Argh... gasoline switcheroo at the pump

[Fourth Horseman]

So I was at half a tank Sunday and I stopped by my local Chevron station like usual to fill up with 91 octane. What do I discover today? Pinging like crazy and even engine knock! I quickly backed off to prevent too much knocking. My engine has never knocked! I'm assuming they put lower grade fuel in the 91 octane tanks at the station. Grrrr. I'm going to stop by and see if the attendant will give me the name(s) of the manager and owner. Not happy at all.

Wondering if it's worth syphoning out the gasoline so I can replace it with good stuff or just live with it, being careful, until it's all gone?

:mad2:

 

[junehhan]

So I was at half a tank Sunday and I stopped by my local Chevron station like usual to fill up with 91 octane. What do I discover today? Pinging like crazy and even engine knock! I quickly backed off to prevent too much knocking. My engine has never knocked! I'm assuming they put lower grade fuel in the 91 octane tanks at the station. Grrrr. I'm going to stop by and see if the attendant will give me the name(s) of the manager and owner. Not happy at all.

Wondering if it's worth syphoning out the gasoline so I can replace it with good stuff or just live with it, being careful, until it's all gone?

:mad2:

I can't really give you advice, but detonation(depending on how severe) will ruin a motor before you even realize it. The knock sensor should be able to pull back timing, but it can only pull back so much timing............

 

[woaface]

Mine has been doing this lately as well! Mostly not the station, but how MUCH gas I have left...less than half a tank and I hear detonation when the car is going down the road with no pedal at all. Now, if I start to give it some gas...it goes away...and sounds REALLY smooth.

Maybe I'm just a freak show hearing things...or MAYBE it's the hot weather???

 

[sailsmen]

Consider;
adding an octane booster
keep it out of OD, push button in
adding "good gas"
manually shift to keep it in the lower gears longer.

station owner should be publically posted, in my state fuel is regulated by the Secretary of Agriculture, look for the octane verification sticker on the pump.

Document everything. Keep gas receipt and time, name of person you talk to, a trip to the dealer maybe necessary or call to your s/m.

 

[Fourth Horseman]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm going to pursue this with the station manager and owner and possibly the government. Very annoying, especially at $2.23 / gal.

Question: is the octane booster stuff you pour in your tank safe? I'm not going to gum anything up with that stuff, am I?

 

[Dr Caleb]

Question: is the octane booster stuff you pour in your tank safe? I'm not going to gum anything up with that stuff, am I?

I tried a 4 pack of the Pennzoil stuff - comes in aluminum bottles - for 2 tanks, one regular tank, and 2 tanks again. I didn't really notice any gain from it, and haven't noticed any long term problems (10,000 km ago)

 

[David Morton]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm going to pursue this with the station manager and owner and possibly the government. Very annoying, especially at $2.23 / gal.

Question: is the octane booster stuff you pour in your tank safe? I'm not going to gum anything up with that stuff, am I?

Most octane boosters are safe. If your octane is already 91 you will get no benefit from using it. I am planning to put 10 gal 93 on Tuesday and top off the tank with 89 on Wednesday because I get a nickel off for those respective grades on those days at my local Shell station. I'll post back here and let you guys know how it works.

You made me think perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea to have some octane booster on hand in my tool kit just in case. Duct tape, WD40 and octane booster. Yeah, that's the ticket.:cool4:

 

[Fourth Horseman]

Dumped a 16 oz. can of octane booster in this evening. Still have 7/8 of a tank, and I don't know how well it'll mix, but I figure it can't possibly make it any worse.

 

[jobrien8]

Just a note, these engines are tested using 98 octane fuel. When they are certified by the EPA, they are to use what is manufactures suggested which is 93.

 

[JET]

91 octane :mad2:

Fourth Horseman,

Is you SCT Tuner programed for 91 octane. I've never run lower than 93 in my car & when I put in the Reinhart Stage 1 kit he told me I had to run 93 octane. I never had a problem with knocking & pinging on 93. I believe our owners manual says run minimum of 92 octane. They don't have 92 where i live so i've always run 93 & 94 octane. At 45,000 miles i've had my share of little problems but knocking & pinging isn't one of them.

Whoever posted their putting 89 octane i strongly advice not using such a low grade gas. Protecting your $30,000+ investment is surely worth a couple of extra cents a gallon.

 

[Fourth Horseman]

Fourth Horseman,

Is you SCT Tuner programed for 91 octane. I've never run lower than 93 in my car & when I put in the Reinhart Stage 1 kit he told me I had to run 93 octane. I never had a problem with knocking & pinging on 93. I believe our owners manual says run minimum of 92 octane. They don't have 92 where i live so i've always run 93 & 94 octane. At 45,000 miles i've had my share of little problems but knocking & pinging isn't one of them.

