Wasting money on premium gas

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Originally Posted By: bmwpowere36m3
Originally Posted By: whip
Originally Posted By: bmwpowere36m3
Only a waste if the vehicle doesn't require it... better to spend money on Top Tier gas.

Top tier is another marketing gimmick. I wouldn't spend more money for it.


Not true. Even more so, I go to stations that get a LOT of traffic. You know the fuel is always fresh due to volume.

The stations around here are Sheetz, Circle K and Get Go. They're all high volume. Fresh fuel is one of the biggest factors. I'd bet money the fuel meets the Top Tier standard. The only difference is they haven't paid to use the Top Tier sticker.
As I said above, I've been using E10 non Top Tier gas for as long as I can remember. I haven't had fuel related failures. How would Top Tier be better?
 
If your tune doesn't have the timing tables cranked up for power then running premium is a waste, infact, you will lose power running more than 87 in a car not set up for it.
 
It's hard to argue against the folks who experience a CEL when using a lower octane fuel.

Also as I said, higher octane typically has less ethanol. OPE would love the stuff.

I just found out a local station has E0 91 too.
laugh.gif
 
Originally Posted By: dlundblad
It's hard to argue against the folks who experience a CEL when using a lower octane fuel.

Also as I said, higher octane typically has less ethanol. OPE would love the stuff.


Really? Of course the presence of EtOH is highly dependent on the market (here in Wisconsin it is dependent on the county), but higher octane fuel here always has ethanol. For example, the 93 octane has EtOH whereas the 91 octane typically does not. But for the lower octane grades it can only be determined by the presence of a placard on the pump.
 
Originally Posted By: Triple_Se7en
When I pull up to a pump, if the pumps states there's ethanol in the gas, I immediately drive away and go elsewhere for non-ethanol gas. To me that's more important than the octane number going inside my GMs.


Would love to find one around here!!
 
Originally Posted By: dlundblad
Originally Posted By: kschachn
Originally Posted By: dlundblad
A guy that owns a local top tier station told me fuel is usually 2+ higher octane than advertised. (87 would be 89.) Not sure how true it is though..


How could he possibly know?


Because he's in the gas business?

How would a rancher possibly know about cattle?
Is the gas station guy MAKING the gas?
 
Originally Posted By: kschachn
Originally Posted By: dlundblad
It's hard to argue against the folks who experience a CEL when using a lower octane fuel.

Also as I said, higher octane typically has less ethanol. OPE would love the stuff.


Really? Of course the presence of EtOH is highly dependent on the market (here in Wisconsin it is dependent on the county), but higher octane fuel here always has ethanol. For example, the 93 octane has EtOH whereas the 91 octane typically does not. But for the lower octane grades it can only be determined by the presence of a placard on the pump.


I'd like to see a citation backing up this claim of premium typically having less ethanol. There is an even bigger economic driver to include ethanol in premium vs. regular in terms of energy and catalyst deactivation for the high octane components needed to blend premium and the octane value of ethanol.
 
Originally Posted By: Nyogtha
Originally Posted By: kschachn
Originally Posted By: dlundblad
It's hard to argue against the folks who experience a CEL when using a lower octane fuel.

Also as I said, higher octane typically has less ethanol. OPE would love the stuff.


Really? Of course the presence of EtOH is highly dependent on the market (here in Wisconsin it is dependent on the county), but higher octane fuel here always has ethanol. For example, the 93 octane has EtOH whereas the 91 octane typically does not. But for the lower octane grades it can only be determined by the presence of a placard on the pump.


I'd like to see a citation backing up this claim of premium typically having less ethanol. There is an even bigger economic driver to include ethanol in premium vs. regular in terms of energy and catalyst deactivation for the high octane components needed to blend premium and the octane value of ethanol.


Premium (91) in Ontario, at least around my area, has no ethanol if you buy from Esso (XOM) or Shell. States so right on the pumps.

Here is what is shown on the Shell pumps:

 
Oh yeah, that's a foreign country. We're US centric here. Due to laws passed by Congress, there's very few areas where 10% ethanol isn't standard.
 
Originally Posted By: Wolf359
Oh yeah, that's a foreign country. We're US centric here. Due to laws passed by Congress, there's very few areas where 10% ethanol isn't standard.


LOL! We have a 5% Ethanol mandate, not sure how that compares to the US one.
 
Originally Posted By: Nyogtha
I'd like to see a citation backing up this claim of premium typically having less ethanol. There is an even bigger economic driver to include ethanol in premium vs. regular in terms of energy and catalyst deactivation for the high octane components needed to blend premium and the octane value of ethanol.

To expand on what Overkill stated, that's the case in most of Canada, including this province. The ethanol mandate here is based upon a certain percentage of ethanol in a total amount of gasoline sold, so, typically, regular is E10 and midgrade is E05 and premium is E0. Shell, Esso, Petro-Canada, and Co-ops in this province specifically state that there is no ethanol in their premium, and that's the case in most of the country. Note that there is also no ethanol subsidy here.

