[quote=“headhonchoII”]You have to understand at the retail level what is happening.
Many of the gas stations are operated as franchises, not owned by the refiniries. Just because it says 95 on the pump doesn’t mean they are giving you 95. You grew up in Taiwan so you can figure out the economics of this.[/quote]
I have never heard of CPC gas being doctored and I doubt highly that Formosa gas is being doctored too. Maybe im wrong but lets get the news clips stating this fact ?
Maybe your mechanic has his nose closer to the ground out there, but lets get some facts? I know that if i believed everything my mechanic told me i would be broke.
As for the UniPResident and the plasticier problem? That was not a problem if Uni President but instead their downstream supplier who was unethical and supplied non food grade plasticiers. FOod grade plasticizers were fine.
Commonly used around the world.
Uni was a victim.
Sure what they could have done was to test their suppliers better though. And YiMei foods did well with this.
[quote=“headhonchoII”]You have to understand at the retail level what is happening.
Many of the gas stations are operated as franchises, not owned by the refiniries. Just because it says 95 on the pump doesn’t mean they are giving you 95. You grew up in Taiwan so you can figure out the economics of this.
Formosa is a private company, therefore they have more pressure or more incentive to eke out profit. CPC doesn’t have the same type of pressure or incentive to cheat being state owned.
Also, just because Taiwan is not Nigeria doesn’t stop big companies here cutting corners.
If you think you know more than my local mechanic who explicitly warned me about this without being prompted, who actually checks engines for a living, well fair enough. I’m not saying everybody is at it, but at the same time I think it is pretty likely a lot of gas stations are cutting corners.
Uni president and the plastics scandal anybody?[/quote]
You’ve been in Taiwan long enough to know that Taiwanese don’t require solid evidence for many things.
I also know that corruption is pretty common in Taiwan but I find it hard to believe that stations aren’t routinely inspected and massively fined if they are selling gasoline significantly below 95.
It should also be noted that the thread was started by the extremely accurate measurements of 1 time/wk vs 2 times/wk.
Hv we considered exactly how many miles per liter we got? By say, filling up the tank and then running it near dry and then filling back up? And observing how many miles per liter were achieved? And repeating this many times over the same topography driven.
Also its important to get gas in the evening when it is cool as gas expands. Important to get gas at the same ambient temperature to compare.
It does take some careful calculations and trying best to repeat the topography (the same courses) , the average speed driven (should be similar) , the times of day the car was driven (to minimize the traffic component) , etc etc.
ONe would have to observe over quite some times and many gas station visits to have a reasonable conclusion.
I did a careful study over one year on my Audi A4 1.8T in 2005 and used premium gas versus regular gas (the car is tuned for premium but regular can be used without problems). Over the course of a year of careful measurement I came to the conclusion that using regular in place of premium, while not being able to observe any loss of power , I got about one to one and a half Miles per Gallon less.
[quote=“Abacus”][quote=“headhonchoII”]You have to understand at the retail level what is happening.
Many of the gas stations are operated as franchises, not owned by the refiniries. Just because it says 95 on the pump doesn’t mean they are giving you 95. You grew up in Taiwan so you can figure out the economics of this.
Formosa is a private company, therefore they have more pressure or more incentive to eke out profit. CPC doesn’t have the same type of pressure or incentive to cheat being state owned.
Also, just because Taiwan is not Nigeria doesn’t stop big companies here cutting corners.
If you think you know more than my local mechanic who explicitly warned me about this without being prompted, who actually checks engines for a living, well fair enough. I’m not saying everybody is at it, but at the same time I think it is pretty likely a lot of gas stations are cutting corners.
Uni president and the plastics scandal anybody?[/quote]
You’ve been in Taiwan long enough to know that Taiwanese don’t require solid evidence for many things.
I also know that corruption is pretty common in Taiwan but I find it hard to believe that stations aren’t routinely inspected and massively fined if they are selling gasoline significantly below 95.
It should also be noted that the thread was started by the extremely accurate measurements of 1 time/wk vs 2 times/wk.[/quote]
Ah government inspectors, models of efficiency and paragons of virtue all.
I am 100% convinced that the gas I take from the local Forumosa here is inferior in quality than the further up the road CPC.
My engine has less power (EG:climbing HW nr1 South bound behind the toll station. A daily routine I easily feel when things are smooth or not
The motor tends to sputter - on even road, same speed: Dirt in the fuel?
When filling with new gas, there is an incredible vacuum in the tank which I don’t have with CPC. Very odd, can’t find anything on the www on this.
A 10% cheaper price than CPC has definitely come / saved somewhere.
The car is new- just had its first maintenance / oil / fuel filter change.
Testing comparison: Letting the tank almost go dry, a refill on CPC and 3 periods x of 4-5 days comparison. No reason to believe anymore it might be 1 bad gas mix by Forumosa.
[quote=“ceevee369”]I am 100% convinced that the gas I take from the local For[strike]u[/strike]mosa here is inferior in quality than the further up the road CPC.
My engine has less power (EG:climbing HW nr1 South bound behind the toll station. A daily routine I easily feel when things are smooth or not
The motor tends to sputter - on even road, same speed: Dirt in the fuel?
When filling with new gas, there is an incredible vacuum in the tank which I don’t have with CPC. Very odd, can’t find anything on the www on this.
A 10% cheaper price than CPC has definitely come / saved somewhere.
The car is new- just had its first maintenance / oil / fuel filter change.
Testing comparison: Letting the tank almost go dry, a refill on CPC and 3 periods x of 4-5 days comparison. No reason to believe anymore it might be 1 bad gas mix by For[strike]u[/strike]mosa.[/quote]
I would personally blame the bad modding. I know Chewy would.
