My wife has been using Chevron gas for years, but with the recent gas price increase, we decided to try the less expensive RaceTrac Gas Station on Davie Road Extension, in Davie Florida. She filled the tank and drove the 8 miles back to the house.
When she started the car the next morning to take the kids to school, it smelled like a varnish factory in our yard. This stuff was so old it reeked. The engine began to idle rough. She sputtered away from the house, and by the time she returned from driving the kids 2 miles to school and back, the "$ervice Engine $oon" light blinked on for the first time since we bought the Lincoln Town Car, then went off.
Since I had worked at the Ford Research and Engineering Facility in Dearborn Michigan, and spent another couple years at GM's Milford Michigan Proving Grounds, I'm aware of gas quality issues. I have had many hours in instrumentation setting up, calibrating, and operating the gas chromatography emission analyzers, and the quality of the gasoline, plus contaminants in the gasoline, played a big part in skewing tests for government vehicle emission certification. This stuff from RaceTrac was bad news.
But that wasn't the end. Idle became even rougher in a few days, indicating that the Ethanol was separating from the stale gasoline, and, being heavier than gasoline, was sinking to the bottom of the tank. The lower octane ethanol, which acts like a magnet to suck up water and even the humidity from the air, was being sucked up by the unhappy engine. The "$ervice Engine $oon" indicator light on the dashboard, was now smiling at us constantly.
I have read references to a dealer report dated from the Orlando Florida, in which one dealer analysis claimed the gas from a RaceTrac station contained an ethanol concentration significantly higher than 10%. I assumed this practice of "blending for profit" had ended. Perhaps I was wrong.
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