My Beetle is supposed to use regular gas. I guess they've perfected engineering enough that we don't have to fall for the more expensive gas being better. I love that about my car. Not "we recommend the highest grade gas possible" but "USE REGULAR gas, or else."

It's written right inside the door to the gas hole.

Read the many previous posts about this. Add maybe 26 cents per gallon to the price Liberty posts. Discount gasolines are the most expensive as explained previously.

To know more and to fix a rough idle, do gas mileage for every tank. Also posted previously. My experience says it takes two to four tanks of the good stuff to undo damage caused by discount gas.

And again, discount gasolines increase the nation's imports of foreign oil by 8% to 14% (numbers based upon my calculation; increased imports made obvious by your MPG numbers).

Major gasoline manufacturers are selling less gas because so many Americans even believed Saddam had WMDs - by ignoring facts and numbers. How many still do not learn from history? Notice how a majority are so easily decieved even by discount gasoline.

tw, how does recording the mileage the car gets per tank fix a rough idle?

It won't. He is trying to associate the two issues. Additional data points... Also, he is trying to see if the "good stuff " is working - maybe.

A solution only exists when the problem is first defined. Some of those suggestions cause significant mileage decreases. Others (ie oxygen sensor) do not. Just one of many reasons why mileage numbers are important for solutions. Better help means first providing better information. Only relevant fact is roughness in idle. Nothing else identifies meat necessary for a solution.

Random fact:

My subaru *can* run on 91 octane, but the owner's book says to put in a bottle of fuel system cleaner every 6,250 kms (half of a service interval).

I couldn't find any in shops so I rang the Subi dealer. They said "yeah we stock it, but we don't recommend it, just run your car on 95 octane, it will keep it cleaner".

These guys could make money selling me this stuff, so for once I believe them.

So I was wondering if using El Cheapo gas might be dirtying up the system and causing these symptoms. Just checking the basics.

Wait - there is fuel in it, isn't there? ;)

Generic green beans are the same as the brand green beans, generic Wheaties are just as good as real Wheaties, I hear them cry. BS, I say.

Yet there is 'cheap' gas? Gas is gas is gas.

You're all eating a pile of hooky.

I think you need to check your tire pressure. When my tire pressure gets low it decreases my gas mileage. In fact, when my gas mileage is lower than I expect I always check my tire pressure.

Tire pressure is causing a rough idle now?

It's always a good idea to check tire pressure. The car was pulling slightly to one side a while ago, and I inflated the tires to the proper pressure. It fixed that. I go in spurts when it comes to car maintenance. It's probably been a couple of months since I checked the tire pressure. Couldn't hurt to do it again. I suggest all of you go check your tire pressure this week.

Car maintenance - it's complicated!

It's not so complicated, but it's a pain in the ass.

Ah. Now I get it. I had to stop reading between the lines.

yeh, after that ... (shrug)

Find a different target, fellas.

tw tries to participate, and had been making some great funnies lately, but it always seems acceptable to be shitty to him. Why is that?

Anyway, the highlighted text makes no sense. tw doesn't live in Badelaide Baustralia.

I'm not being shitty to him. As for the joke, it went like this: tw (lots of lines of text followed by the words) random fact. I "got it" when I "read" "tw random fact", and not the stuff between those lines. It's a reference to his earlier post where he said to fix a rough idle, measure your gas mileage. That's nonsense.

I am really not being shitty to him, I'd love to solve this rough idling problem glatt's car has. I don't know everything there is about cars, and I love to learn new stuff. But unless tw has some magic trick he's still hiding, I don't see how his explanations achieve the desired result. If they do, that's freakin awesome because 1 -- problem solved and 2 -- I learn a new trick. If they don't, well, ok, fine, I already have a bunch of tricks that don't work.

I want him to explain his idea and show how it works. That's the beauty of working on machines (as I tried to explain several posts before) that machines don't need or are even susceptible to persuasion. I don't want to be persuaded that measuring the gas mileage will fix a rough idle, I want to be *shown how*. Maybe I can understand it, maybe not. But I haven't seen any explanation yet.

I was poking fun at tw's answers because they're freakin random.