BP Gas & Alcohol Content

[majik2k5]

I have a friend who sold me my Talon that's going to College for Automotive Engineering, and I'm a bit curious.

A few weeks ago he warned me not to run BP gas. According to his instructor, BP gasoline can contain almost 75% more alcohol than other high octane gasses. Which in turn, can give you the worst gas mileage ever.

However, is gas mileage was a big concern to me, I wouldn't have bought a TSi Talon. I was wondering if this higher alcohol content could also make your car run better when you run it? It seems logical, but his instructor never actually gave anyone a clear answer to it.

Any thoughts?

 

[kronix0420]

with alcohol in the gas, it makes your mileage way worse like 10mpg down from any other gas

 

[gthompson97]

i'm not sure if i believe that or not. if that was the case and people knew about it, nobody would run BP gas and they would eventually go out of business. i'm calling BS. i use BP and see the same amout of mileage with them as any other brand.

 

[drivemusicnow]

oh wow... Just wondering, what school does your friend go to? (for all others take this reference as a good school to NOT go to)

I really don't know if i'm wording this correctly, however alcohol has approximately half of the "energy" that gasoline does. Because of this, it takes approximately double the amount of fuel for the same amount of air.

As for BP putting more alcohol (its actually ethanol, and as I'm from IL, all fuels contain approx 10% ethanol as it comes from corn and IL has a huge corn industry) Thats BS. The only REAL difference between BP gas, and Shell gas, and Ma and Pop gas station, and Joe-Bobs Gas-o-line etc are the additives, and even then, depending on demand and such they can be the same.

Oh, and lets look at this logically for a second or two. If everytime you put BP gas you got horrible gas mileage, how many times would it take before you realized this... and stopped putting BP gas in your car? Also, if this happened, wouldn't it be fairly common knowledge to everyone? Hell, perform your own test. All it takes is 2 tanks of gas.

 

[bloody_angel111]

i use bp gas, i guess i dont exactly have good mileage, but i guess its because i have a cel for the o2 sensor, so im sure thats where the low gas mileage comes from, but i worked with a guy who worked in the fuel industry or something, and he said that, out of all the fuel places out there, bp and exxon are the best to use beause they have the least amount of crap in them that clog up your fuel filter and whatnot, so i just stick with bp

 

[Zero Banger]

My car is very finicky about the kind of gas it likes, the rotary crowd likes the chevron stuff because of its reportedly better consistency.

I also have a friend with a 2002 Benze, and the dealership also recommends chevron gas as well.

I have read a lot of debates on the issue, but never anything that was convincing on the merits of one fuel “brand” over the other.

From what I take from talking to supposedly people in the industry, is that fuels are fairly strict in what content and restrictions are on it, and that additives are the only measurable differences.



Does anyone have a good link explaining the finites of fuel more indepth, something from a very reputable source hopefully?

 

[1LE]

I hate the 10% alcohol. I dropped from 33mpg to 30mpg on my daily driver when it came about. So, in essence the 10% alcohol part just lines the pockets of the oil companies and does nothing to make my car go forward. On my daily driver it makes it knock too, had to go from 87 to 93 octane when they started adding that junk into our gas here, so now I'm paying even more to get worse gas mileage than I was.

The claim is that it's better for the environment and so on, but if it's just waste, I don't see how that's possible.

 

[DubV]

Here's a nice write up on bad gas and the consquences. It says that 85% of gas offered to the public only has one-tenth the recommened amount of additives.

http://www.aa1car.com/library/us10325.htm

 

[Defiant]

I have a friend who sold me my Talon that's going to College for Automotive Engineering, and I'm a bit curious.

How in the hell is your car going to pay tuition?