OP here.
back from a long 4th of July camping trip. About 600 miles round-trip. I am starting to believe different brands of gasoline might be different (at least for my truck while towing). Or some stations are selling 87 Octane as 89 or 93 Octane (kind of hard to believe this happens much)
Here is what I noticed about my recent gasoline purchases for my truck (2004 RAM 2500 4x4 5.7L gas Hemi). These are my personal observations primarily from the experience of maintaining either 55 or 65 MPH going up hills on interstate highways in mid-atlantic area as well as starting from a full stop.
- Shell 89 Octane didn't seem much better than 87 Octane. This was from the Shell station near my home in Maryland. two different times.
- Shell 93 Octane didn't seem much better than 87 Octane. This was from a Shell station in New Jersey. (late night, low on gas, 5 gas stations in a row were closed, finally an open station but it was a Shell station, so I figured since Shell 89 Octane wasn't working for me, why not try the Shell 93 Octane.)
- Sunoco 89 Octane worked very well. Smooth power on the hills. Easy to maintain speed going up hills. Real nice ride.
- Rutter's 89 Octane worked well also. But not quite as good as Sunoco 89 Octane.
These are very unscientific observations.
I'm just wondering what's going on with gasoline and my truck. I got some more learning to do about gasoline and performance in my truck. I'm an engineer so this could be fun figuring it out.
Ed
