I noticed at high boost I had a little ping in the engine. My indi asked me if I use Costco gas. He says he has issues often with people who use Costco gas. I don't know what they put in their fuel but apparently it can be hard on cylinders in high performance cars. He recommends the 76 gas stations. Has anyone else had these issues?

 

i've heard similiar things about costco gas. I would imagine its similiar to arco quality gas.

 

You might want to check out www.toptiergas.com there are some actual differences between different brands. In your area, Chevron, 76 and Shell should work well.

 

I use Costco periodically and have never had any pinging. I live in the Sacramento area, and most of the different stations get their fuels from the refinery in Vallejo, which I believe is a Chevron refinery....I asked the truck driver one day as he was filling the underground tank where he got his fuel...he said the refinery. Don't know what to tell you, but the info so far has been mostly hearsay. Any gas station can get a bad batch....or get some moisture in the tank that might give an engine some grief....but I don't know that a couple instances are grounds for an indictment of the Costco gas. Not trying to be argumentative and I have no stock in Costco....as a matter of fact most all of my stock went TU.

 

There is no Costco gas....in that they do not own a refinery. They buy it from refineries. The labeling by brand is interesting since multiple brands come from the same refinery. Most brands do specify certain additives, but there is question as to whether or not they differentiate the brand. I have seen some biased data sets, but nothing like a real scientific study (unbiassed). Oh I agree with Chuck!

 

Isn't it why they have top tier gasoline suppliers?

http://www.toptiergas.com/retailers.html

 

A fuel driver told me he puts the same gas in all the tanks except for Shell and BP up here and noted those are clearer looking..

 

Additionally, the State comes around on some sort of schedule and conducts flow tests on the pumps to ensure they're delivering a full gallon....and also take samples of the fuel for analysis. That's not to say that a bad batch couldn't have come in and been distributed in between testing....but as WROSS said...other than each company putting in their particular additive....they pretty much get all their gas from the same central point.

I would like to share a little bit of history. My dad was the General Sales manager of Standar Oil overseas back in the mid 50's thru 60's...specifically in the Philippines. Marketing and advertising between the main contenders was an ongoing thing with Cal-Tex (Texaco), Shell, and Mobil (flying red horse back then) being the only competitors. Shell had come out with a new "additive" called SX-1 or some such thing....and Mobil was losing sales because the folks were drawn to the advantage of buying a gasoline with this new and spiffy "additive". To compete, Mobil's think tank came up with the brilliant idea of adding a minute amount of kerosene to the mixture and calling it a "New and improved performance enhancing additive"....which brought them back into the marketplace as a competitor with Shell. The "new and improved additive" wasn't enough to affect any performance, but was enough to qualify as a "new additive"....thereby not affecting the integrity of the claim.

So insofar as all the additives are concerned....some may actually be beneficial....others may fall under what I call the Murine statute......"Eyewash".

 

It's my understanding that at the terminal where the fuel tankers get their load is where the various additive packs are added for the various brands. The refineries don't put in the additives. Some, like Chevron's Techron are well documented, others as noted in above posts are not.

 

+1... all gasoline are the same and probably pump from the same terminal locally. The top brands cost more due to the additive added. Most claimed that they have the best and more power, but no oil company can actually prove that.

 

I used to have a 1979 Chevy 4x4 w/350 and Kroger gas here would make it ping... No other station did... I think some of the generic gases are lower quality than the name brands... Probably varies by area...

That was 93 octane by the way..