I’ve noticed that after some fill-ups, my car runs much better. Other times, it feels very sluggish. And it doesn’t seem to be related to the brand. One week Formosa will give me great gas, but not the next. CPC is the same. This week I filled up at Formosa and it’s great. But the tankful I got on the eve of the last big price increase left my car with absolutely no pep. Same station.
too bad Savuca ? isn’t around anymore to clarify. Isn’t it simply possible that dirt / mixes of additives can have a notcible effect? I don’t find this amazig at all, but a clear observation.
However, I do tend to think not the tea in China but the tidal influence of the Moon might have somethig to do with it.
Drive a car here by the way Tommy ?
Last i drove with any regularity in taiwn was 1999. And I never had any major differences between stations and fill ups some of you are having. But drove in march of this year down to kenting and around taipei. Didnt observe huge differences with the stations i used. But i used only CPC stations tho. So I cant say bout formosa gas.
Seems im lucky here in calif. I have some small minor differences in mileage but no observable differences in performance whatsoever between all the different brands and stations i use here.
More anecdotal evidence from the news is that fuel bought from a petrol station in a backwater could have started life, several months ago, at the stated RON. Fuel goes off over time, and there was a news article my wife saw warning people away from quiet fuel stations for that reason. It could be 98 RON in January, but by November if they haven’t sold it all it could be 94 RON. Plus the additives start to coagulate and further reduce quality.
There is no evidence that NPC is shit but I believe it is. Maybe I’m turning Taiwanese, but I’ll never buy it again if I can avoid it. It’s CPC all the way for me.
My last piece of shit scooter only ran well on formosa 98 gas. If I used anything else, it ran like shit. I avoid the local cpc because the gas is watered down. They must have a leak in their tanks because I ended up with water in my gas two times and had to have the tank drained.
My newer scooter is happy no matter what I put into it. I now run the cheap 92 and don’t really pay much attention to where I buy gas except I avoid the cpc station with the water issue.
Since “Gas” isn’t gas.( If it was it’d float out of your petrol tank and you’d get significantly lower mileage.) I’m going to refer to it as “petrol” below. Apologies if this conflicts with any deeply held beliefs.
What diluents do you think are going to be available to them that are significantly cheaper than bulk automative petroleum spirit?
I can’t think of any. The obvious candidates would be diesel or kerosene, but before tax I’d doubt those are going to offer enough margin to justify the effort and risk, not to mention the loss of product/outlet credibility.
The alleged inferiority of Indian Reservation petrol that I mention above was “supported” by the allegation that someone had seen waste lube oil being tipped in. I suppose that might be possible and could be significant for diesel, but the volume you could get away with before performance became unacceptable in petrol wouldn’t make you much money.
[quote=“jaame”]
I think it’s pretty much an accepted fact among locals that NPC have crappy fuel compared to CPC. Avoid where possible![/quote]
Its been my experience, and is now pretty much my default position, that ANY pretty much accepted fact among locals, especially on anything remotely technical, can pretty much be discounted as pretty much utter bollocks.
IIRC the great Redwagon, commenting on a pretty much accepted belief on lube oil adulteration (which is much more likely) among local mechanics, pointed out that they also believed that looking at a crescent moon would cut your ear.
Ok, pointing at a crescent moon then. Sounds right, though I havn’t checked.
I’m sure that’ll be my mistake rather than Redwagon’s
EDIT
While large-scale deliberate adulteration seems unlikely, preventing accidental contamination will be dependent on maintenance and quality control, which will need to be managed.
It doesn’t seem unlikely that the quality of that management would vary between outlets.
[quote=“Ducked”]What diluents do you think are going to be available to them that are significantly cheaper than bulk automative petroleum spirit?
I can’t think of any. The obvious candidates would be diesel or kerosene, [/quote]
Well diesel costs more to produce than petrol, so I doubt that would be an issue.
It is the case though that anecdotal evidence would suggest than NPC stations offer poorer fuel quality than CPC. Without the resources to check this for myself though, I tend to simply recommend that given the choice, then one should choose from CPC. I can’t be too specific on this topic I’m afraid as there are too many variants when it comes to filling up.
I could offer a couple of simple tips though.
Try to fill from the newest station available. Old tanks can leak and allow ground water to enter these under ground petrol tanks.
Try to fill from busy stations (most are anyway but…) petrol changes its qualities over time, and can lead to severe issues if not used quickly.
Use up the fuel in your own car’s tank and have your fuel filter changed regularly. Old fuel sitting in a tank will wax up over time and cause running issues. It is often responsible for killing your fuel pump too in extreme long standing situations.
Sorry, petrol. I would have said it, but the post I was replying to said gas is gas, so I merely went with that for poetic reasons.
You could be right about the NPC thing being another example of hearsay, like eating watermelon makes you cold.
I don’t know what additives would be available more cheaply than petrol, but I’m sure there will be some. It’s over ten years ago now, but I actually wrote my undergraduate thesis on the toxicity of MTBE, methyl tertiary butyl ether, which in the 90’s was a commonly used octane booster in petrol. Its use was outlawed because of cancer risk, but if I recall correctly it was added because it was cheaper than petrol to produce and it worked to boost the RON. I might be wrong about any of this though, as a lot of time has passed and a lot of hair has fallen out since those heady days of university.
Also, if you buy something off someone who makes it and sells it, and you sell it for less than they do, you’re not going to make a lot of money at least in relative terms. That’s a good motive to cheapen fuel in any way you can, is it not?