The only station here that specifically advertises ethanol enhanced premium is Husky/Mohawk, where they have a premium E0 and a super-premium 93 or 94 octane, with ethanol. But, they were selling ethanol blended fuels before anyone even considered an ethanol mandate in either of our countries.

In fact, read question 11 here.
 
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Guess I should have said specifically for the USA - thought copying dlundbad's post with font / color emphasis as a poster who lists "Midwest" as a location would suffice.

Clearly government mandates override economics - they wouldn't have to be mandates if they didn't.
 
Originally Posted By: Nyogtha
Guess I should have said specifically for the USA - thought copying dlundbad's post with font / color emphasis as a poster who lists "Midwest" as a location would suffice.

Clearly government mandates override economics - they wouldn't have to be mandates if they didn't.


Well, I think your question was sound regardless of location, as ethanol has a higher octane rating than gasoline so your posit about it being used in higher concentrations in higher grades made sense. I find it odd that there is less of it as you go up in grade here as well, as it seems counterintuitive
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My father-in-law had a 2005 Cadillac DHS and it stated to use premium fuel. He put 87 in it from day one. It had 85k on it when we sold it after he passed and it ran fine. He would not put premium in it.

We even did a test on a 600 mile trip to Florida. Filled up with 93 because I wanted to see what the difference there was. Used it all the way down. On the way back filled up with 87 the whole way up and the mpg didn't change. 26mpg the entire trip on that Northstar engine.

I did like the way my exhaust smelled when I ran 100 octane from the local BP station that sold the racing fuel at $6.85 a gallon in my 65 Impala with a 396. . Needless to say I didn't use it much. But it did smell like I was at a Pro Stock NHRA event.
smile.gif


My 2002 Silverado has a Black Bear Performance tune and I run the 93 octane setting. It makes a difference if I try to use 87.
 
My daily driver calls for 91+.

When gas was pricey and premium started running +60¢ or so, I ran s lot of 87 octane.

Now that gas around here has dipped to under $2/gal I've started running 93 almost exclusively. Since I do generally fill up at half a tank, I do sometimes top it off with 89. If the tank is near empty, it gets a full tank of 92/93(whatever the station happens to sell). I have noticed improved gas mileage. For reference, the CR is 10.5:1, which I think is venturing into the territory where higher octane shows its value.

I recently sent the original distributor in my MG off to a Lucas distributor specialist for a rebuild and recurve. He asks for a full page of information on the car and engine, and one of the questions is regular or premium gas. Presumably he tailors the advance curve to this. I told him regular since I don't see a need for premium even though my "high compression" engine(HC compared to later cars) is still only 9:1 or so, I think. The distributor came back with a hand-written card specifying an initial dynamic timing setting a bit different from the book value. If I WANTED to run premium I could likely advance the timing a fair bit, but since it presumably now has a "correct" advance curve for regular I don't know if I could get it to run on premium without spitting gas out the tailpipe.
 
Originally Posted By: OVERKILL
Originally Posted By: Wolf359
Oh yeah, that's a foreign country. We're US centric here. Due to laws passed by Congress, there's very few areas where 10% ethanol isn't standard.


LOL! We have a 5% Ethanol mandate, not sure how that compares to the US one.


We basically have a 10 percent mandate, although it's tied more to total ethanol sold has to go up so much per year. At a certain point, the total amount of ethanol sold was going to be greater than the amount of gasoline sold so they were going to have to go with E15, but the EPA rolled it back so pretty much all gas is 10% ethanol, just a few places where you can buy it without it.

It's interesting that super doesn't have ethanol in Canada, gas mileage should be better as ethanol has less btu's per gallon, I wonder if the price difference more than makes up for it though.
 
I use 91 octane no moonshine added in my OPE. The beater Sable gets 87.
The Camry usually gets 87, although I do run 91 every once in a while.
The manual says 87 is the minimum. That leaves a huge door open on what octane to use.
Now it does have the VVT and a 10.4 compression ratio.
Butt dyno says it runs smoother on 91 octane.
 
Originally Posted By: chiefsfan1
I use 91 octane no moonshine added in my OPE. The beater Sable gets 87.
The Camry usually gets 87, although I do run 91 every once in a while.
The manual says 87 is the minimum. That leaves a huge door open on what octane to use.
Now it does have the VVT and a 10.4 compression ratio.
Butt dyno says it runs smoother on 91 octane.


Yeah, there's so many variables that the butt dyno is pretty inaccurate. People don't seem to understand what standard temperature and pressure is. You then adjust performance numbers based on what the current temperature and pressure is. It's worse when it's higher and better when it's lower. So depending on the temperature, humidity, altitude, driving speed, all those factors will affect fuel economy. And it's puzzling why people are doing their own experiments when the manufacturer who designed the engines say otherwise.
 
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