Top Tier Gas
 

I just saw this linked on another forum, and I thought you guys and gals might find this of interest. With all the crappy gas that's out there, and the considerable damage it can do to our X5s, it's nice to know that there's an organization that assures some level of quality control:

Top Tier Gasoline

There is a list of recommended gas retailers on the site, along with a full explantion of what they look for.

I saw that list. QuickTrip is my station of choice here in the ATL.

Glad to see Shell is on that list.

Be cautious when thinking of Top Tier as a quality standard. In my opinion, it isn't.

Top Tier was set up to combat a specific issue, that of deposits forming on intake valves and fuel injectors due to insufficient fuel additives. This was some years back, and fuel companies were saving money by cutting back on detergents and other additives.

Top Tier establishes a minimum standard around the performance of deposit control additives, but it does not at all address other common fuel quality issues. Top Tier gas is arguably just as likely as any other to be the wrong octane rating, to have water in it, to have sediment in it, or to have the wrong amount of ethanol. All of the above issues cause problems with drivability.

Top Tier mandates a minimum 8% ethanol content. It depends on where you live and what the local regulations are, but where I live there is not a 10% requirement on each litre or gallon of gasoline, just a certain % requirement on all gasoline sold by a company. Consequently, Chevron can sell some fuel at 5%, some at 10%, and some with no ethanol, as long as it averages out to the minimum federal standard. The Top Tier gasolines have the most ethanol, in that example. You can guess that I avoid those, because I think ethanol is a bigger problem (for me, and my BMW) than combustion chamber deposits, given that all of the fuels I use have good deposit control additives.

Effective dense marketing and persuasion for the 'better gas in my car' guys, though...;)

The 'top tier' deal comes up on the JukeBox a couple times a year on this, and almost any car board.

Hope all is well in BC, J. :thumbup:
BR, mD

Well this week was the first time I saw this. But I think in certain areas, the quality of the gas that is available is a real concern. All three of the gas stations in my small town get their gas delivered by generic tankers. I know the owners of all three, and I'm pretty sure the price of delivered fuel is their only consideration. So if Top Tier Fuel is invalid, I'm back to square one.

It isn't invalid, it is just incomplete as a spec. Buy from name brand stations that have reasonable volumes, avoid ethanol if you can, and if you have drivability problems add a bottle of Techron twice a year.

I thought that ethanol percentage had to be listed?
The two stations that we use, Quik Trip and a national truck stop chain with 93 octane, do -not- list ethanol on the pump, do I understand you to say that they -do- have ethanol and just don't list it?

In other words, we chose Quik Trip (midwest) since it is very difficult to avoid ethanol in ethanol-ville, and we -thought- that their 91 octane was ethanol free. The truck-stop is not brand affiliated, but seemed to be the only ethanol-free 93 octane in our area.

When our gas mileage improved on the 93 octane, we thought we were golden (finally).

Labelling regulations vary by jurisdiction. Even then, pump labels aren't necessarily accurate. Ethanol is added locally and can vary load to load. Only way to know the ethanol content is to check it.

Around here, it is very common to see a sign on a pump that says "May contain up to 10% Ethanol by volumn." I'm not positive, but I think that disclaimer is on 100% of gas pumps in our area, regardless of brand. But I've never seen a sign indicating a particular percentage.