But it might cause a fight at the pumps.
The gas is the same as anyplace else you'd buy it.
I swear people either are too blind to realize that all Costco pumps have long enough hoses on them that you don't have have to pull up to a pump that has a nozzle on the same side as your vehicle's fuel door or they're just too stupid or lazy to care. Either way, I always go for the shortest line. Many times, there's an empty one on the farthest end.
Yep.
There's three gas stations right around the corner from my house in Fremont. One is a Chevron, across the street is a 76 and diagonal from the Chevron is an Arco. Occasionally, I'll be low enough on fuel before my morning commute to SF that I'll get gas on my way out to 880. Since the 76 station involves making a couple u-turns to access it, and since I don't get rewards points to use with them, I tend to avoid that one. The Chevron generally gets the most use due to the frequent $0.20 a gallon discounts I pull down.
Anyway, since I commute in rather early, I'm generally at the station when the tankers are filling the stations tanks. On a regular basis, I see a particular unmarked tandem tanker either coming from the Arco station over to the Chevron to make a "deposit" or vice versa. It's the same truck taking the same fuel to both stations. I'm not sure when the detergents are added by Chevron (OOOO! Techron! 
) but it's clearly not done by the tanker company...unless they're putting those same detergents into Arco's fuel which is highly unlikely.I strongly suspect your friend's issue was due to lack of proper maintenance on the station operator's part...not maintaining their tanks and having them checked and cleaned properly. There's also times when water gets into the tanks and contaminates the fuel. That can happen to the expensive gas station operators too, though.
The main reason I avoid using Arco is the wait can usually be just as bad as Costco during peak times...especially because of shithead drivers that love to pay outside but then leave their car next to the pump after they've finished fueling and go inside to buy other shit thus tying up the pump needlessly (can't do that at Costco!
), but also the fact that Arco charges a fee for anything but debit card or cash use and requires me to do all the transaction work at a centralized kiosk instead of at the pump I'm actually standing at. 
