Mislabeled Gas
 

Hey Guys

So I've been getting gas regularly for the past couple months from a gas station that says on the pump, 93 no ethanol. It is the only one near me that I know that sells 93 no ethanol. I am also running the 93 OFT stage 1 tune.

Today, I went and filled up at said gas station and when I went to pay I made the comment that they are the only gas station around here that sells 93 no ethanol, to which the cashier exclaimed it is not 93, it is 90. So I said well you should change to label on the pump and cashier replied I'm just a button pusher.

Now I've had a few fill ups with the normal 93 from shell but mostly have been from this particular gas station. I'm going to log my drive to and from work tomorrow to see if everything looks fine but should I be concerned? The only abnormal things I have notice is that car seems a little sluggish sometimes but that was only a couple times. Should I flash to 90 till the tank is gone?

Are you sure the cashier is right and the pump is wrong? It will not have hurt anything that is going to turn up in under the next 10 years or so so I wouldn't worry about that. You should get a nice bump in performance though. If indeed was 90 that is.

I'm pretty sure that stuff is subject to inspection. Hard to believe they would go for a large amount of time with mislabeled gas.

Don't you live in 'merica? Can't you just sue somebody?

I never felt a bump, the car felt a bit sluggish at times after filling up at this gas station but I just attributed to that to the drop in temperature in the mornings.

There was a good 30 second silence before I said they needed to change the label on the pump, it took a lot of will power not to go off but family is in town and I didn't want to bring that back to the house

I can't speak for there but a pump would sure not go mislabelled long here. My money is on the cashier didn't know what they were talking about. Again, don't know about there but 90 octane fuel is pretty rare anyplace I have ever been. It is generally 89 or 91.

It's not a big name gas station, more like a mom and pop gas station so maybe you're right Tcoat

I heard that 89 is a mixed in the pump and gas stations only have 87 or 91 (in California at least) that they stock up on. I am not sure how legit this claim was but maybe it is the same for your gas station (mixing 87 and 93) so maybe 90 octane isn't that far out of the park? but then again it wouldn't make sense to mix 93 in the first place on a pump labeled 93... who knows

Someone will be along to say you have destroyed your engine. Tcoat, how can an auto mfr list a fuel that is somewhat hard to find (93) and 91 as the minimum when there are places that don't even have that?

There's always rec90 if you've seen that. I would think the cashier is wrong, but how often do you think someone would notice their fuel being 3 octane lower? A difference that small wouldn't be too noticeable without some spirited driving, and even then people would blame things on humidity, elevation, temperature, and so forth before blaming a gas station, if they even notice a difference at all. The difference would only be noticed in the high end were more precise timing needs a higher octane fuel. Very few people datalog and monitor fuel trims and ratios like we do. It could have gone unnoticed for a while, but the most clerks don't know too much about fuel either. We'll just have to wait until we see some charts to know for sure.

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Oh I didn't mean that the customers would notice. On my long highway commute I can tell zero difference between 91 and 94 and I know what to watch for. Like you said 99.999% of the population would never know the difference even if their engine was knocking like hell.

What I meant was that the fuel industry including gas stations is highly monitored. The province regulates and monitors fuels and checks fuel quality on a very regular basis. There are inspectors that all they do is go around and check that what is being advertised is what is actually being sold as well as the quantity that was delivered matches what was dispensed and the taxes submitted. They pay special attention to the small mom and pop stations that could try to sneak some cheap low octane through at high octane prices or state they sold less that they did to avoid paying. I doubt a station here could go a month with marking a pump one thing and having it dispense another. The station would get caught and pay a hefty fine and since the province makes money you know they pay attention!

I gotcha. It is monitored, but how well is it monitored? It could just be mislabeled pumps, do they monitor the labeling or make sure it's labeled properly for the consumer? I think they just monitor quality and quantity, put it on a truck, then fill up station reservoirs as they should be. I don't think they go as far as labels, i think that's the station itself that is supposed to do that. When i worked retail, each store would recieve signs and had to put up their signs, but some stores did it differently or wouldn't do it at all. Curious to see the results though, i know some places give different quality of fuel, but a different octane itself would be interesting.

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Here they will sample from each pump. It isn't just a paper chase it is an actual physical test to ensure that what it says is it is it actually is. I doubt that they have the consumer's interests in mind so much as to make sure they are getting every penny that they are supposed to. Can't have stations selling low octane stuff at high octane prices and not submitting the tax on the difference!

It is important to know that regular gas here is around $3.50 a gallon and the premium can be $4.50 to 5.50 a gallon so the stations stand to make a tidy profit (and the province lose a tidy sum in taxes) if they can slip you regular for premium prices.