Foosh

While you can allege, based upon an uninformed opinion, that "Top Tier Gas" is a meaningless certification standard, you cannot say that there is "no such thing as top tier gas." The latter is a nonsensical statement.

Top Tier™ is a trademarked gasoline additive certification standard, which some retailers meet and some don't. Top Tier™ additive packages add cost to a gallon of gasoline. Independent testing has shown that gasoline including Top Tier™ certified additive packages to provide benefits, and the link below summarizes one such study.

http://newsroom.aaa.com/2016/07/aaa-...created-equal/

My brother owns an independent tanker business, and when his tankers are filled at the terminal, each is mixed with the additive package appropriate upon whether it's going to a Shell station or a Kroger, etc. The price of a gallon differs based upon that additive package.

rmorin1249

I asked a Sunoco station manager why their fuel is not Top Tier. He said they didn't need to submit their fuel for testing because they know it is top quality. Perhaps it costs money to have your fuel tested. Curious that many of the convenience store brands are rated Top Tier and a national brand like Sunoco is not. In my area I wish Sheetz and WaWa were rated Top Tier as they have lots of stations and low prices.

dbaker

Many Top Tier gasoline stations have a "Top Tier" label on the pump.

QT stations & others in my area have this label.

\db2

Foosh

It is true that certain brands such as Sunoco have not submitted their additive packages for testing to the labs that determine Top Tier™ certification. It could meet the standard or it may not. All gasoline has required "base" additives.

One major purpose of the standard was to inform the public they are getting top quality fuel, and it was a consortium of auto manufacturers that created the standard.

GM, along with BMW, VW, and many others created the standard because many of them were incurring warranty costs due to bad fuel, leading to engine deposits, and engine performance problems.

GM recommends Top Tier™ in every owner's manual.

dashotgun

fwiw Chevrolet manual recommends top tier but does say if you can't use their additive package. I have a costco nearby which is inexpensive and is top tier. But I would use Kroger and use techtron. I have an Audi S4 which is supercharged does fine with Kroger

NSC5

To market your fuel as Top Tier in addition to the required additive package you also pay an annual licensing fee based upon the number of stations owned/franchised under the brand name. It is another way of trying to market a commodity item as "special" to achieve greater profits.

Of course a large part of the testing used to certify a fuel as "top tier" involves the extent to which intake valve deposits are controlled and this isn't applicable to GDI engines (like the LT-1/LT-4) which inject fuel directly into the combustion chamber so the detergent additive does not pass over the intake valve. Proper additives are still needed to keep the rest of the fuel system free from buildup along with helping control combustion chamber deposits and keeping injectors clean.

Foosh

I think using a non Top Tier is fine if you use Techron or the GM-recommended additive. Of course, that adds cost too, as well as extra effort. It's obviously easier to fill up at the pump and avoid having to purchase extra products, mess with funnels, etc.

Z06Shark

Cost is not a concern ...
But good Gas is, hence my Thread. Everything is New/Fresh at this Station, but my knowledge depth is shallow when it comes Tier Gas.

NSC5

I agree with Foosh and unless I find an ethanol free Top Tier licensed fuel in my area I will continue to run a non Top Tier plus additive for the last few fills before winter storage. Otherwise I fill with Shell or another Top Tier supplier when traveling. I used to also use BP but after their Gulf spill I don't use that company's products anymore.

Foosh

NSC5,

There are no stations selling ethanol-free premium fuel anywhere close to me, but I have been told by my tanker company owning brother, that if you can find a Shell (or other Top Tier) dealer with an ethanol-free pump, that tank may not be Top Tier, even though all his other pumps are.

Patman

We are pretty lucky here in Ontario because not only do our Costco stations sell top tier gas but it's also ethanol free. And the price is considerably lower than Shell. Today at the Shell near my house they are selling premium for $1.349 per liter, Costco is priced at $1.099 per liter! On a 70L fillup in my C6 that's a savings of $17.50!! And yet some of my friends up here still refuse to buy Costco gas because they think it's inferior or they hate having to wait 10-15 minutes in the huge lineup.

twowinns

I get the best of both worlds in the Dallas area. I grocery shop at Kroger, and earn $0.10/gallon off at Shell stations. I use the points to buy Shell's 93 octane, top-tier, V-Power gas.

2fastnow

In the USA the secondary market, most fuel is refined in the same refineries. Then they buy fuel, put their name on it. Like all those small gas stations get. It's all the same and regulated. But they may have leaky tanks etc.
Like Costco buys fuel from the same refinery's all the secondary fuel stations do.

Foosh

Yes, Canada has not imposed the ethanol-use requirements in gasoline that the US gov has imposed.

