Except unusual situations, I always fill the tank up after 320-350
miles and carefully mark the odometer, tripmeter and gas amount.
Therefore, I have the whole mileage picture starting back from when
the odometer was reading single digit figures :-)

These cars see only Shell gas (except when not available during longer
trips). Tegger's confirmation that I should see a mileage drop if
something's wrong makes me feel the cars are very OK.

B.t.w., I noticed on this forum that Chevron is touted as being the
best gas in US, mostly because of the Techron additive. Is it so much
better than 76 or Shell? And, what's up with the joker regarding the
gas sold in California being dirty ?!

Thanks

On Jun 29, 9:49 pm, "Michael Pardee" <michaeltn...@cybertrails.com>
wrote:

I won't use anything but top tier gas in either my honda or toyota.
Chevron
and Texaco both have techron.. That's pretty good stuff for keeping
the
injectors clean.. I also use shell a good bit, and it has a cleaner,
but
I guess proprietary vs chev/tex's techron..For the most part, all the
brands
gas come from the same place, but it does vary as to the additives
dumped
in when they load the tankers. The cheap places don't get much extras
in
their gas. My honda doesn't like Valero/Diamond Shamrock too much..
I can tell the difference in the idle, etc vs chevron or shell.
So I won't even try that stuff in my toyota.. I stick to only the good
stuff,
and the funny thing is, the cheap gas these days costs as much as the
good brands.. Or at least here. Used to, the cheap stations really
were
cheaper. But not really any more. I often see them charging as much,
and sometimes even more than a big brand sitting down the street.
So it doesn't pay to run cheap gas around here from pretty much any
angle.
BTW, my honda has a carb.. Only my yota is FI... But it still seemed
to
make a difference on the carbed engine if I used good gas vs cheap.
If I did happen to get a case of gunked injectors, I'd try a bottle
of
techron in the gas and go from there. That'll usually do the trick.
I once had to clean out a super carboned up camry one time.
The injectors were half clogged, but also the intake valves were
snowconed beyond belief.. So bad, once the car warmed up,
the carbon would expand, keep the valves from totally closing, and
engine would die from lack of compression. So I tested a few
different cleaners during that, and got a pretty comparison.
Techron really is some pretty good stuff vs some of the cheapy
regular "gas treatment" brands.. It's worth the extra money.
One bottle in a full tank will usually clean out an engine pretty
good.
The more stop/starts with heat soaks, the better it works..
It doesn't do much when you are actually driving. It's when it's hot
and sits, that the cheese melts and then starts blasting away when
you run it the next time.
Heck, adding a bottle of techron once or twice a year, even with no
problems at all, probably ain't a half bad idea as far as preventative
upkeep if it's FI, or prone to carbon buildup.
MK