Gasoline Brands - Not all are alike

Are you guys aware that Honda recommends only using "Top Tier" gas in
their cars? Same goes for Toyota, BMW and GM. It has to do with the
amount of detergent additives. Here's an excerpt from Car and Driver
magazine.

"Gasoline is gasoline whether you're in Florida or California, right?
Wrong. There are different concentrations of elements like sulfur, for
example, that change the chemical composition of a batch of gasoline.
Since it's not known what causes these deposits, gasoline retailers
can't be penalized for selling defective fuel. So to keep the deposits
from forming in the engines, you need detergents added to the fuel.
But how do you know which brands have the right kinds of detergents
and additives to keep your injectors clean? Until recently, that was a
tough question to answer, but in 2004, representatives from BMW,
General Motors, Honda, and Toyota got together to specify what makes a
good fuel.
They called their agreed-on standard "Top Tier" and published it for
the various gasoline retailers to voluntarily meet. So far, eight
companies currently sell gas that meets the Top Tier standard."

If you want to see the entire article, go to
http://www.caranddriver.com/features/columns/c_d_staff/larry_webster/your_car_is_a_temple_so_put_in_the_good_stuff_column/(page)/1

In my research on this, I read somewhere that when the federal govt.
adopted minimum standards for gasoline, some vendors dropped their
standard to meet the federal minimums. Around that time, the Top-Tier
designation arose.

I just checked with the service manager at my local Honda dealer. He
was definite in his endorsement of using only Top-Tier gas.

There are some who don't think much of this "top tier" designation,
but if the auto manufacturers are recommending this, I'll listen to
the experts. Times have changed, and so I guess has the old notion
that "all gas is the same".

 

The link pretty much repeats this post. Links in the link lie. There seems
to not be a www.toptiergas.com
Park you mouse on that link and IE will tell you it really points to
caranddriver.com. No info on gasoline.
Looks like some bogus PR to me.

 

Yeah, it's disappeared--archive.org knows, and there's a Wikipedia entry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Tier_Detergent_Gasoline

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.toptiergas.com

I don't know why the web site disappeared.

Anyway, fact: Shell gas was cheaper for me to run than grocery store
gas in an older car I drove. Does that extrapolate to all Top Tier
gasolines? I don't know.

 

Technically, it hasn't really disappeared. The DNS table still has an "A"
record for www.toptiergas.com at 69.20.125.210.

The site might just be down temporarily, I don't know.

Interestingly, toptiergas.com is a domain registered by General Motors
Corporation.

I've really wondered about the whole "Top Tier gas" thing.

I know Honda is one of the proponents, but I can't help wondering if it's
1) marketing, or 2) part of a "belt and suspenders" approach to emissions
warranty-claim avoidance, or something else.

I even called Imperial Oil (ExxonMobil's Canadian subsidiary) to ask why
they don't offer a "Top Tier" grade, and received no real answer.

However, last time I checked, "Top Tier" fuel standards required the use of
a certain amount of ethanol; gas with less than that was ineligible for
"Top Tier" rank. ExxonMobil uses as little ethanol as possible.

 

Hmmm,
No kidding, Eh?

 

No. I'm not kidding. I'm glad that some here have apparently done some
additional checking and I see that some here don't believe the "top-
tier" pitch. That echos what I've found when I tell my friends. Some
want to know more, others outright dismiss the notion that all gas is
not equal.

There is good reason to be skeptical, EXCEPT that the manufacturers
themselves RECOMMEND Top-Tier gas. Now, that COULD be due to a
clandestine marketing agreement between auto manufacturers and
gasoline retailers. BUT, if that is the case, wouldn't there be some
advertising? For example, I heard that FORD recommends only BP gas. In
fact, that recommendation is printed right on the Ford gas caps. That
clearly sounds like a marketing agreement to me.

I'm not trying to convince anyone here to buy Top-Tier gas. Instead, I
offered some at best "important information regarding proper car
care", and at worst "much ado about nothing". From what I've read here
so far, there is nothing to convince me of the latter.

Too bad there is so little information on this at least potentially
important topic. I'll stop back here from time to time to see if there
is anything new. In the meanwhile, I'll pay for the piece of mind and
limit my cars to Top-Tier gas.

