concerning the stuff. My only suggestion is to use the price of the e85 compared to the normal 87 octane to determine what the target mpg would be to get the same miles per dollar or better with the mix. In my case I used a bit of algebra to determine that, for the price, if I got 17 mpg or better on the e85 compared to the price at the same station of 87 octane, i would come out ahead on my cost per mile, which I did in a non e85 vehicle AKA the 97 mercury villager with fuel injection.

I don't claim to know much as it concerns e85 vs 87 octane, only personal experience. But there seems to be more mpg available per unit of energy in e85 than in 87 octane.

You bring up a good point. The biggest problem with Gasohol in the 70's was that cars were not tuned or built to run on it at the time. I doubt they will keep dictating the gasoline blend based on 20+ year old cars but it does leave a lot of people, like me too, with problems if we own a car that is not up-to-date.

While I realize some people are seeing huge(more than 3.5%) MPG drops with E10 I think it is a problem that can be fixed not some base problem with Ethanol. The best efficiencies in regards to MPG per unit of energy have been with 50/50. And not just on custom jobs like on the Ricardo flexfuel engine. I've even heard from some people(some on Ecomodder) that 50/50 is better. But it is not a commonly accepted finding. The more I read about Ethanol the better I feel about it's properties. But Popular opinion on the internets is that ethanol is bad. It was Ethanol blends that were capable of operating on a variable geometry(bleh) turbo charger with 19:1 Static Compression ratio not Unleaded Gasoline.

10% Ethanol is for the Federal oxygenate requirement and that is the maximum, I've heard it might be closer to 5-7% due to available and the minimum but I'm not 100%. Most states don't have laws that require the pumps to state if they may contain Ethanol, Kentucky is one of them. I've seen pumps that state they contain E10 like Shell stations as a rule while others say nothing and some like the BP station I saw in Clarksville, TN that stated that all grades contained up to 10% Ethanol. I've seen a Shell station with E85 too as crazy as that sounds. it wasn't under the canopy like Kerosene but it was on the property.

my curiosity is how the throttle needing to be open further for a lower energy density fuel come into play? I suspect there would be a lower hp rating from such an engine, and possible more useful energy from a lower energy fuel in an engine designed for a higher density fueL Or does this make sense only to me?