Huey52

I had pretty much boycotted same in favor of Mobil and Shell, but had to stop by this morning and was pleasantly surprised that they're now Top Tier as well. Not so pleasant price per gallon these days however.

grey67

Redd

Mobil and Shell have been TopTier members for a long time, and that should apply to their national distribution not just locally. The TopTier web site will list all the members. Basically, it just means the members have been tested and meet the standard for high detergency and octane (octane being a federal and state regulatory issue anyway) and they've paid their bucks for the marketing campaign. I often find there are Shell and Mobil stations that are among the cheapest--if you look around for them. In prime locations, not so much, but there are usually some out there. "Clean" might just mean no low end fractions in there, but I've never seen anything specific about that. Or about how TT compares to gasoline in general. Even Costco's pumps went TopTier a while ago.

Huey52

Mobil in particular has been known as the "detergent gasoline" since I was a kid (long time!) but it's good to see an additive standard has been set and more producers getting on board. Ironically it comes at a time when direct injection is becoming more common and that detergent isn't therefore able to clean the intake valves as it used to do.

Redd

A good point, and "intake manifold crud" blamed on oil from PCV valves seems to be the bigger concern these days (even if debated) but remember the fuel injectors of all kinds are prone to gums and clogging, they need routine servicing in gas or diesel applications. So in theory a high-detergent fuel of either kind will allow for longer servicing on the injectors.

And while all the greenies and governments talk about going all electric in ten or twenty years...Unless they figure out a way to deploy charging stations in the urban areas where 85?% of the US lives, we're going to see dino-fuel cars around for a lot longer than that.

Huey52

HHO carbon cleaning system is intriguing.

Redd

I see a big blank where I think you linked something from an outside site? (3rd party links & active scripting blocked here as a security issue.)

HHO = H2O = Water. Plain water superheats into steam and cleans engines very well. Sometimes too well. Old mechanics used to pour in yesterday's coffee to blow out carbon in engines. SeaFoam does the same thing, but adds some light machine oil and naphtha (gasoline base stock) at the same time, to re-lube the cylinder walls as the steam scours all the lubricant off them pretty much instantly.

Huey52

Yes, effectively steam cleaning. The Brit's in particular have been using these HHO systems for some time. I haven't seen any advertised in my area, with dealers doing it ol' school by hand carbon scraping (labor intensive = very expensive).