Here to tell us about modern gasolines is Barbara Terry, Dr. FuelGood from Shell oil.  Barbara, welcome to Goss’s Garage.

BARBARA TERRY, SHELL OIL:  Thanks for having me today, how are you?

GOSS:  I’m doing great. Hey what can you tell us about modern gasolines?

TERRY:  Well 70 percent of Americans are all under the assumption that all gasolines are alike and they’re really not.  You should be running a top-tiered gas in your car.  And when I say top-tiered, I mean that four manufacturers got together and came up with a standard of the gas that should be run in their vehicles.  Those four manufacturers were BMW, Honda, Toyota and General Motors.

GOSS:  What’s the difference between top-tiered and non top-tiered gas?

TERRY:  Well, good thing that you asked.  I brought with me today a little test that was done on a 6-cylinder engine - it was a brand new car.  Six of the intake valves were divided up into two sets of three.  And as you can see with that with only 5,000 miles on the vehicle that carbon deposit build-up had already begun on the intake valves.  The other three that you see were run on top-tiered gas.

GOSS:  It’s impressive.  Now in only 5,000 miles, I mean that’s a lot of carbon build-up.

TERRY:  It is.  And I wouldn’t want that in my car.

GOSS:  And it’s going to affect fuel-economy, performance and lots of other things.  Top-tiered does away with it?

TERRY:  Yes it does.

GOSS:  Top-tiered gasoline, when you go to the service station it’s available in all three grades.

TERRY:  Yes it is.  The low, the mid and of course the V-power grade of Shell - that just replaced the premium gasoline.

GOSS:  Okay, so we want to use top-tiered gasoline.  What other fuel-saving tips do you have for consumers?

TERRY:  Well if you log onto the Shell website (www.shell.com) there is actually 12 fuel-stretch tips.  But we can go over let’s say four of those today.

GOSS:  Okay.

TERRY:  All right.  You should always run the proper air-pressure in your tires.  And make sure the proper air-pressure is in all four.  Number two, you should always switch out your air filter let’s say approximately every 15,000 miles or it you live in a dusty climate, change it out every 10,000 miles.  And it can take really about five minutes.

GOSS:  All right and number three?

TERRY:  When I pulled up today, I saw those bowling balls in your car.  If you remove the excessive weight out our your car, whether it be bowling balls, or golf clubs, baby formula, extra water whatever, you’ll actually achieve better gas mileage.  And also keep your car tuned-up on a regular basis.

GOSS:  Well that’s simple enough.

TERRY:  Yeah it is.

GOSS:  All right, so we want to do all those things.  We want to go to the Shell website and see the other tips and we want to use top-tiered gas.

TERRY:  Yes you do.

GOSS:  Barbara, thank you so much.

TERRY:  Thanks for having me today.



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