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      07-20-2012, 09:09 PM   #23
Section147
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Originally Posted by Guildenstern View Post
...or more likely they didn't waste the money to be certified as a top tier.
I would suspect that's the case with the vast majority of the gasoline companies out there. While I won't debate your SCIENCE ,
because I have no doubt that you know what you're talking about, I've used nothing but Sunoco 93 or Costco Premium in my baby
since her delivery in March with nothing but great success. And I'm guessing that the fanatics at Costco are more attentive regarding
what goes into your tank from their pumps than most of the other refineries out there:

http://shop.costco.com/In-The-Wareho...ean-Power.aspx
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      07-20-2012, 09:19 PM   #24
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Originally Posted by Guildenstern View Post
, and really the only place ethanol belongs is in my belly, not my gas tank.
Agreed. And before the corn price went way up, I was burning a mix of corn (dried kernels) and wood in a pellet stove with significant savings. Unfortunately, thanks to the misguided push for increased ethanol consumption, corn is no longer anywhere being near cost effective for heat.

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      07-20-2012, 10:42 PM   #25
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Section147 View Post
I would suspect that's the case with the vast majority of the gasoline companies out there. While I won't debate your SCIENCE ,
because I have no doubt that you know what you're talking about, I've used nothing but Sunoco 93 or Costco Premium in my baby
since her delivery in March with nothing but great success. And I'm guessing that the fanatics at Costco are more attentive regarding
what goes into your tank from their pumps than most of the other refineries out there:
That depends on which refinery and which distributor they buy from. If you see a differently branded tanker filling up the underground tanks, assume you get whatever was the cheapest stuff on ordering day. The additive is added at the time of filling the underground tanks (technical powerpoint showing gas station stuff) I never had trouble with Sunoco, but stopped using them (except when I need gas on a trip then you do wut choo do) because of the ethanol. If it costs the same by volume as the all petrol stuff across the street but has only 98% of the energy, well.... I will say for my previous cars and the wife's I use GetGo when the fuel Perks rack up, and no car I've owned has ever been happy with it. Low mileage and crappy idle. I've even been able to tell when my wife fills up the car with Supermarket related gasoline just by driving it. It's really noticeable when the car is relatively under powered like our 4cyl outback.

I should mention again as Tom K. pointed out, this may vary from state to state. Ohio and some other states don't require labeling but some counties in those states do.
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      07-20-2012, 11:06 PM   #26
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Guildenstern View Post
Chevron and Shell are Top Tier Detergent gasoline, the stuff BMW recommends http://www.toptiergas.com/

While it's true all the gas comes from the same refinery distribution. What shell or Chevron does with it before it ends up in your tank, vs what costco or GetGo do is a difrent story.

Cheap gas usualy has little to no cleaning additives, may not be filtered or dried as thoroughly prior to showing up at the station, and most importantly cheap gas is "watered" down with the maximum government allowance of ethanol which is basically the High Fructose Corn Syrup of gasoline. (which coincidentally comes from corn!)

Ethanol retains water (un-like petrol it's water soluable) so it causes corrosion and damage to seals designed to only deal with petro products, the water can come out of solution due to temperature change and as the ethanol percentage changes and leave a puddle of water in your tank, and overall ethanol has lower energy. 1 gal of Ethanol has less energy in it than one gallon of un-blended gasoline. Gasoline has about 33.41 kWh per gallon of energy, whereas DRY ethanol has only 22.27 kWh per Gallon (it has even less energy per volume when there's water in solution with it.) At the federal max of reformulated ethanol blend (the cheap stuff *looking at you sunoco*) you end up with a liquid that only has 98.14% of the total energy of pure gasoline. And that's before you take into account the variations caused by different specific heats and how that effects engine efficiency etc... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_gallon_equivalent

Lower energy, and adverse engine efficiency properties means you need to burn more fuel to get the same performance. You may not notice it, but even to maintain freeway speed you are a little deeper on the throttle, and the engine is running a little richer. That adds up to lower mileage.

SCIENCE!!

The blend stocks at the refinery are the same, so the level of filtering and drying done there is consistent across brands.

The level of maintenance on the filters and separators at the station will differ wildly.

All gas is mandated to have cleaning adds. This is an EPA requirement. Top tier will have more of them.

Top tier gas will also have 10% ethanol by its specification. There is no such thing as gas that is watered down with ethanol. While in some areas, ethanol free gas is available, for one thing it cannot be top tier by specification, and for another it is usually from no-name stations so that goes back to the earlier points. Id buy ethanol free if I could, and I run my own additization.

The i series does indeed have a small tank, but at least the N55 135i cars are very easy (in MT form at least) to yield great MPGs. I have routinely gotten 32 MPG tanks when doing highway driving.
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      07-21-2012, 07:43 AM   #27
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I've mostly used Shell gas in my 128i but have recently filled up at a nearby Murphy Mart a few times. They had really good prices for the first couple months and drove down all the nearby stations. Looks like they are out to lead the race to higher prices now. One of the reasons I filled up at Murphy Mart was to reward them for helping out with lower prices but I also figure that places that turn over their gas really quickly have less chance of getting water in the gas.

I ran all premium for the first 10,000 miles but have switched to 89 octane unless I am doing an autocross. Seems to work fine.

Tom raises an interesting point about the odometer. I haven't really checked it. It isn't hard when you have a GPS going all the time. I'll have to remember to do it. I think there are federal requirements so I've assumed it is accurate but it doesn't cost anything to check.

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      07-21-2012, 09:05 AM   #28
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JHZR2 View Post
The blend stocks at the refinery are the same, so the level of filtering and drying done there is consistent across brands.

The level of maintenance on the filters and separators at the station will differ wildly.

All gas is mandated to have cleaning adds. This is an EPA requirement. Top tier will have more of them.

