zulujams

You must be bouncing off the walls waiting for your new ride to get here!

IvanS4

It has nothing to do with the environmentalists - it's big corn growers wanting to sell government subsidized corn-based ethanol which is a losing proposition for everyone except the farming conglomerates. http://www.gimme-five.com/2007/06/et...corn-is-worse/

IvanS4

For what it's worth, I only fill up with Shell or Mobil. At least Shell has a tie to Stop & Shop points so you can take up to $.30 per gallon off.

troposphere

totally true.

Goony

Yup.......put an end to subsidizing the ethanol crap, lowering my fuel economy, and driving up food costs as a result.

smurfster

Received BJ's seeming standard response about their gas, while it is still an unknown supplier they apparently do contain additives:

"Thank you for contacting BJ'S Member Care with your inquiry.

Depending on the trade area, BJ'S buys unbranded gasoline from many different suppliers, be they national brand refiners or smaller independent refiner/suppliers. Though BJ'S purchases from many sources to maintain our low prices, please be assured that BJ'S gas maintains the strict quality guideline established by the Federal Government's Environmental Protection Agency. At all times, though, BJ'S gas maintains the strict quality guidelines established by the federal government's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). We sell 87 Octane Regular Unleaded and 93 Octane Premium Unleaded. BJ'S gasoline contains all detergent additives required by EPA guidelines."

the_duke

While ethanol does reduce fuel economy it does the exact opposite for performance. Ethanol raises the octane of fuel and burns cooler allowing more aggressive spark timing which in turn makes more power. In older vehicles it can cause problems because it dissolves certain kinds of rubber. All newer cars are built to deal with ethanol so no issues. My boat (1968) always gets ethanol free. My cars get top tier ethanol blended fuel.

Here's a handy site for top tier fuels:
Licensed Brands | Top Tier Gas

DrGP

Just buy the Techron and put it in yourself if you are worried.

bandersen

Costco is Tier 1...and have always used (93 here) for the S4 and X5...but - DrGP is right...I usually thrown in a bottle of Techron....or the Luboly cleaning product every few months.

HBarlow

That is not true. Ethanol produces less power per unit than gasoline reducing engine performance. Ethanol costs more to produce and produces less power. There would probably not be a single gallon of ethanol produced if tax payer subsidies were ended.

EDIT: My phone started ringing as I wrote the above so didn't have time to complete the thought.

Ethanol produces far less energy than gasoline so fuel economy and power are reduced. Your statement could be theoretically correct but in the real world it's not true.

Consider a modern high performance gas engine requiring 89 octane gas. Burning ethanol that engine produces lowered fuel economy and reduced performance compared to gas. IF the owner could advance his ignition timing he might be able to improve performance and overcome the loss of power caused by ethanol but he can't actually advance ignition timing because his engine is computer controlled. An ECM manages ignition timing.

Perhaps the owner could advance ignition timing and regain lost horsepower on a high performance gas V8 of the late '50s through about 1970 if the compression ratio was high enough to take advantage of advanced ignition timing. Ignition timing was manually controlled by rotating the distributor back then. Not today.