do you guys know if octane boosters or other gas treatments that you buy from autozone significantly help your car? i feel like i'm just dumping money b/c i can't seem to tell the difference.
If your car is knocking or pinging after uses 92 or 93 octane (supreme) then it might help, but it's expensive to do with every fillup. Usually you use that stuff to clean out your fuel injectors etc. The short answer: if your car is running well then no they won't help anything.
i don't use supreme, i just stick to the regular. my car is running fine. i just wasn't too sure if i was wasting money on it. i don't do it every fillup though.
I do it every couple of months just to clean the injectors and such...However, one of the reasons gas prices are higher is because of the new ethanol gas blend... Apparently this new blend burns cleaner (less pollution), but more expensive...I filled up and drove to Houston this weekend and I swear I got better gas mileage than I did in the past...
The higher the octane, the more stable the gas. Octane helps prevent detonation, which is combustion of gas when it's not supposed to be combusting. If you are running 87 octane and there is no "pinging" under acceleration, you should be fine. I've heard that 93 octane in a car designed for 87 octane actually makes the car feel sluggish because of not getting a full burn in the chambers.
Ethanol production is way behind demand - driving the price up. Gas companies are using ethanol because MTBE was prohibited by the EPA. I assume that some additional increase in price is due to the government refusing to grant indemnity to the companies for any contamination lawsuits brought forward regarding MTBE seeping into groundwater.
My brother in law says that the individual stations put the octane in the gas and not the gas companies, and there have been a few shady stations that don't put the octane in the high octane pumps, but charge the higher octane prices anyways. He said that he knew a guy that owned a gas station that did this. Is there any truth to this?
Octane isn't added to gas, it is gas. Gas is essentially a blend of two hydrocarbons, octane which has 8 carbon atoms and heptane which has 7 carbon atoms. Octane is able to stand pressure while Heptane is unstable under pressure and will explode. It is possible that they are putting lower octane gas in pumps selling higher octane gas, but unless they have a refinery hidden somewhere they aren't altering the content of the gas other than by mixing existing blends.
OK, so my brother in law is a dumbass...well, he's from Kentucky, which is pretty much the same thing.
My family is from Kentucky and has a rich history of fighting for this country since the Revolutionary War. I currently have family members fighting, so you can sit at your computer and stereotype your ass off.
I will continue to stereotype my ass off as soon as you explain what exactly being in the military has to do with being a dumbass...
Just so I understand you correctly... You're saying that you will continue as soon as I explain why? This makes as much sense as your initial comment. Perhaps you meant to say that you will continue, until I explain why? And you're calling people from the state of Kentucky dumbasses? There is nothing you can say to justify your comments, so we'll just leave it at that.
I swear, nobody appreciates a bad joke any more, I guess that big grinned smiley wasn't good enough. Of course, you wouldn't have gotten so offended if you didn't think it was a little bit true, right? Anyways, I apologize, fair sir, if I offended you, your family members, or any person that was born, raised, or related to somebody born and raised in the all glorious state of Kentucky. ...oh yeah, and you still didn't explain what serving in the military has to do with being a dumbass.
Detonation. The gas exploding in the combustion chamber when it is not supposed to. Not good for the valves.
Fair enough. I'll just say that A-Train is a dumbass. Come to think of it, you're right. That's pretty damn funny. My family appreciates what we have, just as you might. My family will fight for what we have, just as you might. They have, because they are giving, caring, and just as patriotic as anyone else in this country. My family doesn't see the humor when someone gets insulted. If someone came out of nowhere and insulted you, I might tell them to back off. Not because I am standing up for you, but because it's just not the right thing to do. Before you classify a large number of people as dumbasses, remember that there might be a number of people on this board that live there. My apologies for side-tracking this thread.
Sorry for the distraction. I have recently heard the valves in my truck rattling, because I started using regular unleaded when the prices went up. If I put super unleaded in, you can't notice it. My truck is only 4 years old, so I'm thinking about adding something to clean the injectors. I'm listening to the responses just as you might. I just got distracted.
