What brand of gas?
 

I have always used Sunoco Ultra 94 gas in Toronto. I don't recall seeing any Sunoco gas stations in Calgary. Is it true?

If not, I'm leaning towards Esso 92. Any thoughts / experience?

Orange,

We have all the basic gas out here, Petro Can, Esso, Shell, Chevron, Husky/Mohawk - (these two use the same Ethanol blended gas). Additioanlly there are a bunch of third party gas stations (ie non mainstream)

The octane levels out here are (on average) 87, 89, 92. I belive Mohawk caries a 94 but I can't confirm that.

If you are looking for some high octane, the Mohawk on McKnight carries 104 but its pricy I think about $3.25/L

This website might help you out a bit http://www.calgarygasprices.com/.

Mostly I just run 87 or 89 depending how rich I'm feeling at the time.

Hope this helps.

all i have to say is.. DO NOT GO TO SUPERSTORE... their gas is shit.. octane not guarenteed. just CRAP gas..

I totally agree. Richard is right. We don't have Sunoco out here but, there're several other good gas companies here.

I agree with Richard the protege and protege 5 are designed to run on regular gas(87 octane), you can run into problems if you use higher grade of fuel. higher grade fuel has caused problems with oxygen sensors in the past.

Jim

People,

Please remember that Orange much like myself have the Mazda MP3 which uses the higher octane gas to advance the timing and get us more HP!

Brian

Thanks for the advice. Like Brian said, my car needs the higher Octane, so there goes $0.10 extra / L ... I agree that for regular Pros & Pro5's, 87 is enough.

I am shying away from Shell because they have some special additives that caused recalls on some Chrysler cars. Just in case ...

I'll check out if there are more Esso or Petro-Can around downtown ...

octane is one thing, brand is another...
 

My advice is to stay away from Esso, followed by PetroCan. Esso has been cited as the highest sulphur content gas (dirty gas) available in Canada. Followed by PetroCan. The sulphur is eventually going to damage your car's emissions systems, and it'll probably happen once you're out of warranty. By then, you'll be looking at some hefty fees to bring that car back into the strict emissions requirements.

Whenever I can, I try to fill up at Sunoco. Use 87 octane in my Protege 5. McEwans is good too, but they are much harder to come by I find. In cold morning starts, my car fumes has a sweet ethynol smell.

Here are some links I researched before deciding to avoid Esso gas stations. I was soo close to getting me an Esso rewards card for all those car washes I wanted...

--

The following link is to a document prepared by the Sierra Legal Defence Fund on the dirty gas topic. Scroll down to page 21 for the blurb on Esso.

http://www.sierralegal.org/reports/air_report.pdf

The following link is a post of an article that originally appeared in the Ottawa Citizen.

http://hp.bccna.bc.ca/pipermail/clea...ay/000082.html

The following link is to the Friends of the Earth Clean Air Campaign.

http://www.foecanada.org/cleanair/boycott.htm

Margaret,

Downtown is limited to two Esso stations period. There is one on MacLeod Trail heading south out of downtown, and the other is on Memorial Drive and Edmonton Trail heading north out of downtown. If you want something a bit futher out I believe there is a shell to the west.

Can you tell I live downtown?

Brian

Re: octane is one thing, brand is another...
 

Since we don't have either McEwans or Sunoco here in Calgary I would assume the next best for the low sulpher content would be Mohawk. As far as I understand their gas policies, they buy the low octane gas from the big 3 gas giants and then reblend it with ethynol to raise the octane back up again.

Brian

When I bought my P5, the salesman specifically not to use Mohawk gas.. and there's a blurb in the car manual about not using gas with a high <whatever its called that mohawk puts in their gas.. can't remember, it's too early :)> content.

I tried to find some factual information to the various gas rumours and didn't have much luck. I'd find articles praising a particular gas station, and more articles bashing it.. Always contraditory information, which in a business as rich as gasoline.. didn't surprise me.

In the end, all gas is dirty, bad for your car and horrible for the environment.. heck your car lights it on fire and it explodes.. how healthy can that possibly be made... and using any gas, eventually your car will break.. car's break period.. only way to stop that is not to drive it..

Really? Going to have to check that out. Is it applicable to the 2002 model year? Dealership never said anything when I asked about gas recommendations, and I can't find it anywheres in my 2002 Protege 5 manual.

How about Sunoco Regular 87?
I suppose it's not ethanol-blended?

I thought all gas has some ethanol, just how much. Isn't the Petro-Can 'winter' gas ethanol-blended so I stays liquid even in low low temp?

I found the following link on the Renewable Fuels Association website. Its gives the facts and fiction on ethanol and ethanol blended gas. According to them, the negative effects on fuel systems are in the past. The problem is nothing to worry about in later model cars.

http://www.ethanolrfa.org/factfic_enperf.html