Originally Posted By: lexus114
nice little car,my daughter has a 2002 and loves it.read the manual re;fuel,i believe they recommend 89 octane.she said to me the car runs much better and more mpg`s on the 89 octane.
Doesn't require nor need 89 octane fuel. Most cars, even high performance cars get better fuel economy with regular unleaded. Plus and Premium are more resistant to ignition, and that is why they are good for high compression and/or hot running performance engines. However, for standard everyday driving, the car is only part throttle with low cylinder pressures and regular 87 octane will ignite more efficiently.
The current Buick Toyota Camary V6 gets better fuel economy with 87 Octane and better low end torque with extra horsepower when running premium. Per the owners manual.
As far as oil goes. Having a 2006 Elantra, you have the Beta II 2.0L. The engine is similar in design to the Mitsubishi 4G63. With a turbo kit, many people run this engine up to 300 horses on the dyno using only the stock internals. That said, it is well designed. Head gasket issues are almost unheard of unless you overheat badly and the timing belt needs changed every 60K, but I've seen people go as long as 100K without the belt snapping. Don't test it though, it IS an interference engine.
Feel free to use any quality 5w20. The owners manual will allow for 7,500 mile interval w/o severe service. If I were you, I would run a quality 5w20 in the summer, and then switch to a nice synthetic 0w20 for the cold NJ winters. The top end will get a little noisy on cold starts. Synthetic seems to stop much of it.
I've seen this engine go to 450,000 miles on a 2005 Kia Sportage. The gentleman was a private courier and shuffled legal documents from place to place. He said it still ran well before a radiator hose cracked, let all the coolant go, and the engine seized up from overheating. This was during a late night drive. Did I mention he was very old.
He ran M1 10w30 all year on 15K intervals. He was a little old fashioned. I did most of his repairs and MONTHLY oil changes.
