Did you notice how much gas prices have gone down recently!?!?! Just a month ago, I was paying $2.86/gallon. Yesterday I went to Safeway, and the price was only $2.26/gallon! Are the gas companies artificially inflating the prices because of the natural disasters? Probably. But even at $5/gallon, people are still going to buy it because guess what, people depend on cars so much nowadays, it’s a luxury one cannot afford to give up. Would that make it a necessity then?
There was a thread going on at work where people were asking which brand of gas gave the best mileage, and if there really was any difference between brand name gas and “cheap” gas like Arco, Safeway, and Costco. If I had to guess, both Safeway and Costco buy excess gasoline off of big distributors, so they get it at a discounted press. So one day Costco maybe using Chevron gas while the following day, they may be using Shell gas. The only difference I have heard is that brand name gasolines put more detergent in their gasoline so it’s better for cleaning. Of course, this is all hypothetical and studies show that there isn’t much difference between branded gasoline and generic (if you can call it that) gasoline.
I’ve added a new column to my Gasoline Spreadsheet. I’ve been recording mileage, prices, and volume of gasoline ever since I moved up here to see how my car is performing mileage-wise. Recently it’s been dropping, especially the latest fill-up, I got less than 23MPG. However, that may be because that I haven’t been traveling much and going to work (3 miles) everyday isn’t really good for mileage especially when I have that hill to climb everyday. The new column I’ve added is: Brand. Hopefully, I can make a nice chart and graphs after I’ve accumulated enough data.
I’ve only heard this so I can not confirm if it’s true or not, but rumor says that when car manufacturers calculate their mileage, they use only Chevron gas and this is the same across the board. This is one of the many possible reasons why people prefer brand name gasoline, but once again, there’s no source I can confirm this with.