[BlackandTan]

A friend of mine who is into cars much more expensive than my Ram told me about this site. If you click on the retailers site there is a list of gas stations that have the highest levels of the cleaners/detergents added to their gas. I was happy to see Costco on the list.

http://www.toptiergas.com/

 

[hydrex]

Thanks. Surprised to see Sunoco, Gulf or Irving (Canadian) are not on the list. I only run Chevron 93 octane. The only station to carry 93 octane here in Maine. Both of my hemis are dyno tuned on the 93.

 

[PTCTreeGuy]

I'm really surprised to see BP on that list as they use a different, some claims about better and cheaper, blend of detergents (Invigorate from Amoco) that didn't use to meet the Tier 1 standards. It was the preferred fuel of BMW for a while just for that reason and BP bought Amoco just to get Invigorate in their fuels. Kroger and all their other companies used to be on the Tier 1 list for 2013 so I'm not sure if they have changed supplier to drop off the list.

 

[BlackandTan]

My understanding is that BP just went on the list recently.

 

[huntergreen]

tks for the info.......

 

[KA1OTE]

Interesting information.. thanks for sharing!

 

[locapitano]

Maybe this is a good place to ask, but given the title I went in to the Owners manual only to find out that it is recommended that I use 89 Octane Fuel on my truck with the 5.7L V8 Hemi engine.

I haven't had to fill her up since purchasing but wanted to know if someone can tell me if there is a significant difference in using the 89 vs the 87 in either performance, gas mileage, or longevity of the engine?

Thank you very much!!

 

[rcmpvet]

Someone can correct me if I am wrong, but is not the 89 octane the grade that generally does not use ethanol, as opposed to 87. I know there will probably be exceptions but this is what I have been seeing.

 

[RaceHillFarms]

All the grades use ethanol. The only way to not get ethanol is to buy from a station who sell non ethanol fuel and it will be marked as non ethanol and the price will be much higher than fuel with ethanol in it.

Ethanol is the worst thing done to fuel as it causes poorer fuel mileage and has caused many billions of dollars in damage to older vehicles, off road vehicles, boats and lawn equipment in the short time ethanol has been mandated.

Our government keeps saying they want better fuel economy yet they force ethanol fuels on us which harms fuel economy and raises the price of fuel.

In answer to the first poster I ran 87 octane in my 2008 Ram and it ran fine. Ram does recommend 89 octane with the key word being recommend.

 

[BlackandTan]

I can't tell a difference if I use 87, 89 or 93 in terms of performance or mileage. I try to use 89 if available, but many of the gas stations here offer only 87 or 93.

 

[Kamanhart]

Very good info OP, definitely helps reinforce my love for shell gas, but at least i know now what other viable options are if i cant find a shell station!

As far as premium fuels go untuned i could never feel a difference but if you get a custom tune written specifically for 93 octane it will absolutely feel like a new animal in all of my experience!

 

[Hermes1]

From articles I have read and a conversation with a fuel delivery truck driver, it seems this top tier thing is more of a marketing strategy than a real benefit. I use to buy into the whole top tier thing, then several articles and a conversation with a fuel delivery guy changed it for me. Numerous articles indicate the fuel we buy regardless of brand all comes from the same refineries. This was confirmed to me when I was at a Chevron station and spoke to the driver of the fuel truck, I asked him about these articles I was reading and his answer was, when I am done here, my next stop is across the street to the so called no-name brand selling their fuel for .13 sents per gal cheaper. He also went on to say, "look at my truck, do you see Chevron's branding painted on it?" It was a generic fuel delivery truck and then asked "when was the last time you saw a Chevron, Shell or Texaco truck at a station?" I had to admit I could not recall when I had, and since then, I have not seen any. So since then I purchase my fuel at whatever is available at the best price. One of the stations in my area I frequent does happen to be on the "top tier" list" (QT) but only because of convenience and price. When I have filled up with non top tier fuels I have not noticed any reduced performance or loss of mpg. Based on my experience, I have a hard time justifying paying a premium price for a name.

 

[PTCTreeGuy]

The driver was also somewhat feeding you a line there or at least half truth. The no-name place across the street may have gotten fuel from his truck but prob not the same tank within the truck. Most of the fuel trucks have 5-7 tanks within the truck and just because he stopped and unloaded Chevron fuel at one does not mean he used that same tank at the place across the street. And most of the, what used to be called grey-market, fuel stations get their savings from buying overages of various suppliers. By taking whatever local stations can't take they can get a deal by sending the trucks back empty so they may get top-tier or they may get 'base' gas. That was Sam's clubs deal for a long time here in the Atlanta area, plus a LARGE fuel depot north of town to pull from.

You should not notice a difference between the tiers by the tank, it is a long term detergent within the gas effect. All fuel is now what would have been top tier 10 years ago because of higher mandated standards so they had to improve the top fuel with more detergents. Also important since European manufacturers teamed up with fuel suppliers to have 'official fuels' so you had BMW pushing BP(Amoco) on people and Audi with Shell products, plus their higher compression engines needed 93 octane fuel to get rid of any knock.

As for the fuel trucks, come drive here in Atlanta. Other than Kroger and some of the small stations, it seems every fuel truck is branded. Course RaceTrac delivers a LOT of fuel around town so you see them at other stations delivering.