Top Tier Gas

[revrnd]

Doing a search for a hundred mile radius, the other brands that show up are Costco & Inver. I only know of 1 of the latter locations.

[txab]

Most locations don't display any decals from what I've seen. A buddy of mine runs a Conoco branded station and he says his fuel is Top Tier. I'll have to mention to him about signage. I've never noticed a QT location with signage even though they are listed as TT. Costco surely does display signage. I wish Sam's would go to the same effort to sell a better quality of fuel. Between them and and Wally, I stay away. Mpg is always lower. I quit using anything Wally, Murphy's or Sams years back when I started getting Cat codes. Switched fuel brands and the codes have never come back

[Atlas]

The signage does seem inconsistent. And, at some stations, you'll see a "Top Tier" decal on a pump and second guess if it's actually Top Tier.

 

While I don't doubt that Top Tier fuel is actually a better product, the marketing side seems to be run fast/loose.

[KARNUT]

Krogers in Montgomery is a high volume fuel location. My avalanche for 5 years only used that gas because of their discounts. The avalanche likes gas it gets the discounted gas. My grandson is using it now. My gas guzzler Ridgeline now gets Kroger gas. Actually my Odyssey gets that gas. I know my daughter used the cheapest she could find. Probably the same Kroger gas. The Genesis and Acura get Exxon. It’s next to HEB so it competes with them. It’s competitive. The Acura only gets gas once a year. It has stabil in it. The Kroger is for convenience it’s the direction I go. Same with the Genesis I fuel it for the wife after church. I never had a bad gas problem. Diesel is another story. I always carried fuel filters.

[Grumpy Bear]

Nationally, Top Tier simply means it has a detergency package 3X the Federal minimum.

 

In Illinois these are blended at the terminal so whatever one station in that chain gets, they all get. 

 

I have witnessed a station in Iowa being "Top Added" so I know it happens. But what happened is, a truck preblended with the federal minimum was servicing a station that was Top Tier so they drop a 5 gallon box of detergent adds in the hose before offloading. 

 

Top Tier is about the detergent not the fuel quality. That is Federally regulated by law. Storage is another matter. 

[Atlas]

The crap we put up with from the petro-chemical industry... No such thing as Top Tier electrons for EV's or snake-oil additives to clean your EV injectors.  

[diyer2]

I think I've posted this before.

We were getting gas from a top tier station regularly. Our car would have rough cold starts occasionally, I was using fuel system cleaner regularly. 

Then I smartened up and stopped buying gas there,  cold start problems stopped. 

Both stations are top tier gas.

[customboss]

28 minutes ago, diyer2 said:

I think I've posted this before.

We were getting gas from a top tier station regularly. Our car would have rough cold starts occasionally, I was using fuel system cleaner regularly. 

Then I smartened up and stopped buying gas there,  cold start problems stopped. 

Both stations are top tier gas.

Bet the first station had water or buying crap fuel’s and ripping you off. I turned in a few Shell stations that were selling non Shell added fuels and got it stopped. They also were skimming buy shorting the buyer on volume pumped. 
That was in N east Texas 10 years ago. 

[revrnd]

56 minutes ago, customboss said:

Bet the first station had water or buying crap fuel’s and ripping you off. I turned in a few Shell stations that were selling non Shell added fuels and got it stopped. They also were skimming buy shorting the buyer on volume pumped. 
That was in N east Texas 10 years ago. 

No state or federal inspections on the pumps?

[txab]

I was partnered in a Texaco full service station from the early 80's to the early 90's. One thing that we knew about with other fuel dispensing locations, primarily small operations with only a few locations. They would get a contract with a name brand fuel so they could use their branded credit card and avoid the service charge other cards charged. What would often happen is the contract only required them to purchase X amount of gallons of the branded fuel each month. Once they reached that threshold or knew that they would, they began purchasing fuel elsewhere. Often whatever was left sitting around or partial loads of who knows what.

 

 

[customboss]

10 minutes ago, revrnd said:

No state or federal inspections on the pumps?

Oh yes, State by state but they don’t come around often enough. So a little tender loving “consumer” reporting is welcome here in USSA 

[txab]

14 minutes ago, revrnd said:

No state or federal inspections on the pumps?

State Ag department handles inspections here in Tx. They do a much better job now than they used to. Still not as often as we'd like

With the electronic dispensers it has been pretty easy to make them dispense different amount than shown at the dispenser. My understanding is they've improved the inner workings to cut down on this, at least it's not as easy. Still can be done

 

I had all the necessary equipment to test fuel output, because at the time of my involvement we were still running the primitive non electronic dispensers. We always checked our own to make sure we weren't giving it away or taking advantage. Fines were kinda steep. 

 

 

Edited September 5, 2025 by txab

[customboss]

7 minutes ago, txab said:

I was partnered in a Texaco full service station from the early 80's to the early 90's. One thing that we knew about with other fuel dispensing locations, primarily small operations with only a few locations. They would get a contract with a name brand fuel so they could use their branded credit card and avoid the service charge other cards charged. What would often happen is the contract only required them to purchase X amount of gallons of the branded fuel each month. Once they reached that threshold or knew that they would, they began purchasing fuel elsewhere. Often whatever was left sitting around or partial loads of who knows what.

 

 

Great input! A colleague and friend Darin Tiernan retired from Texaco as a SW REGION MOBILE lubricants and fuel testing engineer. He was trying to keep the TEXACO brand fuels and lubes products 100% but as the oil companies outsourced it became and is really difficult so buyer beware. BTW Texaco was a super advanced fuel’s and lubes R&D company. Chevron not so much until they bought Texaco. 

[customboss]

2 hours ago, revrnd said:

No state or federal inspections on the pumps?

Bureau of weights and measures in some states. AG in Texas because not one agency in Texas is named for what it really does! Oil and gas regulated there by Texas Railroad commission!  

Edited September 5, 2025 by customboss

[Atlas]

2 hours ago, txab said:

State Ag department handles inspections here in Tx. They do a much better job now than they used to. Still not as often as we'd like

With the electronic dispensers it has been pretty easy to make them dispense different amount than shown at the dispenser. My understanding is they've improved the inner workings to cut down on this, at least it's not as easy. Still can be done

 

I had all the necessary equipment to test fuel output, because at the time of my involvement we were still running the primitive non electronic dispensers. We always checked our own to make sure we weren't giving it away or taking advantage. Fines were kinda steep. 

 

 

 

I've definitely had tanks of fuel where the pump clicked off and I just shook my head when I looked at the meter. No freaking way that much gas could even fit in there given what was left, or the known capacity of the tank. But, never pursued it...just added those stations to the list of them that I'll never visit again.

 

I see our state inspection stickers and it's a sign that the pump was possibly accurate at the point and time when the sticker was affixed to the outside of the pump. And that's about all it could mean!