Upcharge for Premium Gas

Noticed this as well when the Camaro came out of hibernation a few weeks ago. FWIW, my experience matches mad_machine's in that power/mileage is noticeably affected running regular vs premium.

Here in the Chicago area the price step from reg. to mid. to prem. was $0.10 for many years but over the past 5-6 years I've noticed the spread grow to 0.15 then .020 and now some stations have a step of $0.30! I've seen a few that were still larger but they are rare. Of course for the past 2 1/2 years I haven't purchased gas except for my lawn mower/snow blower and tow van. My DD is a diesel! I'm on the fence on getting a tow van that's diesel.

Up here it's 15-20 cents per litre, which translates to 60-80 cents per US gallon!!

The Delta here is between $.40 and $.75. Refualar is seldom more than 3 or 4 cents different so I've had to start paying more attention to the Delta than the price on the sign. $.35 a gallon on 20ish gallons a week is enough to autocross on.

Beer Baron wrote: What the heck is up with this lately? It used to be that you paid an extra 0.10/gal for midgrade and 0.20/gal for premium. Now that's up to 0.20 for mid and 0.40 for premo. I've even seen stations with a 0.70 or 0.80 upcharge on premo. I could understand that when gas prices were pushing $4/gallon, but they're hovering around $2/gal now. When the heck are they going to drop prices back to sanity levels?

Eh. The station I favor is generally .60-70 over now but $2.70 per gallon for 93 is still phenomenally cheap so who cares?

I remember a few years back... okay a lot of years back, I was getting gas at the Pilot at the intersection of I-71 and I-76, and a bimbette apparently from Columbus (sorry, if you are blond, apparently in your 20s, and driving a Suburban, you have achieved bimbette status) was FURIOUSLY angrishing on her phone with, apparently, her husband in Columbus, complaining loudly and at great length about how premium was 30 cents per gallon more than 87 instead of back home where it was 20 cents more.

I'm thinking, you are driving a $70k truck that literally is worth more than any house in my neighborhood, and you're bitching about a percoeved sleight on your honor because your top-up is going to cost an extra two dollars. Entitled SOB. (DOB?)

Anyway, $2.70 for 93 is pretty dang good. I remember $4.50 per when feeding my Golf, which also loved the premium. C16 is $18/gallon, glad my cars don't need that.

Some people smoke crack. Some do cocaine. I have a high-octane monkey on my back. I guess it's cheap by comparison.

it varies here in South East Michigan, but around my house it about .70 more per gallon. With 87 at 2.10 and premuim at 2.80 thats 33% more to fill the tank! When 87 was $4, premiun was around $4.40, only 10% more.

In my current car shopping fuel economy is a factor, but what ever I get will have to be happy with 87 octane. guess I'm not buying anything "fun".

In southeastern PA premium is usually 40 cents more. I'm in northern VA this weekend at the WV border, and all of the stations have premium at 60 cents more than regular, from $1.95 to $2.55.

I never really pay attention to the "premium" premium because my Accord sips the 87 swill and the Mazda3 I had was bought specifically because it got 40mpg on the "cat piss" as well. But now that I read this I will certainly pay attention to it.

I suspect that cheap crude oil eating profits and creatively adjusted fuel costs are not a coincidence.

My wife and I earn pretty well by most any metric, but paying 25k or more for a car then having to fill with premium gas is.. not my cup of tea. I will have to ve sure to thank my frugal parents.

I've been noticing this as well--in my area, 93 is usually ~50 cents/gal more than 87. It's annoying as 3/4 of my fleet (well, 3/4 of the running fleet) takes 93.

I'd love to tune my Supercoupe to run on E85 instead. But I can buy a lot of 93 for what it would cost to do so.

An extra 13 cents per liter for 91 octane.

You go ahead and do the math yourselves.

filled up the disco tonight on the way home..

1.95 for 87 octane
2.35 for 89 octane
2.55 for 92 octane

I noticed it but shrugged. The MS3 only takes California's crappy 91 13 gallons at a time so it's only an extra 3 bucks or so a week.

About the same price a Starbucks cappa crappa frappa mocha sugary thing and provides me with more of a thrill.

mtn wrote: I'd been noticing it here in Chicago. I only fill up about 2 gallons at a time though; usually my wife fills up on the way home from work at Costco which is the cheapest often enough that we don't bother paying attention to the prices.

Putting two gallons of premium seems like a waste, how much of whatever the previous patron bought is still in the hose and machine?

I run premium in my lawn equipment/go karts/etc but always top off my car first.

chandlerGTi wrote:

mtn wrote: I'd been noticing it here in Chicago. I only fill up about 2 gallons at a time though; usually my wife fills up on the way home from work at Costco which is the cheapest often enough that we don't bother paying attention to the prices.

Putting two gallons of premium seems like a waste, how much of whatever the previous patron bought is still in the hose and machine?

Very little. Had this discussion with a worker in the exciting field of gas pump workings, and the figure is far less than a pint. The switching valve is up in the pump itself close to the hose outlet.

My favorite was my first employer's dad (the former owner of the business, who still hung around the place from boredom) who told me that buying premium was a ripoff because it all comes from the same pump. I don't know if he thought that there was only one underground tank, or if there was like 15 gallons of pipe between the switching valve and the nozzle, or what.

