Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with gasoline

Nobody light a match!

The Winsome Parker Lewis — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:55:48 -0800

Why do I smell gasoline when I'm in my car? I drive a 2003 Subaru Forester. Yesterday I started smelling gasoline inside the car. I haven't noticed any fluids or leaks under the vehicle, and the gas cap is tightly secured. My fuel needle doesn't seem to be dropping any faster than usual. I'm slightly past due for an oil change, taking it in for one this weekend. I've accidentally been a bit rough on my transmission and starter lately, grinding gears a bit harshly and quickly restarting the engine after a stall. These were brief but I'm paranoid because this is my first stick shift. Hopefully those are unrelated to the gas smell. I am mechanically uninclined.

I found this thread, which in interesting but beyond my level of car-maintenance skill. Any suggestions? How seriously should I treat this issue?

Mythbust supermarket petrol for me, please.

Lorc — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 12:18:19 -0800

Is supermarket petrol bad for my car? It seems to be common knowledge that supermarket petrol from Tesco, Asda or what have you stations is inferior to the stuff from a "proper" petrol station. That it damages the engine in the long run for any of a variety of vague and poorly explained reasons.

Is there any substance to this idea, or is it just superstition? Googling gave me lots of conjecture but nothing authoritative.

UK-centric in case it matters. Thanks.

Not that I'm complaining, but how did gas get so cheap?

Faint of Butt — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 08:54:24 -0800

Not that I'm complaining, but why have gas prices dropped so dramatically in recent weeks? I understand how they rose so high-- chaos in the Middle East disrupted the oil supply and hurricanes destroyed some processing capability in the US-- but I'm seeing close to $1.80 a gallon now when I thought I'd never see under $3 again. Forgive me for my ignorance, but I feel like I missed something.

How to fairly split costs on a roadtrip

biwa-shu — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:51:04 -0800

What's the fairest way to split gasoline and other costs between riders on a roadtrip? We will travel in Japan, and there are many variables in our trip, but I imagine the same information could be used in light of the rise in gas prices in north america!

-One person will incur costs traveling by train to our start point.
-We will travel by toll road.
-We will pick one person up along the way, incurring costs when we exit from the toll road. Does that rider pay the entire cost? Is he responsible for his share of our entire toll burden, or only the cost from his point of pickup?
-Also, should all riders split gasoline evenly, or only depending on how far they travel (eg: we split gas 3 ways until we pick up our 4th rider, then split it 4 ways)?

Because I own the car, I am interested in collecting as much money as I can--I have to think about oil, wear and tear, and cleaning time. Would it be fair to split the entire cost of our trip between all the riders evenly?

What's Involved In an Ethanol Conversion?

IronLizard — Thu, 08 May 2008 22:13:11 -0800

What are the differences between vehicles that are ethanol (e85+) compatible and those that are not? I'm looking for specific materials and design differences in the various fuel system parts. Fuel pump, injector(s), fuel lines, tanks, PCM curves, ect. This is with an eye toward conversions of older fuel injected vehicles.

Carnac the Magnificent

netbros — Tue, 06 May 2008 11:27:30 -0800

Can gasoline futures be used to predict the price we will pay for fuel at the local pump? Used to be a gasoline price jump at the pump would be just a penny or two, hardly noticeable. Lately, the price seems to increase 12-15 cents at a time. By studying gas futures, can we know which days are likely to have the next price increase, enabling us to top off the tank the day before?

Which costs more to make, diesel or gasoine?

Reverend John — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 06:51:10 -0800

What is the difference in cost to produce diesel fuel versus gasoline? Does one require more oil than the other? I'm involved in a discussion on another forum where the issue of the oil required to produce fuel has come up in relation to comparing the gas mileage of diesel cars to hybrids. I've cited this page claiming that the Union of Concerned Scientists thinks mileage values for diesel engines should be adjusted down 20% to account for differences in oil required to produce the fuels. Another poster has cited this post on a third forum as saying that no comparison can be made.

