That's really interesting. Fuel blends may be different in Canada. I wasn't aware of any difference of "cleaner" inclusions between Premium (91 octane) and Regular Unleaded (87 octane). In fact, with the exception of some no-name brands I can state that NAME BRANDS, such as Shell, Chevron, here in Arizona have the same quantities of cleaners in both premium and regular. And a recent discussion on another forum included a representative of Chevron stating the same.

 

There is a difference between grades. In the U.S. ethanol is NOT dealer optional. The "name brands" do have different additives in them,....but the "off brands" get their product from the same "tank farms". The only real difference is the octane rating at the pump. Just throw some "whatever is on sale" injector cleaner in every now and then. BTW, if you look closely, you will find that injector cleaner is "jet fuel" i.e. diesel that has been subjected to testing and dyed a certain color.

 

donbrew....

If you are responding to me, I believe you misunderstood my intent.

MOST MAJOR fuel companies have the SAME AMOUNT of cleaner in their RESPECTIVE premium or regular fuels. For example, if we speak of Shell they have their "nitrogen" cleaner/additive in regular and premium AND in the same proportions. Same goes for Chevron....techron in both premium and regular....etc. etc.

 

I do believe the amount of additives differs in the grade of the fuel, though this is hearsay so i could be wrong. I know this is how petrocan advertises their fuel. The dealer did suggest that i use premium fuel, and the reason being, the increased amount of techron. This would be a good topic to debate though!

 

I'm sure I saw somewhere that there is less ethanol in premium, or it isn't as strong or something... I don't know for sure though, but like I said if the truck runs better, I like it!

 

Nope, Kid.....

But this may be true for Arizona only.....but I doubt it.

I spent many hours in the Phoenix Arizona Fuel Tank Farm. Raw gas (meeting EPA MINIMUM requirements) is delivered, for the most part, from El Paso, TX......through an underground pipeline. It is distributed to the various storage tanks at that facility. The additive blend, of the various manufactures, is delivered, by tanker, to the farms and stored in each fuel companies proprietary tank.

When a delivery to a specific brand is made, in most instances, an independent transport loads the raw fuel from the bulk tanks, which is measured at disbursement. The correct proprietary additive is then added by whatever the formula dictates.....NOTE: in most instances, it is about 1% (you can compute this, but essentially at 20,000 gallons of gas, it would be approximately 200 gallons of additive).

When that same independent transport reports later, for delivering to the "no-name" stations , the bulk fuel is loaded without the addition of the additive package. The exception to this is for those independents that agree to pay a licensing fee for a name brand additive package....in one instance, to my knowledge, one no-name chain pays a license fee to 2 name brands, using a blend of both additive packages.....but at lower quantities than what is normally incorporated.


Now, many years ago, when "real" additives were first introduced, they were ONLY used in the premium version of the fuel. One was Mobil, whose CEO got egg on his face when he referred to his "special proprietary additive" and indicated that it would provide additional benefits to the vast number of vehicles that GM, Ford and Chrysler were building. He then found out that those vehicles relied on regular fuel and the additives were only in the premium versions.


Oh, and forgot to say.....adding ethanol to gas is a CHEAP way to increase octane levels. Many far northern states: Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming, did this a few years back. As someone mentioned in another thread, the E-85 is about 105 octane.

 

I know that Sunoco stations in PA use to sell pure gas (as high as 100 octane out of the pump), there are no gas stations I know of down here that sell pure gas, everything has ethanol unless you get some race gas.

 

I'm A little confused....

Those people that indicate that ALL the gas stations sell ONLY ethanol added fuels....are you speaking of the NATIONWIDE EPA MANDATED addition, or of the E-10 or E-15 versions.

Several counties in Arizona sell NON ethanol gas in Arizona. Just purchased some about 2 weeks ago, when I was in Kingman (kind of the northwest corner of the State).

 

depends on the EPA for each of their regions. For instance, I do not need to get my emissions tested, but literally across that bridge right there they do, the river is the EPA's regional dividing line. Evidently my carbon emissions don't travel across the river with my car! And in some places ,ethanol is only required during certain months. BTW ethanol reduces "emissions" but lowers MPG. So maybe you can find e-85 rated at 105 octane, but your MPG will still go down.

 

No basically agreeing with you.