Top tier gas will also have 10% ethanol by its specification. There is no such thing as gas that is watered down with ethanol.
I checked http://www.toptiergas.com/deposit_control.html For the testing of top tier it specifies ethanol blend for one test, and requires non blend for another test. Top Tier certification seems to only be concerned with the tests of the additive and the amount used, not the gasoline coming out of the pump.

It seems the deeper in you get the more messy the whole thing goes. Time of year, parts of the country, etc etc. no wonder foreign manufacturers always complain about our fuel.

I guess the best advice is close your eyes, cross your fingers, and use whatever gas seems to give you the best performance/mileage where you are.
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      07-21-2012, 08:08 PM   #29
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 3VOM View Post
Yes...this gas tank is tiny! I can hold more gin and tonics in my belly than this car can hold gas in it's tank! Haha


How many miles on your car?
MPG does improve a bit over time. Not a lot in my case, but it did.
Part of that is likely due to slowing down once the newness has worn a bit, and I'm not needing/wanting to run hard all the time.

Use the simple MPG calculation, fill up the tank, DON'T go past when the pump stops. When it stops, STOP filling. Reset your trip meter.
Drive as you like, next fill up, fill up the same way. Note the gallons to fill up.
Divide the trip meter miles by the gallons filled and that gives you a start point by which to compare other tankfulls.

If you went 270 miles and you filled up with 11.5 gallons
270/11.5 = 23.48 MPG.
Every time you fill up reset the trip meter and keep a record of your calculations.

The onboard MPG is ok, but it's off by a bit.
You can reset the MPG every time you fill up as well, then compare it with your own calculations to see how close it is.
If you don't reset it, then it calculates ongoing MPG.
But if you want to see if different fuels from different brands actually makes a difference, then you want to use the manual method, and reset MPG every time.
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      07-21-2012, 08:54 PM   #30
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JimD View Post

One of the reasons I filled up at Murphy Mart was to reward them for helping out with lower prices but I also figure that places that turn over their gas really quickly have less chance of getting water in the gas.

Jim
That is one factor I consider when buying fuel, freshness.
In my area all fuels have 10% ethanol, so we have no choice to not use it.
I've used fuel from many different stations and none have yielded any negative running conditions.

But freshness is something I look for as ethanol is hygroscopic, and it's been said that if the fuel becomes water contaminated, then octane can fall by 2-3 points. Using 93 allows for water contamination octane drop to still adequate levels. Using 89 could drop octane to 86, not good for turbo engines running at high demand.
However, another factor is how well sealed the stations tanks are.
If they're properly sealed, then there isn't much chance of water contamination, or so it would seem. Interesting.

I still prefer stations that have high demand and turn around as there is less chance of water contamination due to the ethanol.
That seems more important than which brand is used.
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      07-21-2012, 08:59 PM   #31
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Guildenstern View Post
I checked http://www.toptiergas.com/deposit_control.html For the testing of top tier it specifies ethanol blend for one test, and requires non blend for another test. Top Tier certification seems to only be concerned with the tests of the additive and the amount used, not the gasoline coming out of the pump.

It seems the deeper in you get the more messy the whole thing goes. Time of year, parts of the country, etc etc. no wonder foreign manufacturers always complain about our fuel.

I guess the best advice is close your eyes, cross your fingers, and use whatever gas seems to give you the best performance/mileage where you are.
This is likely minor, but one thing that bugs me about some stations are the ones that use only 1 pump for 3 different octane fuels.
How much 87 I'm I getting when I select 93, and the person before me selected 87?
I'm sure it's not much, but given the length of hose, could it be a gallon?
If so, then why am I being charged 93 prices and not getting all 93 fuel?
I like separate pumps.

As I said, minor point.
You flips your coins and ya pays for your fuel, whatever is coming out of the pump.
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      07-21-2012, 09:00 PM   #32
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RPM90 View Post

I still prefer stations that have high demand and turn around as there is less chance of water contamination due to the ethanol.
That seems more important than which brand is used.
Then if that's the case, a place like Costco (the one here in Scottsdale is crazy busy) should be pretty good in this regard. No?
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      07-22-2012, 11:39 AM   #33
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RPM90 View Post
This is likely minor, but one thing that bugs me about some stations are the ones that use only 1 pump for 3 different octane fuels.
How much 87 I'm I getting when I select 93, and the person before me selected 87?
I'm sure it's not much, but given the length of hose, could it be a gallon?
If so, then why am I being charged 93 prices and not getting all 93 fuel?
I like separate pumps.

As I said, minor point.
You flips your coins and ya pays for your fuel, whatever is coming out of the pump.
I've never considered that!

Does gas stay in the hose, or is it purged back into the storage tank when you hang up the nozzle? I've never seen one leaking.

Last edited by Guildenstern; 07-22-2012 at 12:03 PM.. Reason: iv'e ? really?
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      11-12-2012, 11:58 AM   #34
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Maybe it makes sense to run 89 in the winter/fall/spring and 91 in the summer, since lower ambient seems to reduce potential for knock according to what I've read. Your views?

Aside: Honda sold me a 3-liter V6 in 2003 that ran on recommended regular and got 240 HP. 2013 BMW 3-liter runs on recommended premium and gets 230 HP. Is BMW way behind the times? I know they are giving up on the 6 since gas mileage not the best.
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      11-12-2012, 02:53 PM   #35
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I think without a readout of retard due to knock, it's tough to say. An easy evaluation is that assuming you're not getting knock, so good timing retardation, the determinant is mpg loss and cost per mile if it is large.

I wonder if anyone had dyno'ed a 128 and 135 on 87 and 93 under consistent conditions.

As for the Honda v6, check the RPMs where max power is made on the Honda vs BMW, and also max torque...
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