Oh, and because this was discussed above.....

Was looking through a car magazine while waiting for my tire rotation and balance. Noticed a 2 page advertisement by BP/Amoco describing their additives and how it promotes clean valves and engines. Buried in the article it stated they include more of the necessary additive than required by EPA.

Found that kind of interesting.

 

I wanted to take a moment to share my experiences with top tier gasoline. I've been using non-top tier gasoline in my two cars for years. One of them had to have the heads pulled off to get properly de-carbed from deposit build ups; something that wasn't cheap. My second car started to exhibit some of the same problems, so I ran a fuel cleaner through the engine and switched to top tier gas. Since then, my car has been getting 3-4 miles to the gallon better per tank (not to mention that I don't have to worry as much about deposit build up). Trust me, based on my experiences, the top tier gas is the way to go!

 

I have probably run "top-tier" 5% of the time for the past 12 years (since living in SC). Never an issue with any vehicle. I don't go by the name on the sign. Here is an example, went to work and caught a light at one intersection. Noticed the Price for fuel at a Hess station. Coming home from work, caught the same light and glanced at the station again. It looked differant. Looked like some painting had happened during the day and it was now a Texaco station.

So does that make it "top-tier" now?

BTW, a lot of our customers can only fill their vehciles at certain stations. This was from the tank of a P20 step truck (gas). The only gas ever been in the truck is Chevron.

 

Based on my experiences with Wisconsin reformulated non-top tier gas, I can only imagine what this tank would have looked like using non-top tier gas

 

But this was top tier gas. I remember when I did the drop on my truck. Since I had the bed off, perfoect time to swap the fuel pump. Tank was clean. No top tier gas (or rarely anyway). I could care less about the name on the pump. I look at the station.

And it's in SC not Wisconsin.

 

The joke went over your head. My point was that it is possible it would be MUCH worse if not using top tier gas. I don't think that using top tier gas eliminates deposits, but it does help fight deposits better than gas without the detergents. I think that's why General Motors, BMW, etc. endorse top tier gas; it's more friendly with the engines and helps with life / fuel efficiency in the long run.

 

By the way, here is a link to a Top Tier Gasoline website:

http://www.toptiergas.com/

 

I can't remember the last time I saw a pump that didn't advertise detergents. I'm pretty sure it's standard these days. This mess had nothing to do with it being top tier or not. This had to do with old crappy tanks. But those reading the internet and saying I have to have top tier fuel. Well you can see the results. I'll stick with my method and if the station looks run down, I'll keep going. Once a year I'll dump a can of seafoam in to help clean things out. Been working for almost 30 years and I've only had to replace one mechanical fuel pump in a '79 Ford.

 

Some have higher quantity / better detergent standards than others, i.e. "top tier" gas.

 

Yea, like shown above.