THE GREAT PREMIUM GAS DEBATE

About  the  lowest,  most  disgusting  job  most  men  and  a  few  women  will  ever  have  is  working  as  a  gas  jockey   at  a  gas  station  where  self-service  is  not  permitted,  as  in  New  Jersey.

Gas  jockeys  breathe  gasoline  fumes  and  car  exhaust  for  8  hours  each  shift.   The  gas-buying  public  is  disgusting  to  the  gas  jockeys.  Bad  weather  multiplies  the  suffering  greatly. 

 In  night  time  gas  stations,  occasionally  a  buyer  tries  to  skip  without  paying  for  the  gas,   even  driving  away  at  a  high  speed  dragging  the  hose  down   the  street.  The  station  virtually  always  tries  to  back  the  costs  out  of  employee  salaries,  and  succeeds   --   so  that  the  folks  who  steal  gas  are  almost  always  stealing  from  the  employee  --  not  the  station.    And,  of  course,  there  are  armed  robberies.     

I  was  robbed  twice  at  gun  point,  as  I  worked  at  a  gas  station  on  Roosevelt  Boulevard  in  Northeast  Philadelphia  to  help  make  ends  meet  during  law  school.    

On  another  occasion,  in  the  wee  hours  of  the  morning  after  the  June  22,  1976  appearance  of  the  Grateful  Dead   in  concert  at  the  Tower  Theater  in  Philadelphia,    some  guys  in  a  Grateful  Dead  cube  van  who  had  me   gas-up  their  truck  in  that  Roosevelt  Boulevard  gas  station   in  the  middle  of  the  night  after  the  concert  stole  about  $100  worth  of  cigarettes   from  the  cigarette  display  on  one  side  of  the  truck  as  I  gassed  it  up  on  the  other  side.   That  $100  came  out  of  my  pay.

On  another  occasion,    it  was  a  horrible,  snowy  day  and  night  during  one  Christmas  holiday  season.     The  station  managers  asked  me  to  work  a  double  shift  for  double  pay  each  shift.  I  needed  the  money,  then,  so  I  agreed.

But  my  feet  froze  --   so  bad,  on  one  foot,  that  the  sock  froze  to  my  frozen  big  toe,  and  the  toe  clicked  when  you  tapped  it  with  metal.   The  doctor  at  Frankford  Hospital  said,  "Frostbite.  Sorry,  but  that  toe  is  coming  off!"

I  responded,  "Nope.  It's  not  going  to  happen."

The  doctor  insisted,  "When  it  defrosts,  it  will  turn  gangrenous  and  you  will  die."

"No,"  I  responded  calmly,  "You  do  not  have  permission  to  remove  my  toe.  That's  my  big  toe.    Removing  it  will  change  everything.   Let's  begin  a  course  of  antibiotics,  now,  while  it  is  frozen,  and  we'll  decide  later  if  we  need  to  remove  it."

I  was  a  jogger  in  those  days.    As  the  flesh   on  my  right  big  toe  rotted  and  fell  off,  I  walked  and  walked  and  walked,  and  jogged  and  jogged  and  jogged.     Finally,  after  about  6  months,    the  toe  looked  100%,  but  only   about  50%  of  the  sensation  returned.  But  I  still  have  a  big  toe  on  my  right  foot,   40  years  later.

Because  I  know  that  the  life  in  a  gas  station  is  horrible  like  this,  I  always  tip  the  gas  jockeys  in  our  Magnolia,  New  Jersey  gas  stations,  when  I  buy  a  load  of  gas.

I  learned,  early-on  in  that  work,  that  the  advantage  of   premium  gas  isn't  just  higher  octane.     It  is  the  detergents   mixed  in  with  the  gas  which  prevent  a  build-up  of  molecular  debris   on  engine  parts.  That  kind  of  advantage  didn't  matter  much  in  the  1970s.    But,  as  the  Environmental  Protection  Agency  screwed  the  lid  on  automobile  exhaust  gases  tighter  and  tighter  and  tighter,  and  things  like  the  MAP  sensor  and  O2   sensors  became  standard  features  in  American  autos,    in  the  1980s  and  1990s  I  learned   very  fast  that  I  could  avoid  blowing  about  $1,400   in  auto  mechanic's   fees  every  year  for  two  cars  by  always  putting-in   premium  gas,    not  regular,  so  that  detergents  keep  the  sensors  clean.

