Exxon because of the .20/gal Safeway discount, and Shell because of the .15/gal T-Mobile discount.

:-)

I don't see any point in using more than 87 octane in an unmodified fit.

 

None of the pumps in my area have a "Top Tier" label on them. However the Top Tier web site lists which brands are top tier. Also, at my local Exxon station I saw a sign that said Premium had twice as much detergent as regular.

 

I would go by the Top Tier list, and not worry about a sticker on the pump.

 

Wow.
Yeah, thanks for making me appreciate my Fit.
Fill ups right now are usually less than $30.

How long and far however can you go on that Truck fill up?

On one hand the smaller Honda Fit gas tanks make every fill up seem more economical.
But on the other hand I sometimes wish the tank had a larger capacity so I could drive further in between fill ups.

 

the small tank makes for weight savings as well. your 10.6 gal tank weighs much less than the 17.7 gals in my bmw/suv.

assuming you get 30+ mpg, you should get at least 300 miles per tank. its pretty good. my new dd is a bmw i3 (ev) and I need to charge it every 70-80 ish miles. if we add the gas tank/range extender, I can get like another 90 miles of range.... which makes it about 2x less than what a gk5 gets per tank

 

I have some ideas: buy a 2-gallon gas can and you'll be able to extend your fill-ups by 60 miles. And you'll get more than an hour extra, of highway driving.. There is a nice space above the spare tire, and below the styrofoam screecher, where a custom-molded gas tank might be placed. Just cut off the bottom part of the screecher and rest the remainder of the screecher on the custom molded tank. You might even be able to run a tube from it through the front wall of the spare tire well, and then into the main gas tank. Gravity alone would be able to pull gas from the custom-molded tank to the main tank.Or take out the styrofoam screecher altogether and make a plastic gas tank the same shape, to replace it. I'd bet it there is room for 5 gallons there. I hate that stupid screecher. You can't take it out without it making that irritating screech that it makes. Anywhere else we can place gas tanks?

 

Ah, now I know why you call it a screecher. Yes, it does screech.

As for the tank size, the weight of the car is figured into the EPA testing, so the lighter the car, the higher the EPA rating. When the MPG is averaged over the mileage for the entire range of cars made by a company, the difference can be substantial.

That's why I don't like seeing those big, heavy Flex Fuel vehicles on the road. They're cheating. They can use both gasoline and ethanol, so the manufacturer is given a break in the CAFE rules, even though most of those vehicles will never see a drop of ethanol. It's just a loophole. Ethanol is why I no longer buy corn on the cob - at 50¢ or more per ear. It's great for corn farmers and the politicians who get paid-off to pass the laws, but not for anyone else.

 

I normally buy the cheapest gas I can find. 86 octane is the norm here in Texas. There's absolutely no point using premium gas for a regular unleaded car unless your engine is carbon up.

 

I use ethanol free 89 from Wawa. or any other station with ethanol free. pure gas is pure gas.
the additives are the problem that destroy engines.

 

The additives are not the problem and modern cars operate just fine with ethanol blends.

 

Provided they don't sit. Ethanol greatly shortens the life of gasoline and can also cause the black goo/gel of death. No worries for regularly used cars, but it's a problem for vehicles, boats, motorcycles, lawn equipment, etc. that sit unused.

 

bingo! on that

 

Yeah, we lost a fuel pump to the black goo of ethanol in our Fit. Wasn't getting used regularly and....goo!

I, personally, HATE ethanol unless it's being used as E85 in high power applications. As E10, it only has negative results.

 

exactly! I try to tell people this but its a lost cause and I get like 5-7 miles more to the gallon

 

That might be exaggerated, but the studies show close a 3 - 4% reduction in fuel economy with E10. More with E15. That needs to be factored in when choosing fuel. Once you then look at the cost, fuel vs food issue, cost to bring to market, etc, there is literally nothing good about using ethanol instead of gasoline. Take away the government subsidies and it would cost more than pure fuel while taking away our farmland for producing food.

As I said, I'm not a fan.

 

Arco 87.
runs like a top.

 

I see considerations other than cost.

