Friday, January 11, 2013

Premium fuel over Coleman fuel

 Remember back in the day when you went camping and you had to have at least one gallon of "Coleman Fuel" or as what we used to call "White Gas" and now when you go camping there are all sorts of "other" things that have replaced the tried and true liquid gas.  White gas has been replaced by propane, butane, batteries, MRE heat packs, and even solar energy.  Heck even today people rarely burn a dare I say it a "wood fire," how bad is that for the environment?  I was walking through Walmart the other day and saw the "Coleman Fuel" in the camping/hunting section and it took me back, and then the price got me as well.  A gallon of gas for 7.26 a gallon, but heck look at the bright side it is shelf stable and that is something to be said about fuel these days.
Right next to the gallon of "Coleman Fuel" I saw this quart sized container of something they called "premium blend fuel" so I decided to read the label and see what was so neat about "premium blend fuel" and "Coleman Fuel" and as I read that there was nothing that made this any sort of "blend" or "premium" the wording started to talk more about how this was a convenient "weekend" size bottle of "Coleman Fuel."  Now, I am a sucker for new and shiny things like that new pre-mixed two cycle gas that comes with the oil all ready mixed and all you have to do is pick the right gas to oil ratio for your two cycle engine.  The thing is the price for this stuff is 5.48 for one quart of the gallon stuff that is 7.26, can we say: rip off.  Camping and camping supplies is a bigger rip off than even the funeral business.  These companies have found ways to sell the same stuff for almost the same price just at a convenient size.  Heck, it is probably worth you buying the small one if you only do one campout a year with the family and that is all you need but, also think of the awesome shelf life of this miracle gas and how it might be needed in an emergency if lets say a hurricane named Sandy comes by and takes out power for a month or so.  You can just bust out the old Coleman stove (that is if you house was still there) and cook up some mac and cheese or something.  Sometimes people you don't need to be the coolest campers on the block because what makes camping is more of what you do, not what you saw on your dish satellite while sitting on your blow up couch out camping.  I will be the first to admit that my camping gear has alot of gizmo's and gadgets (alot of diabetes crap) but the best times out camping are where I get wrapped up in outdoorsy stuff so much I forget to check emails or do city stuff.

7 comments:

  1. My Coleman Duel-Fuel stove rocks my world. I've only used Coleman fuel in it (never gasoline) and I've it for about 20 years. I've used it at least a few times each year. Some years I've used it almost every weekend during the Summer. It's been out to Burning Man (one of the harshest environments on the planet with alkaline dust getting onto, and into, everything) 10 times and used several times a day for each of those weeks. It is a rockstar of a stove. By this point, it isn't pretty, but still boils a pot of water faster than my gas stove at home. It is ultra efficient too. A gallon of fuel will last longer than cooking 3 meals a day for 4 people for a week.

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  2. I suggest you read the MSDS on each of the Coleman fuels you reference in your article. They are not nearly the "same" as your false claim states above.

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  3. And what would that be Mr MSDS? Please fill us in on the differences you claim as we don't have ready access to the Material Safety Data Sheets on these two fuels but obviously you think you have something worthy of 2 cents to share, so by all means, share it.

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  4. Ummm....@peter desrosiers,
    Yup, read the MSDS...they are the same....100% Naphtha
    Old posting but still valid!

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  5. ... I know this is kind of a dead topic but I followed up on this and checked the MSDS sheets that Menards posts on their websites for both products... Coleman premium blend fuel is comprised of mostly nHexane and Cyclohexane. The regular coleman fuel contains like 7 components including regular old gasoline.

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    Replies
    1. premium fuel: https://www.menards.com/msds/106375_001.pdf

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    2. regular coleman fuel: https://www.menards.com/msds/113496_001.pdf

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