We recently bought a 2010 MDX, does my wife have to always use premium fuel in it?

 

Yes, that's what the manual says and that's what I do

 

Ignore this guy, the manual says recommended not mandatory. I have been using non premium for last 2 decades and it works just fine.

 

Decide which of the two responses you want to go with as that's mostly what you will get in response

 

Well which is it, use premium only or not technocrat you gave me both answers

 

You can use regular if premium isn't easy to get. With regular, you'll have a lot less power, reduced MPG and you risk the catalysts failing much faster. The rear cat tends to fail on the MDX before the front or 3rd one. Using regular will mean more carbon buildup, more wear on the engine, etc.

It's like Redbull. Can you drink 4x a day? Sure if you want, but it's not recommended otherwise your heart may get damaged. Same goes with the engine. If you don't care about the car and can afford to fix it when stuff goes wrong use regular.

This has been discussed countless times in many places.

 

Short answer: Yes
Long answers: Yes