I have been putting 93 in my turbo trax. It's almost 50 cents more expensive than 87 in ny. Is it worth it or a waste?
Am i wasting money? GM 1.4 Turbo and 93 octane..
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Hmm.. as an aside, who runs 89?
I think some Ram Semi trucks recommend 89 octane as does some outdoor power equipment. I know my Stihl trimmer says to use 89 octane or higher.
I do. Prius is somewhat carboned up from 12 years of extreme short tripping; 89 to prevent pinging.
Most "cheap" turbo's from most manufactures are rated at 87 octane. Added power from increasing octane can only be sniffed out by a few manufactures. Hyundai for example can't from what I have tested and read about . One tune set at 87 octane. I don't know if the "N" models can detect octane. I used 93 octane mostly in the summers and 89 in the Minnesota winters with the OEM tune.I had what I thought ws an LSPI event in the first 500 miles of ownership , so I kept at 89 and 93 octane since I am on boost more then most. That is gone now so I have to run 93 octane with my new tune.
I ran 87 octane in my 1.4T and you could hear pinging under low RPMs, but the sensor would retard timing almost immediately and it would stop. I didn't care how much performance it had, because it doesn't have much and I didn't expect it to. It never hurt the engine as far as I knew and it got totaled at 155,000 miles.
The use of octane booster is I'll advised, correct?
I run 89 in my wifes 3.6 Malibu LTZ but strictly premium in my Regal GS 2.0T
I run it in the Canyon.
That is not from the gas.
Here's what 93 octane gets you on I95 @83 mph, the last 7 minutes were in traffic. E300 Mercedes, 2018, 2.0 turbo. About 20 min. at highway speed with one traffic slowdown at about the 12 minute mark.
Going way back to 2011 when the Cruze was the new kid of the block, edmunds.com did some octane testing with their long-term test Cruze.
It started with the observation that hot weather during a road trip from SoCal to Phoenix really took a toll on the power and fuel economy of the 1.4L. On a whim, they filled the tank with premium and the power came back, as did the fuel economy.
They then did back-to-back tests over the course of a month, driving the car around Death Valley with 87 octane, then with 91 octane:
Is this the end of the story? Of course not. The only way this story ends to is try it yourself and note the differences. I do think the results are encouraging enough to give a try though and not just fall back on the blanket "If the manufacturer says regular, running premium will get you nothing" advice.
https://www.edmunds.com/chevrolet/c...ot-weather-mpg-test---regular-vs-premium.html
It started with the observation that hot weather during a road trip from SoCal to Phoenix really took a toll on the power and fuel economy of the 1.4L. On a whim, they filled the tank with premium and the power came back, as did the fuel economy.
They then did back-to-back tests over the course of a month, driving the car around Death Valley with 87 octane, then with 91 octane:
- 87 octane
- 4,381 miles
- 179 gallons
- 24.5 MPG
- 91 octane
- 4,551 miles
- 169.73 gallons
- 26.8 mpg
Is this the end of the story? Of course not. The only way this story ends to is try it yourself and note the differences. I do think the results are encouraging enough to give a try though and not just fall back on the blanket "If the manufacturer says regular, running premium will get you nothing" advice.
https://www.edmunds.com/chevrolet/c...ot-weather-mpg-test---regular-vs-premium.html
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Tests like that are reason why I stick with premium on all my vehicles and rental vehicles. On my personal vehicles I've recorded smoother idle, faster start-up times and better fuel economy.
Of course, they could be fueled with regular, but when the pros outweigh the cons, isn't the choice rather obvious?
That depends on a lot of things. I would note that the price difference in the article is based on a 22 cent difference in price, and where regular averaged $3.60 per gallon. Of course the price difference can vary, but a 20 cent different is pretty common since I could remember. A few decades ago when I was in Arizona, I was marveling at how regular was 79.9 cents per gallon while premium was 99.9 cents per gallon at a typical name brand gas station like Chevron or Mobil. While the cost goes down, the cost of fuel per mile will tilt in the favor or regular.
I had a 2015 Chevy Sonic RS and tried the difference between 87 and 93 octane. It regularly got almost 5 mpg better on premium especially in warm weather, pretty much all highway driving here. I figured it was about the same cost overall with the fuel economy difference and used premium. It definitely drove better with 93 but got better fuel economy on regular in the coldest parts of winter. So I adjusted accordingly.
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