Hello..Just installed my new chip and life is good. I never realized how "mushy" the old shifting was on the transmission until I felt the "crispness" with the chip. Anyway..Here in Houston I must pass about 4 Diamond Shamrock stations each way to work. I have always used their regular gas and now with my chip I would like to use their 93 premium. Any body have any input?

Thanks

 

Hi TimT,

Well, Houston is one of the areas that is considered to be an area of poor air quality according to the Federal gov't., they have not been able to achieve what the Fed's call "attainment" status, so the use of heavily reformulated fuels has been the norm there for some time. What that means is, it's a good thing you're doing your homework, as this is an area where it's even more important to use the best quality fuel possible. The reformulated fuels in that area are all of generally lower energy content across the board. The DFW area of Texas is the same, kinda like LA in terms of air quality, and that affects fuel quality, as the Feds threaten to withold federal highway funds if the areas don't take the appropriate steps to clean up air quality. The easiest thing for the politicians to do is to mandate the use of reformualted fuels, therefore that is what is done all across the country in any area of less than "acceptable" air quality.

Diamond Shamrock would not be one of my top picks, but you never know, it just might do a decent job where you are. We'd rather use something like Texaco or Amoco. If you do go with Diamond Shamrock (and we'd love to get any data on that), just follow the basics, make sure you aren't getting any audible detonation (pinging, spark knock, etc.), and track your mileage as well, if you can take an extra minute to jot your numbers down at each fillup. If you really want to identify which brands in your area are going to give you the best performance & mileage, you should use 3-5 tanks of each different brand and track mileage results with each. The fuel with the highest mileage under the same basic driving conditions is generally the fuel with the highest energy content.

You can keep it simple by just using what we know to be among the better brands, like Texaco & Amoco, or you can play around with other brands and track your mileage to really find out who's doing the better job out there.

Me personally, anytime I'm in Texas, I stick to Texaco as much as possible.

Good luck with the DS brand if you try it, and if you happen to track mileage, we'd love to see your data. And if you're just too busy to mess with it, don't worry about it!

Good luck,

 

Thanks Mike. I track my mileage anyway so this gives it new meaning. I will let you know in a few months.

 

You're very welcome, anytime TimT. I'm delighted to hear that you track your mileage anyway, as that will give you the ability to do comparisons on the various brands of fuel, if you decide to go thru that process. Most people don't have the time so they generally depend on our informal recommendations here, and just get on with life.

Have fun, I look forward to seeing your data in the future!