Does anyone have any harder info on the oil costs of the two fuels?

I'm also interested in the long term price of the two fuels. Diesel has been more expensive on average for the last few years, but was less expensive before that. Does anyone have any info on long term price estimates for these two fuels, especially if diesel was more widely adopted as a car fuel in the US?

Why is my Subaru stuttering after a fillup?

delfuego — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 11:13:32 -0800

Does anyone have any ideas about why my 2003 Subaru Outback stutters on acceleration for the ten or fifteen minutes after I fill it up with gas? For the past few months, I've noticed that in the short period after I fill up my car with gas, it stutters on acceleration -- not terribly, and not so much that I feel like I'm in danger of stalling, but definitely a noticeable stuttering that wasn't there before. Like I said, this only ever happens for the ten or fifteen minutes after I fill up, and then never again until the next fill-up. I don't have any stuttering or idling problems in the cold, immediately after starting my car normally, or any of that; my check engine light isn't on (and doesn't come on during these periods), my gas cap is nice and tight, and I was last serviced about 6K miles ago.

A few details: the car is a 2003 Subaru Outback Limited Edition with a manual transmission, I fill it up with 87 octane gas (as I always have), no major driving pattern changes in a few years. The car has less than 50K miles on it to date.

I'm not the most trusting person when it comes to my local Subaru dealer (long story), so I was looking for a little advice as to what might be causing the problem before I bring it into someone to take a look. Any auto mechanics out there who have a few ideas to toss into the ring?

Will two-stroke fuel ruin my lawnmower?

M.C. Lo-Carb! — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 15:31:42 -0800

What would happen if I put gasoline with two-stroke oil in it into my conventional four-stroke lawnmower? A while back, I borrowed a roto-tiller with a two-stroke engine. To fuel it, I mixed in a little bottle of two-stroke oil with gasoline a plastic gas can I had in the garage, the lid to which I lost a long time ago.

I tilled my rotos, and I've since given the roto-tiller back to its owner, who lives a considerable distance away and whom I don't often see.

I still have about a gallon and a half of gas/oil mix left over, in a container that has a piece of tinfoil and a rubber band for a lid, and I don't know what to do with it. Obviously I can't just dump it down the storm sewer, and I can't keep it in the garage because the can isn't airtight, so the garage fills up with fumes.

So I was thinking I'd just use it to run my lawnmower, a well-used cheapo Sears push mower with a Briggs & Stratton engine. What will the result be? A fouled plug? Nothing? A huge explosion?

Barring using this gas - which has an estimated value of $5.50 and would likely serve a summer's worth of lawn-mowing - how else could I properly dispose of it?

Gas Puzzler

ubiquity — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 16:43:20 -0800

OK, I know this is a little silly but it's really beginning to bug me. Is there a way to get the nozzle from a commercial gasoline dispenser out of my car without spilling a few drops of gasoline onto the car or the ground? I have tried shaking the nozzle every which way, i have tried fiddling with the hose, but nothing seems to work. Is spilling a little gas every time I fill up a law of nature, or am I missing something that everyone else knows somehow?

cash at the gas station

moonlet — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 11:14:22 -0800

How does offering discounts for cash payments benefit gas stations? I started with the theory that a customer has to go in to the store to pay cash, and is therefore likely to make impulse purchases that will make up the difference. You buy ten gallons of gas at a 20-cent-per-gallon discount, you save $2, you go in and buy a $2 soda.

My boyfriend pointed out that a $2 soda doesn't actually net the gas station $2. Duh, moonlet.

So our theories are a) people make substantially larger impulse purchases than $2, b) the lower price draws in a higher volume, c) the giant signs advertising the cash price suck in people who end up paying with credit, or d) something nefarious involving the processing of credit card payments.

I suspect it's some combination of all the above, but I feel like we're missing something.

Chevron with Techron worth it?

joshuaconner — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 13:33:16 -0800

Is "brand" gas - like Chevron with Techron - worth the extra 10-15 cents/gallon?

