Acura claims you must use premium gas. What are the thought out there? what type of gas do you use?

 

We all use premium... if you are low on cash... and its an emergency... then F#$% it... you can't do nothing about it... but I suggest you always use premium... there is a thread somewhere around here stateing the difference... you should have made this into a poll though... you would have gotten better stats to your question...

BTW: Premium here... regardless of how broke i am...

 

sorry. just noticed this questions been asked and answered many times before.

 

Premium.

You can use others with a decrease in mileage and performance and also risk the potential for engine knock.

Our cars have knock sensors, but they can only detect *after* knock has happened.

 

Yeah, regular CAN be used but... you'd be wise to stick with premium as the engine compression is fairly high in both engines.

 

Yup, regular (87) doesn't burn well at all in my car. 89 is better, ~91 is great, and I have never had a problem with 93. The reason I say ~91 is because it isn't available where I live. Only one station has 91, and it is typically more expensive then Shell93 so I just go with the 93 when I need to.

 

The highest we have here at most stations is 91. Theres only one station I can think of that has 93 but thats 30 minutes away . But it's suprisingly easy to get racing fuel

 

Use 93 and 89 combined to ease off on the price. But you need minimum 91 Octane Rating or your engine will knock. Remember our Engines are high performance engines designed specifcially for 91 Octane gas.

 

I've tried to fill with 93 even as prices were rising, but finally the cost of 93 has become prohibitive and I've started to use 89. I can hear a little knocking, but the thing still rolls.

 

How much is 93 running you guys now? It is up around $2.20 for 89, and 93 is up to $2.40ish.

 

i usually use the mid grade, which at most stations around here is 90. i know i should use premium, but im broke . also, you guys should go to www.gasbuddy.com and find the cheapest places for gas. its a great website.

 

this pricing wears me out. and it's sposed to get worse. i know it sux, but i'm going to have to let it ping, or buy some octane boost and use half a bottle per tank or something.....i can't afford $35/tank.

 

91 cost about $2.60 a gallon when I looked this morning.

 

Octane varies with altitude, I've seen as low as 85/86 octane at high altitudes and as high as 94 towards sea level (only seen 94 at Sunoco).

 

You think that's bad? With current gas prices, it costs me $62 CDN to fill my tank.

 

Yeah I pay about the same! Crazy!

Assuming a 1.20 exchange rate, Vancouver's $0.99/litre price for regular gas works out to be $3.30 US /gallon. Premium 91 would be about US 33 cents more / gallon.

 

yea i get around 30-35 per tank. rumor has it , and i cant confirm it, that it may very well go up to $3 a gallon for premium. im praying that wont happen or i may have to part my car or somethin

 

If it does, it really isn't worth selling your car. Think of it this way:

You can run 87/89/93 here. Its usually X/X+.15/X+.30

So its an extra $0.15/gallon. On 10 gallons (200 miles) thats another $1.50

Say you drive 15,000 miles/year. Thats 15,000/200 = 75. Thats 75 times you will fill up the tank.

75 times filling up the tank X $1.50 each time = $112.5 extra per year to run 89 instead of 87.

Is it really worth selling your car and getting into something new to save $110 in gas?

 

Just be more efficient in how you drive, if you can.. walk, take a bus, carpool etc.

 

how do you all afford this car and even think about saving like 3-4 dollars on a fill by using regualr and risk getting your engine f**ked up..? as broke as anyone is.. you can't spare another 3-4 bucks to prevent longterm problems..? man I'm glad I'm not related to you or something.. I'd be embarassed..

 

Think of it mathmatically again. If you are 10% more effeciant in your driving, and go from 20 -> 22 miles per gallon, that 10 gallons when you fill up after 200 miles becomes 9.1 gallons. Not too bad for junk outta the trunk and the right tire pressures. Clean filters and general maintenance help out too

Buy your coffee one less day per week and that makes up for the difference in 87 -> 93. Sounds like a fair trade to me.

 

has anyone used 108 Octane in the TL...is it safe? does it affect the engine any way?

 

hm.. i noticed that when i gassed up my last tank if you guys remember i put in 89.. well my gas light became solid on at around 269 miles for the tank.. usually i can get it to 300 with 91 and about 14 gallons used.. could also be the fact that i drove up in the mountains and had to keep the revs near 3.5-4k otherwise i start slowing down also i have been pretty much a lead foot as well.. anyways i gassed up ~15gallons w/ 91 which costed me ~42 dollars ... hm... just realized that i only saved like a dollar fifty when i used 89 compared to 91...

