Re: Basic question: 96 Camry V6 Octane

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

Reply to
C. E. White
Loading thread data ...

=?iso-2022-jp?q?Hachiroku_=1B$B%O%A%m%=2F=1B=28B?= wrote in news:rm0_h.7679$f17.349@trndny05:

Eh, I f***ed up. What can I say?

My province just mandated the use of ethanol. Minimum 5% now, rising to 10% in three years.

Envirowackos. Eco-fascists.

Reply to
Tegger

I gotta get me some of that Blue gas!!!

Reply to
Hachiroku

Take the Fuel Test at the Shell site...

Royal Dutch Shell.

Used to be Cities Service when I was a kid (showing my age again...)

British Petroleum

Can get Agip and Elf products around here, but not really gasoline.

Reply to
Hachiroku

That's OK. I made a mistake, too. Once. ;) (I think it was buying a VW. Either that or getting married..EITHER time...)

Interesting. I started filling my Mom's car up where I get my gas, and she asked me what I put in it (knowing I pay the extra $$$ for 93 Oct...)

I told her the 87 Oct at the station downtown. She said the car ran a lot better and "takes longer for the gauge to go down." They run 10% Ethanol there...

Reply to
Hachiroku

BWAHAHAHA, that was good one

Reply to
EdV

Aussie fuels are RON rated. we can run on avgas here to but it will cost $1000 per cylinder in files for using it in a public road.

we get 91RON to 98 RON and it costs and costs about $4.50 Australian a gallon for 91 depending where you get it. (if my conversion maths is right.) mind you 75%of the cost of our fuel is government tax.

Reply to
Nick Bourne

Fuel economy changes it is due to the density of the fuel and the better power production of higher octane fuels under heavy load. most people should see and increase in economy due to a slightly leaner mix and being less prone to detonation, if not you car is either turned very well or in need of being looked at because something is not working properly.

Reply to
Nick Bourne

I think that the only people who see better economy with higher octane fuels are the ones with heavy right feet. Lower octane gas vaporizes more readily, and as long as you aren't putting the engine under serious load so the knock sensor gets the timing retarded, you will see better economy with that well-vaporized 87 octane. Some engines are probably so 'biased' towards power production instead of economy that they do better on higher octane fuels, but most engines will just produce a little more horsepower with them...

Reply to
mjc1

Don't forget the farm lobby. Last year I sold corn for around $2 per bushel. This year I have already contracted to sell it at over $3.50 and I am worried I signed up too soon. Last year my profit on corn was negligible. This year I might actually make money.

Ed

Reply to
C. E. White

The USA uses an average of the Research Octane and Motor Octane systems - (RON+MON)/2 - to get our posted "Pump Octane". The sea-level to 5000' elevations usually get 87 'regular', 89 'mid-grade' (usually a blender inside the dispenser) and 91 or 92 'premium'.

There is limited distribution of street-legal pump "racing" unleaded gas at 105-108 octane available for the old musclecar crowd with the high-compression engines and no electronic controls to limit detonation. They don't have to go to the airport and sneak out AvGas, and don't get nailed in the wallet quite as hard.

And fuel taxes aren't as steep, but the refiners use collusion on refinery capacity ("We haven't been able to get permits to build a new refinery in 30 years!" Wink wink, nod nod...) to keep the prices artificially high.

Where the big fines come in here is if you try buying "Off-Road" diesel fuel for farms and stationary equipment with red dye blended in (and no Road Use Taxes paid) and try running it in highway trucks. They take dipper samples from the tanks at the truck scales or look at the clear fuel filter/water separator bowl, and if the fuel shows pink or red you "got some 'splainin' to do..."

-->--

Reply to
Bruce L. Bergman

"C. E. White" wrote in news:4639c5ca$1 @kcnews01:

Even worse than the farm lobby (sorry) are the refiners, like Archer Daniels Midland in the US and Commercial Alcohols in Canada. Those two take to governments like smack addicts take to Afghan heroin. Fierce lobbying by those two results in a heavy IV feed for both...straight from us to them.

Why the heck are you bothering with field corn anyway? Why does _anybody_ bother with field corn? Nobody makes money on that crap. One guy I know carved up 100 acres of 8ft corn into a fancy maze last summer, and charged people to navigate it. He told me he made more doing that than he would ever have made selling the stuff.

formatting link

Reply to
Tegger

HOLY CRAP!

Reply to
Hachiroku

HAHAHA! There's a guy here in Mass that does the same thing. He also makes more on the maze than he does on cron sales...QUITE a bit more! Matter of fact, that's where most of his profit comes from!

Every year he does something to try to be topical with what's going on. In

2003 he did Kerry and Bush. He does it around October so it's either something Halloween-y or topical.

Wonder what this year's will be! ;)

Reply to
Hachiroku

I know, my drive to work each week costs me about $50 in fuel depending on the price. Yet we still drive 3800 pound 4 door sedans with 6l gen IV v8's that get 16.5 miles per gallon. Go figure.

Reply to
Nick Bourne

In October, isn't Halloween topiocal?

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff

Not true. I made money last year, but not the sort I could have made by working at Wal*Mart for a similar number of hours. This year with the higher prices I hope to do better. The declining US dollar might not be good for somethings, but it usually helps farm prices. Over the years my Father probably made more money raising corn than anything else. In recent years cotton, peanuts and soybeans have all been more profitable per acre, but corn has certain advantages. I also raise cattle. Corn is out of the field early enough so that I can seed a winter crop for grazing, or winter wheat for harvest next year. Corn is also a very good rotation crop. The weed problems in corn are a lot different than in the other crops, so it helps control the weeds. And corn doesn't suffer from a lot of soil born diseases like soybeans and peanuts. You can plant corn repeatedly in the same field without worrying about disease problems. If you do that with soybeans or peanuts, you are asking for trouble.

Well it depends on where your farm is located. My farm is 20 miles from nowhere, and at least 50 from a major population center. Besides, I already have too many strangers "accidentally" ending up in my fields. Two years ago some kids decided it would be fun to make patterns in my soybeans with four wheelers. And don't get me started about the deer hunters, or the neighbors with horses, but no land or the city guys with monster mud trucks who think my empty field is the perfect place to joy ride or the people to lazy to drive another 3 miles to the county trash dump and shove their crap in my fields.

Ed

Reply to
C. E. White

Sounds good to me!

But, don't you guys have your own oil there? Or is it imported like a lot of other places.

IIRC, Oz has a LOT of coal, and the new ways of using coal are a lot cleaner, so I would think all that coal would offset the use of petroleum produts, unlike here.

BTW, do they still produce the Falcon there?

Reply to
Hachiroku

Well, unless there's some really pressing issue, like the elections or some other hot-button topic.

Reply to
Hachiroku

Wouldn't it still be topical?

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff

MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.