Accellerate/Coast method more fuel efficient than cruise control?

Quarter Pincher — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 09:39:28 -0800

Question about cruise control vs. a special acceleration/coasting technique in terms of fuel efficiency. If you've got say, a speed limit of 45, and while driving on flat clean road, no wind aside from your own forward movement, etc, you accellerate to 47, coast until you're down to 40, then accellerate to 47, coast back down -- could this period of brief gassing up and long coasting by momentum, use less gas than having the pedal down the entire time and keeping at 45 (which I would assume cruise control would do)?

Would there be an ideal range (instead of up to 47 and down to 40, and back up/down) that would achieve greater efficiency? Would it be better to quickly accellerate to 47, or slowly (as the transmission gear may affect gas consumption)?

What gasoline brushcutter should I buy?

Runcible Spoon — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 20:37:11 -0800

I need to purchase a heavy duty gasoline brushcutter: I have to clear small trees, multifloral rose bushes, and lots of vines over 25+ acres. I need a 35 to 55 cc engine as some of these vines are 5+ inches wide. Have you used one, and do you have any suggestions as to make and model? I am not looking for a chainsaw.

Ride, Sally, ride.

Glitter Ninja — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 13:15:27 -0800

If I were to drive from Columbia, SC, to Montgomery, AL, in the next few weeks, how much money would I need to set aside for gas? I dug around google, but couldn't quite find what I was looking for- a site that I would input my starting and ending locations, year, make, model, and engine type of my car (since it's stock) and it would give me a dollar amount for approximately how much money I would need for gas, taking into account average gas prices at places along the way at which I'd start to run low. I'm not sure of the capacity of my gas tank- this car was bought used, and the user manual did not come with it.

So, riddle me this, Hive Mind...

Assuming I'm driving a well-kept-up 1998 Ford Mustang Convertible, Automatic, with a 6 cylinder engine, and that gas prices shouldn't fluctuate TOO much within the next few weeks...

...how much would it cost me (rounding up to the nearest ten dollar amount) to drive from Columbia, SC, to Montgomery, AL?

How to get a gasoline smell out of my sneakers?

Ryvar — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 19:37:01 -0800

How do I get the smell of gasoline out of my shoes? Basically, some twit left a giant puddle of gas in front of a pump at a gas station two nights ago. It was night, didn't see it, stepped right out of the car into it.

Tried soaking them in a sink full of soapy water, and just leaving them there. Twice. They still reek. So does the floormat on the car, but whatever. Ordinarily I'm not the type to get upset about this sort of thing, but my feet are incredibly finicky and these are brand new. Suggestions?

Why such drastic gas price differences in states starting with O?

saladpants — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 18:04:18 -0800

RegionalGasPriceFilter: Around August 8, the price of unleaded regular gasoline in Ohio and Oregon were the same, at about $3.01/gallon. Since then, the price of gas in Oregon has dropped only a nickel ($2.96/gallon), whereas the price of gas in Ohio has dropped a whopping 60 cents a gallon ($2.41/gallon) (figures via gasbuddy.com). Why? More generally, gas prices in the west in general have not retreated as dramatically as those back east. My only theory has to do with the fact that western states are more proximate to the corroding Alaskan pipeline we heard about in the news a week or two ago.

But is that alone really enough to make such a drastic difference nationwide? What other factors might cause such a great disparity on such a large scale?

The Last V8?

tomierna — Sat, 12 Aug 2006 11:52:01 -0800

In the late 70s or early 80s, I watched a movie, probably on network television, which was called something like, "The Last V8" or "The Last of the V8s". Help me find it! The premise of the movie was that all of the oil had run out, and cars were illegal. A Real American™ had entombed his V8, in pieces, under the floor of his garage.

Some prompting causes him to want to re-build the vehicle, and drive cross-country, using the dregs of gasoline pumped from the bottom of abandoned gas station tanks.

The movie is a grand chase.

One memorable scene involved a decrepit Coca-Cola truck being hauled across the road to block his way, and the Coke (still carbonated, natch) fizzing all over the highway when the blockade was breached.

