The fuel is delivered up the same pipe, but the additives put into the fuel
at each different supplier modify the fuel somewhat. If you are concerned
about the rising ocst of fuel, your best course for economizing is to ensure
that your tires are properly inflated, check them at least once a week. A
difference of 3 PSI lower than nominal can lead to increased road friction
and thus a reduction in fuel economy.

rtt

If you believe your local QuikTrip station is selling adulterated gas,
call the GA Dept of Agriculture, (404) 656-3605, and they'll send
someone out to pull a sample and test it. By law, it has to meet
the octane requirements posted on the pump, and must not contain
undisclosed adulterants. They *will* close a station down right then
and there if it is found to be selling adulterated or mislabeled gas.

If you are under the impression that the gas sold by QuikTrip, or
any of the other discount service station chains, comes from a
different source than that sold by BP, Chevron, Shell, etc, then
drive over to Doraville and watch the tankers being filled at Colonial
Pipeline. All the delivery trucks for all the brands will be filling up
from the *same* million gallon tanks.

There is no relationship between a name brand station and a name
brand refinery. It has been a *long* time (at least 25 years) since
pipeline companies segregated fuel by brand source (back in the
days when Amoco white really was different because it contained
no lead, now they all contain no lead, and gasoline has become a
generic commodity).

Colonial's fuel buyers buy fuel week by week from whichever refinery
offers them the best price or availability. One week it might be a BP
refinery, the next a Shell refinery, the next a Marathon refinery, etc.
It all gets pumped into the same million gallon tanks at the terminal,
segregated only by octane rating.

The service stations (through their distributors) all buy their gas
from Colonial, and take whatever is in the big tank holding gas
with the octane rating they need for that load. They add their
additive package right there as the tanker is filling. The additive
packages look like Kool Aid packets.

The amount of additive, basically detergent, in each 2,000 gallon
load is very small, one or two packets. Many times a tanker may
be filled with no additive, because the driver forgot to check if
he had enough packets to cover the runs he was to make that day.
Those loads get delivered to stations without the brand specific
additives. No one can really tell the difference since the amounts
are so small, and any effects take long term usage of fuel without
detergents to become noticable.

Note that the EPA now mandates a difference in the volatility and
the MTBE and/or methanol content (oxygenates) of summer and
winter blends of gasoline sold in the Atlanta area. Colonial's fuel
buyers take care of that. The distributors and service stations have
no say. They all take what Colonial gives them, and the EPA monitors
Colonial to make sure they're giving them the right thing for the
season.

The name on the sign out front of a service station doesn't mean
anything with respect to the quality of gas being sold there. Only
the Dept of Agriculture labels on the pumps can tell you the octane
rating of the gas you buy. Everybody is getting the same stuff out
of the same million gallon tanks over at Colonial. Gas of any given
octane rating is gas.

Now it is possible that a delivery truck may put the wrong stuff in
the wrong tank at a service station, and it is possible that low volume
stations may get water in the gas from condensation, but those sorts
of errors are equally likely regardless of whose name is out front on
the sign.

(If there is fraud, the GA Dept of Agriculture will be all over them as
soon as they conduct a test, which they do routinely at every station
at least every 6 months, or sooner if there is a consumer complaint.)

Note that while this info is Atlanta area specific, because my next
door neighbor has worked at Colonial for 35 years and explained it
all to me in great detail, the same thing happens elsewhere, just
the names of the companies may be different. This is industry wide
practice in the modern era of EPA mandated fuel standards.

Gary