Someone told me that if I don’t buy gas from the major companies that it is better for my car. I usually buy whatever is cheapest. They said doing that will mess up my car. Is gas from an expensive place any better than from a little gas station?
Charlene
I have had some problems with “off brand” gas, but the important thing is the octane rating. Check your owner’s manual and see what the manufacturer recommends. There may be a sticker near the filler cap as well.
So long as your local station is not cheating on the octane rating or the pump measurement, then no - it does not make a difference.
Unless your car manual specifies that you must use a certain octane, buying higher octane gas is a waste of money. You will not notice any appreciable difference in performance, or milage.
A lot of small gas stations buy their gas from the same suppliers that Big Name gas stations get their gas from. It is the same product. There is no difference between, say, gas from the BP, or gas from Moe’s Quik Stop. Even if they buy their gas from an independant supplier, it’s not as if that supplier is refining it themselves: they’re buying it from the same refineries that Shell, BP, and Texaco are buying their gas.
P.S If your gas is “watered down” you will know, because your engine will protest. Loudly.
Here’s an official FTC site I got from the AAA site.
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/autos/octane.htmThe Low-Down on High Octane Gasoline
Tori, what type & year of car do you have?
I have a 93 Honda Del Sol 
My wife has a 93 del Sol Si (aka CRX in Europe). Generally, just look at octane rating (the owner’s manual says use 89 octane, I believe). Some of the big gas chains also have detergents added to the gas, and I think that the owner’s manual for your car says that they won’t hurt, but aren’t necessary.
One of the dangers of buying gas at a smaller gas station that is not as busy - there could be water in the gas tanks from condensation. It would probably be unintentional, but if there is not as much turn over in the product, there is more of a chance for the gas to get watered down from condensation in the big underground tanks or from water leeching into them from other sources. This could happen in an infrequently used BP or Texaco just as easily as it could at a mom & pop store, though.
Im pretty sure all gas is made by just a few refineries. Those small guys have to buy gas from the big guys.
If you buy gas from them, ask them who made it.
I knew an acquaintance in college whose summer job was as a buyer/broker for a gasoline distributor.
According to him, the gas stations/gas companies buy what’s cheapest, which may or may not be from their own refineries, and add their additive packages at the tanker.
So what you’re getting from Shell may well be refined by Jim’s local refinery, what you’re getting from Joe’s Kwik Stop may be refined by Shell, with the difference being the quality of the additive packages, etc…
I don’t know if I believe him entirely though.
On another point- all gasoline sold in the U.S. has to have some detergent additives in it by law.
http://www.epa.gov/docs/EPA-AIR/1994/November/Day-01/pr-100.html
Is this what happened to the CRX (which used to be available in the U.S.)? It became the Del Sol?
This is correct from my experience. Joe’s Kwik Stop doesn’t provide the additave packages the big players do. I had to research this stuff when I used to analyze water and soil samples for petroleum hydrocarbons.
I’ll fill in for toadspittle (what a handle!) until he comes in an answers correctly.
AFAIK, the CRX that we all knew and loved was discontinued. All the Del Sols I have seen were similar enough to the CRX that I can believe that it’s the same basic design, but the back of it is…different. There’s a car that’s enough like it to compare it to, but I forget, so here’s a bastardized description.
Where the CRX was a hatchback (IIRC) and most cars have rear windshields that slope down and back, the Del Sol’s is completely vertical, as in perpendicular to the road, and the trunk is also flat (in this case parallel with the road). It’s a kinda cool design, though really not my thing.
But since I’m completely wrong about the whole thing, it really doesn’t matter.
The design of the Del Sol is comparable to an MR2 or a Fiero.
I don’t know anything about Hondas, but I would suspect that it’s just a next-generation CRX - it fills the same niche, but they took a little time off to redesign it. The same thing can be seen with other cars… look at the 85-89 MR2, 91-95 MR2, and now the MR Spyder. They’re all sporty mid-engine two-seaters, but they’ve gone through a lot of changes.
What we call the del Sol in the US was sold as the CRX (generation 3) in Europe. In the US, I think that there was a gap of 1 year (1992) between the demise of the original body style of the CRX and the introduction of the del Sol, but yes, it was meant to fill the same market - 2 seater economy/sporty car. And both were pretty much based on the Civic platform.
There was some confusion about what I was calling a del Sol and someone else was calling a CRX in another thread a while back - turns out we were both talking about the same car, just on different sides of the pond.
picture of 1995 del Sol/CRX to end the suspense