This movie had nothing to do with the vehicle in the Mad Max movies, as far as I can remember. There appears to be a C=64 game that may have been related to the movie, but I can't verify that.

I've combed Google and IMDB, but not found this movie. Can ask.mefi find more information on this movie? Can ask.mefi tell me where to get a copy of it?

Question about biodiesel

yesno — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 07:20:03 -0800

Why is biofuel diesel, instead of standard gasoline? I was just reading this aricle about "renewable diesal", made from slaughterhouse waste, sewage, old tires, etc. Then I thought about biodisel, made from plant oils. Why are all these interesting, cleaner-burning and renewable fuels diesel? Would it be possible to make bio-gasoline, usable in today's cars?

Ethanol's pros and cons

Blazecock Pileon — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:57:52 -0800

How much does an x% ethanol gasoline blend product reduce mileage? Does the environmental benefit from ethanol blends outweigh the increased consumption of gasoline products? Or is the benefit negligible for the consumer? Though ethanol burns cleaner, it apparently holds less chemical energy for the same volume. After noticing local gas stations selling (only) 10% ethanol blends at higher prices, I'm curious about how much of an effect this has on mileage. Most of the information I've found (from corn growers) is handwaving, inconclusive or apologetic.

After all, if the fuel burns faster and costs more, and the ethanol supply is subsidized, that means more frequent and profitable repeat business for energy suppliers and corn growing-conglomerates like ADM.

Further, more frequent trips to the gas station mean increased emissions for the same energy dollars spent in the country.

Also, I imagine that ethanol corrosion also means more dollars spent on parts replacement and labor in the automobile maintenance industries, which also has a waste impact on the environment (more stuff put into landfills at a faster rate).

Do the ethanol products have a genuine and pronounced net benefit to the environment or is this about profit for energy, agribusiness and automobile corporations?

No ethanol in our gas

ackptui — Sat, 13 May 2006 18:29:34 -0800

Is regular unleaded gasoline made with only petroleum-derived compounds better than gasoline containing ethanol? Two of the three filling stations in my neighborhood have signs up that say "No ethanol in our gasoline." The third has signs up that their gas may contain up to 10% ethanol. Is gasoline using MBTE as its oxygenate better or more efficient than gas containing ethanol? My understanding was that within a region, all gas is formulated to some standard, regardless of which specific compound is used as oxygenate. I know that fuel with a higher level of ethanol will be less efficient per volume, and that ethanol can harm plastic fuel-line components in engines not designed for it. Do the stations that advertise "no ethanol" have a point, or are they just blowing smoke?

Why do some people find the smell of gasoline pleasant?

jeremias — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 14:41:11 -0800

Why do some people find the smell of gasoline pleasant?

Why does Wyoming have the cheapest gas right now?

p3t3 — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 08:51:54 -0800

Why is Wyoming the cheapest US state for gas right now and why does this map of gas prices look strangely similar to the 2004 voting maps? My initial inclination would have put Texas or coastal states near the bottom where oil is more accessible. But I'm sure it's more tied in to state/local economies and the demand/usage of gas in the region. But still, why Wyoming?

Questions about gasoline.

grateful — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 10:47:19 -0800

All about gasoline. (Apologies in advance on the two-fer.)

1) This morning, mrs. grateful accidentally filled up the tank with diesel instead of regular gas. The car stopped running, and she had it towed back to the station. They emptied the tank and flushed the system. Are there any long-term deleterious effects that we need to be concerned about?

2) In discussing the previous event, my father-in-law insisted that I could adjust my car so that it would no longer require premium gas. What adjustments is he talking about, and would they harm the engine in any way?

Evilhol?

parallax7d — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 08:11:52 -0800

Ethanol Evil? I've heard having energy and food competing for land will be bad for the environment. I've heard ethanol burns cleaner and will create less CO2 which is good for the environment. Also a side question, how much ethanol is currently in gasoline, and is that a good or bad thing?