Back in the day when you could look at an exhaust pipe and get an idea of how vehicle was burning fuel, rich or lean, oil consumption or not, I paid attention to the pipe to keep a running mental note on how things were going. I did notice that using Chevron Techron fuels the tail pipe, as well as the spark plugs, were cleaner and the vehicles ran smoother and got slightly better mileage.

I see no reason for that to not be true today.

Stephen

 

Well, I use Exxon premium pretty much exclusively (since there is an Exxon right near my house) and at 19,000 miles my tail pipes are almost constantly sooty on the bottoms. After a wash, there is always a good amount of carbon on them within a few hundred miles...

Maybe I will switch to Chevron or Shell for a while.

 

I was told by a service tech. that the mini fuel additive in the little Black bottle is Chevorn techron. I use it every other fill up---mcs.

 

Every other fill up? Crap, I hope we don't need to use it that much. I usually do mine once every oil change (7500 miles).

 

a fillup lasts my wife about two weeks and she doesn't drive it hard so I use it every other fillup.

 

I use a Fuel additive once every fall before the fuel companies switch to Winter test, and once in the spring when they switch to summer test. Not because of their fuel. but I feel its good every 6 months to clean out the fuel system. and before and after winter seams like the best time.

I base my fuel choices on who is closest when i decide to fill up, I know a few people in the fuel industry and all the fuel comes from the same pipe. its the additives that change not the base ingredient. And as long as your buying fuel from a station with a high turn over, its clean.

 

This thread reminded me to pick up some fuel additive on the way home

 

To those who say 87 is fine for your MINI - ask your service advisor to make a note in your file that you run 87 octane if you are so sure it's ok.

They will appreciate the "customer pay" repair that'll eventually come.