 

That's for sure.

To me, the whole thing smells faintly "off". Maybe it's all perfectly
above-board, but the relative lack of information (and participation) after
five long years has me wondering.

www.toptiergas.com is still down. Very weird.

ExxonMobil gas is not rated as "Top Tier" likely only because the "Top
Tier" standard requires more ethanol than Exxon is willing to use. Even if
Exxon fuels had more effective detergents than anybody else, you'd never
know, since they don't qualify for consideration in any case.

And what about Valero? Valero is America's largest gasoline refiner, and
they even operate their own retail stations. They're not "Top Tier" either.

What makes me more curious than anything else is why, after five years,
have Ford, Chrysler, Subaru, Suzuki, Mazda, Nissan, Hyundai, Mercedes, and
Volkswagen/Porsche/Audi _not_ jumped on the "Top Tier" bandwagon?

 

Hmm on that last point. I thought that ethanol was bad for many cars,
or at least certain rubber components. I remember in our '96 cars
seeing the warning to not use more than 10% ethanol and that the E85
cars have to have some serious mods to them (else why make the big
deal).
--

- dillon I am not invalid

"Jimmy, I'm sorry your girlfriend turned out
to be a cylon."
-Special Agent Tim McGee, "NCIS"

 

In Chicago (maybe all of IL) all gas has 10% ethanol including Mobil.
For what it is worth, I had an '86 Integra that ran on regular gas.
After years of filling up at mostly one Mobil station, the car
developed a knock on acceleration. I believe that this was caused by
carbon build up in the head/valves. This is exactly the problem that
more detergent is intended to remedy.

Certainly right to be skeptical of anything big corporations do. The
one thing that makes me think the Top Tier designation is legit is
that by accounts it is a published standard that any fuel company
could choose to meet.

 

Who publishes this "standard"? ISO? ANSI? SEMA? SAE?

And, to quote a pretty neat movie, "if everyone's special, no one's
special".
--

- dillon I am not invalid

"Jimmy, I'm sorry your girlfriend turned out
to be a cylon."
-Special Agent Tim McGee, "NCIS"

 

the site is back up.

I'm pretty sure all grades of gas must meet Top Tier standards for the
brand to get Top Tier approval.

 

Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage

 

no, it's not. They've mapped toptiergas.com to AC Delco's site.

still no sign of the actual toptiergas.com content...

 

It appears back to normal. No connection to AC Delco's site.

Very little info at all, except that VW now appears to be part of the
consortium. But still not Ford, Chrysler, Subaru, Suzuki, Mazda, Nissan,
Hyundai or Mercedes.

 

Excerpt from the standards page:

"The base fuel shall conform to ASTM D 4814 and shall contain commercial
fuel grade ethanol conforming to ASTM D 4806...Contain enough denatured
ethanol such that the actual ethanol content is no less than 8.0 and no
more than 10.0 volume percent..."
This, I suspect, is Exxon's issue. Ethanol wrecks the equipment and
requires expensive handling prior to retail. And the more ethanol the worse
the problem.

The site makes a big deal about the reduction in concentration of detergent
additives, but it seems to make no acknowledgement of the possibility that
additives may not need to be bulky to be effective. No particular additives
are specified.

 

It appears back to normal. No connection to AC Delco's site.[/QUOTE]

huh, still AC Delco's site here.

I'll wait for the router tables to update, I guess.

 

huh, still AC Delco's site here.

I'll wait for the router tables to update, I guess.
[/QUOTE]



What IP address were you getting?

toptiergas.com is 69.20.102.218
acdelco.com is 170.224.60.163

Both are registered by GM, though...

 

well, that's what my lookup shows.

Hang on, let me try my virtual XP machine.

Nope. So it's not a local cache, it's a remote cache or a router
problem.

 

FF. Safari. Opera. Chrome.
--

- dillon I am not invalid

"Jimmy, I'm sorry your girlfriend turned out
to be a cylon."
-Special Agent Tim McGee, "NCIS"

 

It is described in detail at the top tier site. It is their standard
but it references ASTM methods.

In this case, not everyone chooses to be special. In any event, their
is no indication that the standard requires payment of any licensing
fees which is the real issue.