one other thing, since you mentioned it.

I'd advise staying away from the because if the place is chity and run down then the underground tanks are probably LEAKY and RUSTY. you don't want that crap in your tank. my old roomate used to do environmental testing and cleanup work here in Virginia. his company was often hired to test ground soil around gas stations to see if the tanks were leaking, and verify that the stations fixed any problems. I don't know if it is federal law or state law that determines how often in ground storage tanks have to be replaced, but if it varies based on state or locality, then some mom and pop (not trying to slam mom and pop or small businesses) or run down places may be neglecting digging up and replacing their leaking fuel tanks because it is VERY expensive and time intensive usually the station has to be shut down while they do it because they have to dig up the tanks from under the concrete.

my point is that if the place is old and run down then the tanks MAY be too. and if the tanks are leaking gasoline OUT into the soil, then they are also leaking WATER and crud INTO the fuel.

just my .02

later,
chris

 

Gotha, thanks.

Sad thing is that my parents used to own that station. They had it for a year trying to make it look better, but they were not makeing any money from it so they sold it.

 

I was told that the V-Power was 94 octane.

 

ill try to do a little research on this
i am in the bizz so ill see what i can find

 

I would like to see your research that you used to conclude V Power is garbage. We would not spend many millions of dollars in reasearch and development just for advertising hype, we would just re brand our pumps and call it a day. I know about all the development that went into the V Power first hand and can tell you it's not advertising hype, but you can use whatever fuel you like.

D. Collins
Shell International
Gasmer Lab, Houston

 

Mr Collins,

The members here respond well to details.

Perhaps you could help us understand how VPower is better/different from other formulations. While you are at it perhaps you could also educate us on how the advertising hype that is used by various Oil companies is matched to the brand X gas they buy from the local distributor.

Here in Texas you will see brand X fuel delivery trucks stopping at national branded stations all the time. And if you wantch carefully they often supply competitors on opposite corners ....

Also while Houston is famous for its refineries and chemical plants Dallas and DFW is NOT. So we assume that most of the fuel is piped in.... Are we to assume it is piped in with the special additives ? Are the additives combined at the station ? Are we to assume that every brand has thier own pipeline ?

Or do Shell, Chevron/Texaco, Total, Diamond Shamrock, Exxon/Mobil, Citgo, ConocoPhillips, Sunoco all have storage and mixing plants locally ??

And finally Shell is one of the highest priced gas brands in town - What is it about the formula that makes it worth $0.10 or more per gallon more... ?

I know its a lot of questions but thanks in advance

Doug

 

I'm comfortable using V-power on my truck as it sits in stock form.

I'm questioning whether it is bad to use a gasoline that has all these additives when I upgrade the pulley/chip/etc, because our motors, especially with more boost, become more sensitive to fuel quality

still a little confused here

-Mike

P.S. while we're on the shell subject--does anyone else think shell should be doing more to gain oil for our reserves from the gulf?

 

I will attempt to address all the questions I can. I can't say what other stations do but you are correct that when the gas is piped in it's pretty much the same for everyone. The raw fuel goes to a Shell blending plant where the additives are mixed. The fuel mixed at Shell blending plants is put into Shell tankers and delivered to Shell stations, you won't see a Shell tanker delivering to any other station except a Shell station, you will also notice the tankers delivering to shell say Shell on them. The testing proved the V Power burns cleaner and causes less deposits in the combustion chamber and injectors, is it worth more ? you be the judge. I will use it, but since I am a Shell employee I could be viewed to be biased.

I agree with you as I have seen tankers deliver to one station then cross the street to another and it always made me wonder where the gas came from in the first place.

Red03svt, mind you this is only what I hear but crude oil supplies are not the problem it's the refining capability or lack of that is the problem. As far as mods go I would think the cleaner the combustion cycle is the better it is for my engine mods or not.

With all that said, we the consumers will have to be the judge of the value of V Power. To say it's garbage without showing us why it's garbage is just an opinion.

 

As SVTCOUPLE alluded to it is not necessarily where we get our oil from that contributes the most to why the price is high. It is a factor in the price equation as far as where we may get our oil but not nearly as big a factor as the fact that this country has not built a new refinery in over 20 to 30 years.

Our current refinery capacity is operating at about 98% which means if just a few refineries had a major problem and had to shut down for even a week then that location would see a huge price increase. It’s called supply and demand. The demand is high and the supply is at 98%.

Another very big factory is the EPA and the different states as well as cities within states requiring different blends of fuels to meet their air quality standards. When a refinery has to make many different blends to meet these requirement it cost US the consumer MORE money.

You could break down the cost of fuel into 3 distinctive groups, Oil companies/refineries, EPA, and Federal/local/state taxes. Yes many of the times it is the oil companies that take the blunt of the criticism for high prices but the EPA is just as equally guilty for high prices. Not to mention that environmentalist do NOT want us to be dependant on our own oil supplies we have, we can not drill as we need to and the environmentalist have made us dependant on foreign oil.

Not saying we should not have good air quality but you are paying for it and your paying for the fact that environmentalist will NOT allow new refineries to be built. You think gas prices are bad now just wait the only way prices are going is UP!

You want to have an affect at lowering prices at the pump then lobby your state to build new refineries and to limit the unnecessary different blend requirements for different regions.

 

To add a little to that, the number of blends are staggering and when demand outstrips supplies in a specific region another region can't step in and take up the slack because their blend is different so we pay more. We have cheap gas here in the US, I remember paying about $5.00 a gallon in England and that was in 1981 ! and unless we build more refineries or standardise blends across the country we are going to pay a lot more.

 

European tax is some 75-85 % on gasoline, 50-60 % on diesel and 30-70 % on light fuel oils

here in the states its less than 15 % tax, (depends which state you live in)

 

Never really paid much attention to the tax rate back then. A bit off topic but when I was in England they had a garden hose tax, and TV tax with color TVs costing more than BW. They had trucks that would drive around the neighborhood and check to see if you paid your TV tax.

 

Sounds like they use thier taxs dollars as wisely as the U.S. gov. What did they do if you hadn't paid to upgrade to color?

 

Fined, I also had a natural gas meter you put coins in.

 

MI. is around 25% it sucks