What the heck does that mean?
I often buy Shell, but not because I think it is soooo special. It just happens that I go by a couple of Shell Stations that are price competitive. If the shell is 2.859 and the "Kangaroo" is 2.849, I'll usually buy the Shell (plus the Shell station has a easier to see price sign). But if the Murphy is 2.799, I'll go there every time (plus they have the fastest pumps I've ever used).
Chevron and Shell both claim to meet the top tier gasoline requirements that some car companies (GM, Toyota, BMW,...) are pushing. BP claims their gasoline is better for the environment, and for some reason, Ford actually has a sticker on the gas cap of newer cars saying that they recommend BP...what's up with that? Is BP paying Ford to advertise their gas?
Here is what I think -
Within the EPA defined areas, unleaded gasoline is mostly traded as a commodity. Before the secret sauce is added, it is pretty much all the same. All unleaded gasoline has a minimum level of detergents as required by the EPA. The different brands have different secret sauces added to clean valves and fuel injectors. They all claim theirs is the best. Some claim their premium gasoline has more/better stuff, some claim all their grades are really, really, really good. Mostly I think this is advertising hype. I think if you compared Shell to BP to Citgo to Philips to Mobil, they are all be just fine. Maybe when they compare their gas to "Happy Gas" they come out better, but I even doubt that. My car mostly gets brand name gasoline (Shell and BP and Citgo are the most common brands I buy because of convenience) but my sister only buys whatever is cheapest and her Honda runs just fine at
130,000 miles (I did change the fuel filter once about 8 years and 100,000 miles ago). Likewise because of convenience, my Nissan truck mostly gets "Raceway" or "Wilco" gasoline. So far I've not seen a problem.(40k miles).Here is one thing that I think about - although I worry about the domestic car industry going belly up, I don't seem to worry about the domestic oil industry and I buy gasoline from foreign owned companies:
Shell - English/Dutch Company Citgo - Venezuelan (argh) BP - British
Ed