See below:  On which gas to use, stick with any Top Tier gas and the minimum grade required for your car (per owner’s manual).  Arco is Top Tier and perfectly fine to use - your dad is wrong in his assessment of Arco gas.  In fact, I get mainly Arco since where I live it’s closer to me and the cheapest price-wise.

https://carkiller.com/scottykilmer/qa/which-gas-is-best/#post-40063

https://carkiller.com/scottykilmer/qa/best-gas-station-for-87-octane-shell-or-esso/#post-32058

Scotty’s take:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NYKt9Ur6f9g&feature=youtu.be

All gasoline sold in the USA has to meed federal standards. You can use any of it. I have not noticed any difference between gas stations.

Where I live, the Chevron station down the street from the Mobile station is priced forty cents a gallon higher  and sixty cents higher than Safeway gas.  While working on a construction project a while ago, I noticed the petroleum truck that delivered fuel went to all three gas stations.  Same truck, same fuel. 

IIRC, part of the reason Arco is cheaper is they don’t take credit cards, at least used to.

Same refinery different marketing brands or in simple terms, different advertising!

Reminds me when AT&T used to ask if you wanted dial tone or pulse service and if you ordered pulse, they would still give you dial tone because it was cheaper for them but they would charge you more for dial tone if you asked for that service! It is all marketing and how much they could get away with it and gasoline is no different.  

The two standards I use (besides looking for the Top Tier) is if the place is super high traffic and if the place has relatively nice pumps. If the pumps look super dirty or ragged, I try to avoid. Even though the gas coming it might be the same gas, the upkeep of storage tanks is also of concern.

I will gladly use Arco. I usually try to go to Costco, cheapest gas in town.