The  $1,400  annual  cost  for  replacing  MAP   and  oxygen  sensors  in  two  cars  immediately   vanished,  and  the  life  of  the  sensors  in  each  car  suddenly  became   indefinite.

As  I  described  the  savings  in  repair  bills  caused  by  using  only  premium  gas  in  cars  whose  manuals  said,  "Use  regular  gas,"    to  family,  friends  and  clients,  the  question  always  arose,  "Which  costs  more?    Regular  gas,  plus   the  $700  per  car  annual  repair  bill,  or   premium  gas,  with  an  occasional  sensor  replacement  --  say,  once  every  5  years?"

Asking  that  question  led  to  another  debate:  Does  premium  gas  pay  for  itself,  in  raw  miles  per  gallon?

The  argument  on  this  has  been  going  back-and-forth  for  decades.

Tommy  and  Ray,  on  the  Car  Talk  Show  on  Public  Radio,   in  essence  swear  that  they  can't  find  a  difference  in  miles-per-gallon  between  regular  and  premium ...

http://www.cartalk.com/content/premium-vs-regular-0



However,  I  can't  believe  that  they  are  correct.  I  have  heard  those  guys  err  on  basic  car  issues  before,  and  though  they  say  that  octane  varies  more  wildly  in  gas  loads  for  the  same  ostensible  octane  level  than  it  does  between   regular  and  premium  gas,  per  se,  I  have  seen   octane-mixing   systems  within  gas  pumps  --   the  trucks  mostly  deliver  pink  "high  octane"  and  clear  "low  octane"     gas,  and  the  gas  pump  itself  mixes  the  two  to  generate  slightly-pink  "plus,"  the  in-between  89  octane  gasoline.  I  also  saw  the  Weights-and-Measures  guys  come  into  the  gas   stations   I  worked  in,  and   check  on  the  octane,  and  it  was  dead-on,  as  advertised.

So,    premium  gas  has  91  octane   (or  93  if  you  buy  that  super-duper  Sunoco  stuff)    while  regular  has  87  octane  --  so  that  premium  is  105%   of  regular,  in  terms  of  power,  right?

Tommy  and  Ray   say  that   use  of  "corn  fuel"   --  ethanol  --   changes  the  equation  even  more.   But  I  can't  believe  that  on  the  average  it  changes  the  equation  for  regular  and  premium.    In  other  words,  on  the  average,  they  don't  change  the  equation  at  all.    The  question  still  is,  On  the  average,  will   someone   with   a  tank  of  premium  gas  press  the  gas  peddle   5%   less  per  mile  than  someone  with  a  tank  of  regular  gas?

Come  on!     Hotter  is  hotter.  More  powerful  is  more  powerful.    Doesn't  it  have  to  be  the  case?

Once,  years  ago,    I  did  The  Experiment.   Like  Kramer  in  Seinfeld,  I  ran  my  gas  tank  down  to   absolute  zero  before  I  pulled  into  the  gas  station,  and  I  filled-up  with   regular  instead  of  premium.   

I  don't  remember  the  exact  number  of  miles  for  that  tank  of  gas,    but  I  do  remember  the  percentage   difference  in  miles  per  gallon  for  that  fill  --  6%.      I  got  a  solid  6%   decrease  in  miles  per  gallon    on  regular  than  on  premium.   (I  did  that  test  with  a  2001  Dodge  Caravan.)

I  admit  that  I  only  did  the  test  once.  But,  there  you  are.

Now,  the  problem  with  that   6%  increase  in  miles  per  gallon  for  premium  is  that  on  the  average  premium  gas  costs  10%  more  than  regular.

So,  that  leaves  us  with  the  question,  Is  the  average  annual  savings  in  sensor  replacement  costs   and  other   repair  bills  more  subtly   connected  to  regular  use  of  cheaper  gas   equal  to  or  greater  than  the  4%  net   increase  in  premium  gas  expense  beyond  cents-per-mile  savings?

Since  it  looks  like,  with  premium,  that  we  are  replacing  sensors  about  20%  as  much  as  with  regular  gas,  due  to  detergents  in  premium,  the  question  comes  down  to,  "Is  80%  of  $700   greater  than  4%   of  the  annual  cost  of  gas?"

By  a  mile.

If  we  calculate-in  the  invisible-but-painfully-tangible  costs  of  car  down-time  due  to  repair,  investing  in  premium  gas  use,  only,   is  incredibly  smarter  than  using  regular  gas,  only.

So,  pay  the  extra  10%  per  gallon.  Get  premium  as,  only.