Niemienator

We use Kroger 93 w no issues and also use COSTCO when convenient.
17 GS, 13 Audi S6 (15 ZL1 - Sold)

Niemienator

We use Kroger 93 w no issues and also use COSTCO when convenient.
17 GS, 13 Audi S6 (15 ZL1 - Sold)

Foosh

You won't see any short-term effect as a result of using a "base grade" fuel. However, over time, if that's all you used exclusively, the test data show a greater build up of deposits in the fuel system over the long term if you don't utilize the supplemental additives.

If I needed fuel, I wouldn't worry one bit about using non-Top Tier, and if you mix it up, there's probably no need to sweat it either. However, given a choice, I will also use Top Tier.

Patman

Hopefully it stays that way too! I notice when I travel in the US that the stations that do sell ethanol free gas (which in my travels has been rare) have it priced considerably higher than the ethanol enhanced gas they sell. I wonder how many people actually pay that extra amount for it? Seems it might be a slow seller, so that fuel would be a little bit more stale.

LDB

As often as this topic comes up on the forum, it never ceases to amaze me how tenaciously some hold on to bad information. While true that the minimum required additives in cheapo gas are “decent”, it is also true that those in top tier will result in cleaner engines, with fewer warranty problems, which is why the auto makers developed the standard. And the standard does indeed matter. If you run two engines 50,000 miles under conditions controlled to be equal, and then tear them down for inspection, the one run on top tier will be cleaner than the one run on minimum required EPA additive package. I know, since being a refining engineer for decades, I’ve seen such torn down engines with my own eyes.

It is just plain silly to say that such and such a brand is just as good as top tier, and the only reason they aren’t top tier is that they didn’t want to pay for certification. The cost of certification is small in comparison to the cost of the better additive package. If a brand is not top tier, it is because they don’t want to pay the cost of a first class additive package. As a related issue, the notion that somebody is making money from top tier fees is also silly. The fee is small, and simply covers the cost of administering the program.

The notion that you can get top tier results from cheapo gas with a can of Techron now and then is yet another bit of silliness. It’s probably better than cheapo gas without the occasional can of Techron. But it is possible to use too much detergent. It would be like washing your clothes with 5 times the recommended amount of soap. Odds are, your clothes would not rinse properly, leaving detergent residue behind. Or if you don’t like that analogy, think about this one. Compare a pair of jeans washed weekly for six months, versus a pair that isn’t washed for six months, then gets washed 3 times to play catch up. Which do you suppose is cleaner at the end of those six months?

And as a final bit of silliness, the notion of fresh gas and related preference for a high volume station is also silly. Gas does not get stale even in a low volume station. Stale gas stories probably come from lawnmower cans of gas stored in hot garages, where the light components can evaporate, lowering the gas’s vapor pressure. A station’s underground tank never gets that hot, so isn’t significantly prone to evaporation. True, bad batches of gas do happen. The thing is, it’s due to carelessness or mechanical failure, not to stale gas and/or the volume of gas going through a station. That carelessness or failure is more likely to happen on the way to the gas station than at the station itself. All the station has to do is pump their condensation boots on a fixed schedule and have the tanks cleaned/inspected once in a while. Failing to do those things isn’t a function of the station’s volume, it’s a function of the station owner’s attention to proper procedure. There are many more things that can go wrong upstream of the station, and bad things happening there will have just as much effect on a high volume station as a low volume one.

JoesC5

Actually, gas is delivered via the pipeline to the various terminals in more than "two flavors".

Adding 10% ethanol at the local terminal adds approximately 2 octane points.

When you buy regular grade gas with 10% ethanol that is labeled 87 octane, it was sent from the refinery as 85 octane. But if the gas is 87 octane pure gasoline, then it was shipped from the refinery as 87 octane.

The there is premium. 91 octane E10 is shipped from the refinery as 89 octane, yet 91 octane ethanol free is shipped as 91 octane. Then there is 93 octane E10, it is shipped as 91 octane. And 93 ethanol id shipped as 93 octane from the refinery

As you can see, the various pipelines are distributing gasoline as 85 octane, 87 octane, 89 octane, 91 octane and 93 octane, to cover just "two flavors" of gasoline(regular and premium).

depending on where you live, you can get gasoline in all the various "flavors" I laid out.

Here in Springfield(Missouri requires all "regular" grade gasoline be E10), we have 87 E10, 91 E10, 91 E0, 93 E10 and 93 E0.

That's five different flavors at the local retailer in Springfield, MO, that require four different octane gasolines be delivered from the refineries(85, 89, 91 and 93 octane) to the local terminal where the ethanol is added for the E10 gasolines.

Another state might only have 85 and 89 delivered from the refinery by pipeline, as they only sell 87 E10 and 91 E10 at the local retailer, but if they are allowed to sell ethanol free gasoline at lake marinas, then they might even get a third grade of gasoline(91 octane) delivered from the refinery, so that it is sold at the marinas as 91 octane ethanol free gasoline.

As you can see, the logistics is a little more complicated then just having "two flavors" of gasoline.