Speedway

Just your average, ordinary, everyday gas station. Really busy in the morning with trucks (both the 18-​wheeler and pickup varieties) filling up. I actually had to wait a bit to get an open pump. Prices are competitive with the other local cheap gas station (Thorntons which is less than a mile east on N. Aurora).

Gas prices are comparable to the going rates. Sometimes a little cheaper. The selection of food/​drinks inside is good. Sometimes it gets really busy in here especially when only one person is checking people out. Can use more than one person on checkout at a time.

Why on earth would anyone review a gas station? Does the gas work — right? Isn’t that the only thing to worry about? Well, in this case… it didn’t.
Long story short, I filled up here in the beginning of July 2010, and several days later, found myself towing my car to a dealer for a $ 1300 repair. What I thought was a failing head gasket or bad piston rings turned out to be what looked like diesel fuel in the tank of my car (which takes premium). The voice of the dealer employee who explained this to me over the phone was priceless — the unmistakable sound of scorn («What kind of bozo puts diesel in a gasoline powered vehicle?») was palpable. Never mind that a diesel fuel nozzle won’t even fit in the fuel filler pipe of my car.
When I checked with the station and asked «say, you didn’t have any recent problems with gas, did you?» they were quick to admit to the issue — some fuel hauler had filled the premium bunker with diesel, and the diesel bunker with premium. Nice move. I was told to contact Speedway Superamerica corporate, since this was a corporate franchise. They were pretty easy to deal with — took my information, called me back promptly, and issued me a check for the full cost of my repairs, plus a gift card for my troubles (which I thought was amusing: «Dear Speedway, your gas broke my car. Thanks for sending me more.»). They didn’t ask for a fuel sample to verify my claim, didn’t make a noise at the cost of the repair (even covered rental and towing) and didn’t give me any grief about having not approved repairs through them first — something I’ve noticed is a common disclaimer with fuel and oil change warranties — basically, prove it was us, and we’ll fix it, but you can’t just go off and get repairs and then make us pay.
Unfortunately, this review isn’t about corporate, but rather the station. And what bothers me is the way the station handled the issue. I paid with a credit card, so they knew that I would have been affected, based on the time of my fill up and the time of the fuel delivery (which corporate told me the knew precisely, and thus knew which claims would be legit). But they made no attempt to contact me — I am assuming they could have worked through my bank to get my information, but they did not. Maybe it’s not possible to do, privacy concerns and all that. Thing is, they didn’t even make any attempt to notify people. Not even a sign on the door, «If you bought fuel at such and such a time, you are due some reimbursement for your costs.» To me, that’s simply dishonest, or at the very least, poor business practices.
Would I buy fuel here again? Well, common sense says this could happen anywhere. It’s not that the gas was «bad,» like full of water or sugar or whatever, but that it wasn’t even gasoline in the technical sense. And it was luck that the swap was diesel for premium — had it been, say, premium for regular, my car might have run funny for a while, but it wouldn’t have broken it completely. This whole thing was probably entirely the fault of the fuel hauler, and that sort of thing could happen to any Mobil, Amoco, Citgo, and Jimmy’s Fill Up in the country, any day of the week. So maybe it’s not fair to boycott this station. But you know how it goes — once bitten, twice shy. And while I hate to quit using this station, which has cheap gas and is extremely convenient when driving from my home to the highway or the nearby train station… I will think twice next time.

I mainly get what I need by paying at the pump, but I occasionally go in. It’s nice and clean. I especially like racking up my Speed Rewards points for fake gas-​station cappuccino. And when it’s not free, it’s only 99 cents for 24 oz. I’d spend more on all of the sugar used to produce that tasty junk!
Most importantly, it’s in a great location, and provides some of the cheapest gas in the area. You could visit the Sonic across the street or the Meijer a half mile down 59, but I’ve had terrible mileage with them.