Whoever posted their putting 89 octane i strongly advice not using such a low grade gas. Protecting your $30,000+ investment is surely worth a couple of extra cents a gallon.

Yes, Dennis set me up with a 91 octane program for my SCT tuner, since I can't find anything higher than that around here. I've had a little bit of a ping since loading the program, but only in high gear and only under very light throttle. This is something that Dennis is aware of and has since fixed. My tuner with the revised program is on its way back to me as I type this, so I'm not worried about that at all.

This issue that I posted about in this thread is something totally different. The gas station clearly had lower octane fuel in the tanks that are supposed to hold 91 octane. This wasn't a little bit of ping here, this was BAD . I put a 16 oz. bottle of octane boost in the tank and I'll be damned if it didn't solve the problem. My car is running perfectly now. I've got tomorrow off of work and I'm going to track down the manager and owner of that gas station and let them know what I think.

 

[stevengerard]

Octane boosters work, but not nearly as much as they say they will. And nothing is as good as adding the "real thing" Top the car off as soon as you can with higher octane gas. Though it sounds like 91 is all you can get, I'd still top it off with that. Fortunately here in Illinois I can get 100 octane not far away, 93 octane anywhere.

 

[RF Overlord]

I believe our owners manual says run minimum of 92 octane.

Unless they print different owner's manuals for different areas of the country, the manual says to use a minimum of 91 octane.

Octane boosters work, but not nearly as much as they say they will.

When a can of octane boost says it will raise octane by 4-7 points, it really means 4-7 TENTHS... if you use 91 octane, the boost will raise it to somewhere between 91.4 and 91.7...

Fourth: are you sure nothing else changed to eliminate your pinging? If it was as bad as you say, I find it hard to believe one can of octane boost would have completely cured it...but if it really DID, then post which brand and part # you used because I need it badly for my '68 Buick...

 

[Fourth Horseman]

Fourth: are you sure nothing else changed to eliminate your pinging? If it was as bad as you say, I find it hard to believe one can of octane boost would have completely cured it...but if it really DID, then post which brand and part # you used because I need it badly for my '68 Buick...

I did two things: first I unhooked the car's battery to let everything clear out in the hopes that it would somehow magically learn to deal with the **** fuel. I couldn't really tell if it made a huge difference, as the car still pinged like crazy after, though it didn't knock again.

The second step was the octane booster. I put a 16 oz can in a 3/4 full tank of gas. Didn't notice anything immediate, but by the end of the day the car was running much better. I haven't had a single ping since.

Maybe the combination of the two did the trick? Nothing else changed (that I'm aware of) on the car before or after. As to the brand, I'll have to run back to Pep Boys and check. I poured it in and threw the can away at the store, and don't recall which brand. Though I DO recall it was almost $4 a can. I'll swing by the store tonight on my way home and get the brand for you.

 

[Fourth Horseman]

Ok, I stopped by Pep Boys on the way home and the product is from Penzoil and branded "Outlaw." It says Octane Boost Concentrated on the bottle. It's in a blue and black, 16 oz aluminum can.

From what I can tell, it really worked very well on my poor fuel situation. If I ever run into a similar problem I'll use the product again, even at a $4 price tag.

 

[cruzer]

Shell changes name

Shell has changed the name of it's "Super Premium" to "V-Power" I contacted the web site for Shell, They referred me to this phone # 1-888-467-4355, Option 3 then 4....This is the tech info group--I left a recorded message at 3:30 CDT and have had no reply. I asked why the name changed and stated I was 1 of 2000 web site members running Marauders and our engines couldn't tolerate less than 93 octane and no alcohol. I said it was critical to us since we used their fuel in high performance runs with a 10:1 compression ratio. Hope to get some answers tomorrow :bs: ???? Will pass on any info I get.

 

[junehhan]

Shell has changed the name of it's "Super Premium" to "Vector" I contacted the web site for Shell, They referred me to this phone # 1-888-467-4355, Option 3 then 4....This is the tech info group--I left a recorded message at 3:30 CDT and have had no reply. I asked why the name changed and stated I was 1 of 2000 web site members running Marauders and our engines couldn't tolerate less than 93 octane and no alcohol. I said it was critical to us since we used their fuel in high performance runs with a 10:1 compression ratio. Hope to get some answers tomorrow :bs: ???? Will pass on any info I get.

In our region here, Shell changed the name of their 93 octane premium grade to V-Power. Some of the stations are charging a premium for it too as my local Shell station charges 22-23 cents per gallon more than regular for it.