In the US we are really really good at growing grain, maize, wheat, rye, barley, rice, and oats, and at growing potatoes, all of which can be made into Russian vodka and Irish whiskey, and all of which, like natural gas, can enable us to be independent of foreign petroleum. In several southern states sugar can can be used. Sorghum can also be used. We have expertise at getting a high yield per acre. I think it is a good idea to be independent of foreign petroleum.

My understanding is that if lots of farmers are successful in growing large quantities, this lowers the market value, and creates a surplus. I don't know if governments are still doing this, but to keep the price up, governments used to pay farmers to limit their production. Perhaps a better solution might be to grow as much as one would like, not worry about having a huge surplus and its effect on lowering market value, and turn the extra, that can't be sold for human food and drink and for animal feed, into alcohol. No? These high-carbohydrate crops are also used in making medicines. Carbohydrate fermentation with selected microorganisms is used to produce a number of different drugs. While having a surpluss might not be good for profit-making, I think that it is good for human life. Also, grains an potatoes that are going to be made into fuel alcohol can be stored less expensively than those that are destined to be made into food or drink. Insect infestation, growth of bacteria and fungi, does not have to be as strictly avoided. This brings the cost of storage down and may be able to bring the price down. But even if the end consumer has to pay more than for gasoline, I think being energy self-sufficient is worth the extra labor and the extra expense. We have more than enough farm land. In western desert land the bottleneck is water. In mountain wilderness land the bottleneck is flatness. If you take a look at google earth, maize and rice look very similar from the air. In the US we see large tracks of maize on flat land. In Asia we see rice not only on flat land, but in the mountains, on terraces. There is very little of that kind of farming in the US. Why? Because we have more than enough flat land. We don't have to go through the extra work of building terraces on mountainsides. However to use automated systems on terraced land, we would need special machinery. I can't imagine that we don't have the ingenuity to design and manufacture that kind of machinery. And in most mountainous areas water is not a problem. There are rivers and streams and brooks and springs all over the place. But we would need to put considerable thought into how we are going to get good yield without nitrogen running off into rivers and streams. I would consider that to be a bigger bottleneck than having to deal with lumpy-bumpy-land. The trick is making the soil into a balanced ecosystem rather than mixing large quantities of nitrates or ammonia into the soil. This is nothing new. This is how it was done in Japan before the invention of Haber-process nitrogen. The reason rice fields were flooded was to encourage the growth of Azolla fern. Then, decomposing azolla fern provided nitrogen for the rice. Their rice yield was about 70% of that of modern agriculture using haber-process nitrogen.

Now, alcohol burns very very clean. I have been on boats where they had cooking stoves that burned gasoline, propane, and alcohol. Like the propane, alcohol could be burned indoors without the needed for dedicated ventilation. Not only was the smell very little, and not only was it not unpleasant, but I actually I kind of liked the way the burnt alcohol smelled. Gasoline, on the other hand, was horrid. Kerosene was not much better. Unlike propane bottled under pressure, which also had very little smell, the alcohol fuel tank was not normally pressurized. One only pressurized it when pressure was needed, which was just before one intended to use it. The stove had an integral hand-pump that was used to pressurize the alcohol. I loved the way that alcohol burned without leaving carbon black on the bottom of the cookware. Despite the extra effort of having to pressurize the tank by hand, that was my favorite stove.

 

As a scientist the only issue with the existing ethanol for fuel scheme is that it takes as much of this World's energy to produce that mole of CH3CH2OH than it does in the energy that 1 mole of ethanol contains. It's affordable in the US because we've taken our hard-earned tax money that could be used for good (subsidizing vegetable farming, lower healthcare costs, keep social security solvent) to shovel to agriculture and to the Petrochemical industry. We let it happen by doing nothing while our representatives listened to other interested parties.

 

And it has raised the price of an ear of corn beyond what I am willing to pay.

 

You two nailed it! There is nothing good about the current system.

From my understanding, it takes more equivalent energy just in diesel (farm equipment and transportation to market), than we get from the ethanol produced. So, in the end, it's a lose, lose, and lose for the consumer, vehicles, AND the environment. We are literally adding pollution by creating ethanol.

Remove the subsidies and the problem will go away.