Yesterday I was ridiculously low on fuel so I stopped at a gas station. Apparently the gas station was full service, so the attendant came out and I told him to get me 4 dollars worth of gas (that's all I had on me at the moment). After he was done, I went to drive away when, to my horror, I realized that I had left the engine running the entire time!
I don't know why this scared me so much. I guess I always thought from movies that even just a spark will make an entire gas station instantly explode in a blaze of glory, taking the neighborhood with it. But I did a bit of cursory Google research after I got home only to discover that most incidents of gas fires are caused by static electricity - especially when people get back in there cars while pumping. There's a pretty crazy video on the website and I guess if anything it made me a bit more paranoid.
So I was a bit on edge today when I saw that my 4 dollars of gas had run out. I went to the gas station with my sister and told her to go get help if there were any problems. I was wearing a fleece sweater and I thought about taking it off because of the static electricity, but then realized that the act of taking it off might charge me even more.
Fortunately, nothing exploded while I was pumping, but I did get into a dispute with my sister: I went to get the Regular 87 octane gas and she was like, "Are you crazy? You need to get Premium." I always thought that the Regular gas was for nice new cars and Premium was for old junkie cars because they need a little something extra to keep them running. Mid-Grade is for people who can't make decisions. My parents purchased this car (it's a nice car) just a couple years ago, so I thought that Regular was a safe bet. I was also thinking that 89 octane somehow seemed less likely to explode.
But my sister said that it's the other way around: Good gas is for good cars, bad gas is for bad cars. And I said, "There's no way. People pay big money for nice cars so they won't have to pay for the expensive gas." But she completely disagreed, saying that high-performance cars need high performance gas.
So I'm asking you, dear reader, which is it? Who gets the expensive gas? Is it just a ploy to try to get people to pay more for the same thing? Or am I slowly ruining my car by putting in the Regular gas?
We couldn't decide, so we ended up getting Mid-Grade.
5 comments:
Dude, you're an idiot. The type of gas you get has nothing to do with how nice your car. True, nicer cars usually get the nicer gas, but it's incidental. The only factor is following your owner's manual. Unless it says to get premium, get the regular unleaded. (The mid-grade is just for chumps.)
Dang it. You're right, Hyperion. It's a good thing you're back to set the record straight. I'm pretty sure Tobias would have confused the issue even more.
Buying the premium is like buying gas then going down to Autozone buying fuel injection cleaner and putting it in your car.
Premium gas and fuel injection cleaner remove combustion chamber deposits. Combustion chamber deposits are a cause of engine knocking and pings and the reason many people switch to higher octane fuels.
If you have an older car with a lot of build-up and you use one or the other you may think be hurting your car. Cleaning out all that build-up may sound like a good idea but you maybe in fact be clogging some other well used part of your car.
My final input to your mind-boggler is; if your car is old and dirty then use regular, if you car is old and very well taken care of use premium. If your car is expensive and clean use premium. If it is expensive and poorly taken care of use mid-grade.
One little part was but most of all my dad is a big help when it comes to cars I just picked a little up from him.
"Combustion chamber deposits are a cause of engine knocking and pings and the reason many people switch to higher octane fuels." was the only thing copy and pasted. I just wanted to be sure what I was talking about. and if I hadn't looked this up I would have used the words nasty build-up in your engine instead of "Combustion chamber deposits"
The scariest part of the article is not the static electricity, it's the other cause of pump fires.
"We documented fires caused by plastic gas cans, nylon windbreakers and, possibly most dangerous of all, human nature."
Human Nature! Who would have thought that simply being human can cause a gas station to burst into flames. From now on I'm getting a ape to pump my gas.
Did you know there hasn't been a single reported case of an ape causing a fire at the pump.
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