Gas is NOT just Gas: Unbranded versus Branded by Adam Dager Gas is gas, right? Gas from Sams or Wal-Mart or Kroger is the same thing as Shell or Marathon, right? Dont be fooled by the smoke & mirrors--all gas is not created equal! Day after day we at All-American Stores are questioned about Marathon and other brands of fuels. Marathon is among a list of a dozen or 2 dozen brands of fuel. Marathon fuels along with our Shell brand at our other 2 stores have specific additives and are specific to their brands patented. These additives cost these brands a cent to a few cents per gallon to make it theirs. Gas is gas! ...UNTIL the additives are added that make it better--to brand it. Additives are like Gas Treatments, you know, the stuff that costs $3-4 and you add it to your tank of gas to clean the gunk out of your fuel lines and make your car drive better. Sams Club is not a fuel brand and includes no additives. In our industry, they are referred to Unbranded, aka Generic/Additive-Free. Wal-Mart or Kroger or Meijer, even Speedway and Lassus Handy Dandy are unbranded and may sell fuel that meets no brand requirements and no additives. These brands may choose to buy fuel such as Shell, Marathon, or even BP, but it costs them extra ¢ to do so. I assume it is on extremely rare occasions that they do purchase branded! Confused? basically, brands of fuel are typically refiners also, which means they may sell gas to anyone on the open market. However, grocers and independent fuel chains have the freedom to get unbranded, additive free fuel typically at a discount. A discount they typically do not pass onto you. In fact, even Marathon has a unbranded, additive free fuel that any fuel centers may buy. They call their unbranded fuel Speedway, and back in the past they were able to charge 1¢ less/gallon in the area because it was unbranded. Technically, even I could buy a location with the All-American Star Emblem as the brand, but at the end of the day, if I choose to not put in any specific brand of fuel, then it is probably just the same stuff you can get from Sams or Kroger. The basic gist of this is not to sway you, but rather inform you. This topic is something rarely known to most from my findings. Personally, I am a brand person when it comes to major things in life--cereal is one thing that I believe that brands have a severe advantage over their generic competitors. I believe that General Mills Cinnamon Toast Crunch tastes 400x better than Great Values knock-off and if offered for even a dollar more, I am all about the real thing! My point is that 99% of the time there is no difference in price for the name brand fuel versus the unbranded rivals, so my question to you is, why are you putting that other stuff in your car? I am not an expert, but if you research this, youll find me to be spot-on! At the end of the day however, it is up to the consumer to make an informed decision. Do a favor for us and simply buy fuel with additives! Buy BRANDED fuels, whether from All-American Stores or from anywhere else. The discussion of which brand of fuel to get, the difference in diesels, or kerosenes is for another day ;-) Here is a list of brands sold locally: Marathon Shell Valero BP Phillips 66 Sunoco Other brands: Texaco Exxon Mobil Citgo
Posted on: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 13:14:10 +0000
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