 

Yeah, its not worth saving a buck or two. Your engine has to work harder since it'll have less power.

 

I've def. been trying to walk a lot more, but in reality I've always walked a lot. I probably walk more than most people but not appreciably more than I used to. Therefore the price increase will hit me hardest since there's nothing I can do to change my habits.

I also keep my air pressure checked, don't carry much stuff around in the car, don't do jackrabbit starts, etc.

I'm screwed basically.

 

Man, my dad always ran 89 in my TL before I got it, I've always run 91. He runs 87 now in his 2002 T-Bird!!!! CRAZY !!! He says it doesn't ping, but I took it out last weekend and stepped on it abit...WOW Hesitation. Try to explain it to him, but oh well. As for the question about 108 Octane.....Why the HECK would you want to run Race fuel in a TL!?!!? SOOO not needed.

 

Where can you buy 108 octane? In Jersey you can buy 98 or 102 at sunoco.

 

You can use it... but it's pretty pointless because the TL's engine wasn't designed to use that kind of gas.

I started using 93, I didn't notice much of an increase in performance or gas mileage. But when I went back to 87, I noticed that my engine was very happy! I figured that it had something to do with the mixture of 87 and 93, which probably ended up averaging around 90 octane. So, yeah... now I alternate between 87 and 93 whenever I get gas (at about 1/4 full tank).

 

its something i definatly want to try...not all the time...would be HELLA expensive...but id wanna try it....atleast once or twice...fill up half the tank with 108 or some shit...

theres someplace near kenilworth one of those like independent gas stations....ill get more info on it :-p

 

For what? It's not like the TL will suddenly up its compression ratio.

You won't feel a bit of difference putting in 108 octane except in your head.

 

Anything above 94 is a waste, honestly. UNLESS you have your timing WAYYYY advanced (which isn't likely) there absolutely NO reason to run that high of an actane RACE GAS in your car.

 

Without having an Apexi or something like that, any octane beyond about 95 is pointless. I believe 95 is the highest street octane gas in Japan.

 

I've got a 2000 TL just hit 145,000. I've been running 87 octane for 3 years with no knock and not one single engine issue. The premium fuel will do nothing more than possibly prevent engine ping and knock but that's it. Don't waste your money on the premium people. It won't help one bit.

 

i often wonder if the "premium only" is part true, or part the car manuf. being in cahoots with oil industry (not impossible). i know they screw mpgs on purpose for that very reason. but i'm too nervous to not do it and have bad luck creep up on me, when premium really IS what is needed. did that make sense?

 

I've wondered that myself dubcnea

 

Honda has always tried to get the best fuel economy they can while balancing with power. I think that's one of their philosophies. I'm not complaining about my fuel economy for how much power this car has. It's a lot better than my friend's 240SX, and his car is about the same speed as mine.

The cylinders in the engine have a compression ratio. The higher this number, the more efficient an engine is (any kind of engine). Let's remember our thermodynamics here. As compression ratio goes up, efficiency goes up, but also pressure increases (the definition of the compression ratio). Under high pressures, gasoline will explode without a spark. This is how diesel engines work; they don't have spark plugs. Gasoline engines are meant to be set off with a spark though.

THE MORE OCTANE A FUEL HAS, THE LESS PROBABILITY EXISTS THAT IT WILL PRE-IGNITE DUE TO HIGH PRESSURE. So if you're running 87, chances are that you will get a preignition sometimes. And you can't always hear when it happens. This kind of thing is very bad for an engine, because when a cylinder fires when it's not supposed to, it puts the cylinders off balance and timing temporarily, and leaves more residue in the cylinder block. I think we can get away with 89 a bit more than the third gen guys though, because our compression ratio is 9.8:1. Thiers is 11.0:1. 7th gen Accords are 10.0:1, but they can use regular gas because they are TUNED to use it by having a retarded timing. But the timing can only be adjusted so much. That's why for a third gen TL they could never ever get it to recommend 87 octane.

You can get away with using 87 occasionally, because the ECU will retard the engine timing. I'm talking if you live at a higher altitude. I've always put 91 in my car, because I redline a lot, and I don't want to risk pinging when the pressure in the cylinders goes way up. At the very least, use 89. Anything over the recommended octane level is pointless (ie: anything over 91). So in my opinion, that would make 93 a waste.