And now I wonder if this is why Sunoco stations tended to have a separate nozzle for every grade, or a separate nozzle for 94 at stations that carried 94/92/89/87/86. Just to make people feel better.

(Also? I miss the smell of 94. Smelled a little like race gas)

This thread made me realize that, between the RX-7 being perpetually broken and my Quantum being dead, I have almost exclusively bought 92/93 octane since November 2014. It's going to be weird when the RX-7 is running again and I get sticker shock at how cheap the fuel is. Ignoring the $3-5 worth of two cycle oil that gets dumped in with every tank of fuel, of course.

It'll be like, "I get change back from $20? What a country! Sell me some more of those overpriced frozen burritos and $3 energy drinks!"

Knurled wrote: My favorite was my first employer's dad (the former owner of the business, who still hung around the place from boredom) who told me that buying premium was a ripoff because it all comes from the same pump. I don't know if he thought that there was only one underground tank, or if there was like 15 gallons of pipe between the switching valve and the nozzle, or what. And now I wonder if this is why Sunoco stations tended to have a separate nozzle for every grade, or a separate nozzle for 94 at stations that carried 94/92/89/87/86. Just to make people feel better. (Also? I miss the smell of 94. Smelled a little like race gas)

I worked at a gas station in college (you are not allowed to pump your own in NJ) and we had three separate tanks underground. One for each grade of fuel. And yes, the tanker filled each one from a different hose.

Those were "fun" days.. sunday in the summer, we could get filled twice by the tanker, yes, we went through over 20,000 gallons of gas in a shift as all the tourists topped up before leaving for home. Made for a very quick shift

87-92/3 is a 40 cent spread here....

I'm glad E85 came to town, even if it is more expensive per equivalent gallon/mile to petrol. It will work out great if I ever put that turbo kit on the 'Burb.

Ranger50 wrote: I'm glad E85 came to town, even if it is more expensive per equivalent gallon/mile to petrol. It will work out great if I ever put that turbo kit on the 'Burb.

Now there's a topic for discussion. E85 prices seem to be all over the map. In some places it is practically free compared to gasoline. The only place I drive by that has E85 listed on their signboard has it at no more than 10 cents cheaper than 87, and frequently the same price.

I'd feel better buying it in drums from VP, anyway.

And speaking of altfuels... a lot of CNG stations were popping up before the rise of ISIS forced the Saudis to put oil production up to ludicrous speed. Now that gasoline is silly-cheap, the CNG stations are all half-unfinished and the existing pumps are empty. Which sucks for us because we were getting geared up to do commercial CNG conversions right before the oil pricing broke, and a $10k CNG conversion makes sense when gasoline is $3.50 and CNG is $.80 per gallon-equivalent and you can refill at your depot from the existing natural gas infrastructure.

I think of E85 as cheap race fuel and CNG as cheap road fuel. If I had a truck, I'd have a dual fuel CNG setup.

In reply to Knurled:

I would love to use VP all the time but even the "cheap swill" from them is way over current pump prices....

This is my closest, and cheapest, place to get everything needed.

Unleaded Plus Premium E-85

2.059 2.309 2.559 1.659

Sucks it's only a 40 cent difference from 87 to e85, but oh well. Wife hates it because she doesn't go as far, but damn if you don't buy it, it will go away, especially around this black hole.

While looking for current VP E85 pricing, I was shocked to find that a five gallon can of "4 cycle small engine fuel" is almost $80.

Wow, they are raking in a lot of money from the anti-E10 loonies.

On a related note, I just filled up our TDI this morning. $2.05/gallon for diesel and $2.09 for 87. I was shocked to see diesel cheaper than 87!

Back on topic, I've noticed the spread too. My M3 takes 93 and it's been $0.50 to $0.70/gallon more than 87 lately.

I help out at a station every now,and then and it only has two tanks. 87 and 93. The mid grade is blended at the pump. What I have been told is that the 93 has a much better additive package versus the 87. It is the cost of the additives that contribute to the disproportionate price jump.

No idea if this is true.

More on the additives that I was told by the station owner. Additive packages differed from brand to brand. But can be supplied by any supplier. They just have to mix it in the tanker at the supply depo.

I have a car that uses 87, and it gets good mpg, but I still seek out the cheapest gas possible. I have not bought cars because of premium gas requirements (I almost bought a WRX in 2002).

In reply to slowride:

When 87 was $3.99 and 93 was $4.50, I did some economy testing with my VW Golf (Digifant car - 10:1 1.8l 8v with electronic engine control) and found that the fuel economy increase on 93 more than made up for the expense of the fuel. I forget the exact numbers but I remember that it was mid-30s on 87 and 42+ mpg on 93. So I fed it premium!

I tried the same test on my next VW (8:1 10v with dumb engine control - no knock sensing) and fuel economy didn't change. So I tried going the other way, putting cetane enhancer in with 87 to increase flame speed Fuel economy did increase (went from around 22-24 to 26mpg) but it was almost exactly cancelled out by the price of the cetane enhancer, so I stopped bothering.

Octane and flame travel speed are not really related to each other, in fact a lot of super high octane fuels burn faster than low octane. Cetane enhancers make the fuel burn quicker but can also reduce octane so it's not something to try unless you have a detonation resistant engine, like say a low compression engine with peak torque around 2800 but geared to cruise at 3500-4000...