Hello all,
If you live anywhere near Atlanta Georgia, you know the pain I am going thru, there is so little fuel, I would guess 90% of gas stations are completely out, and the one that do are only selling regular at $4.15 a gallon. No mid, no 93 octane. This is truly scary, I worry if I will be able to fuel up this weekend.
This is the first time I have ever put regular in the tank, and so far, the only thing I notice is it is more sluggish off the line, or passing. I worry that my 99 with 117,000 miles is not up to being run on regular, I hope nothing gets damaged.

Totally frustrated,
David

 

Yeah, I live in ATL and this has been a real problem. I was able to fill up at the 1 station that I found with gas - I waited for 30 minutes on line to do so. But, I'm one of the lucky few, so I'm grateful. But, it will slow down my weekend driving plans.

Greg

 

So what exactly is the cause of this shortage?

 

ATL if you have to use regular, i know on my 91 when i used it once the engine started to knock..... go to napa, autozone etc and just get an octane booster

 

Yeh, I was up there lastweekend and it wasnt that bad... about 70% were out and premium was still around.. Check College Park off of exit 239 off of 75. That is where I filled up 2 or 3 times.. That sucks man... I know some of my friends in Marietta cant go anywhere because there isnt gas anywhere..

Pretty much the cause of the shortage is panic, no?

 

NC is going through the same deal. What is really ironic in my opinion, is that stations that are located within less than 1 mile of the tanker farm in Greensboro, NC, are out of gas? WTF? I mean, these tanks are supplied via pipleline directly fed from the gulf? So how the heck can these stations be out of gas when there is millions of gallons of gas sitting in these huge tanks? Someone please explain that to me?

 

yeh, its ridiculous man.. I agree... To my knowledge, ATL is directly fed by pipeline, too.. then it is tanked up and dispersed via trucks to other places..

It sucks, but maybe this can be a wake up call and maybe motivate both democrats and republicans alike to finally pass another energy bill to aleviate our dependence on oil...(not that we will ever be 100% away from oil because the truth is that everything it seems requires the hydrocarbons found in oil)

 

Yeah, it's pretty beat around here.

I've seen some CRAZY long lines around my area, but I have been very fortunate that I have yet to wait in line for hardly any time so far.

Hope this ends soon.

 

A bit about lower octane gas for the 400LS. I've used nothing but 78 for over a year with absolutely no ill effects. It has plenty of power and there haven't been issues with mechanical problems. I get about 19-21 mpg in town and 23-27 mpg on a highway trip.

Don't knock it 'til you've tried it.

 

that part of the country probably has very little refining capacity. So any divert in supply will kill the inventory of that region. The same thing happened when Rita/Katrina were around

 

Damn, I hope you mean 87

I've been using 87 since I've had mine for about 4 months now.

I don't ever stomp it, just drive like a grandpa when i'm in it.

So far it's been working great. *Knocks on wood.*

 

wow, i guess we are lucky in hawaii.

 

Yep, that's what they're telling us. The shortage is due to lack of refining capacity.

Greg

 

The hurricanes/storms caused several gulf refineries to shut down and since the southeast US gets most, if not all of its gas from the gulf suppliers you get a shortage. When those refineries get shut down it's like closing a faucet, the supply dries up. That's my understanding if I remember correctly from the news the other day.

I saw the lines at the pump on the news. They were saying some people were camping out overnight to wait for the new supply to come in! I feel for you guys down there. Here in MN it's like nothing has changed, except slightly higher prices. This does show us all that we NEED to get off our oil crutch.

 

I'm in Wilmington, NC and we also had a gas shortage as Gustav was hitting. For about 24 hours there were lines at every gas station in town 2-3 cars deep. One station down the street from me was rumored to have hit $4.75 that day.

It's gone back down now, but thank god I only drive 400 miles/month or this kind of stuff would worry me.