pits200

Here is an article from a good paper. Now I always thought that using 91 was the way to go, but who am I to argue with experts. I figure they would agree with us to use the higher octane as to get more of our money....

Its a good read...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/au...o_interstitial

So does everyone agree or not

fuzzy02CLS

iTrader: (2)

Yeah well, There's pro's & con's for both. I'll stick to what works.
Your not saving 30 cents a gallon. The difference between 87 & 93 is 15-20 cents.
Even at 30 cents at 15 gallons that's only a $4.50 difference each fill up.
20 cents: $3
15 cents: $2.50

mclarenf3387

Higher octane does make a difference. When your engine starts to knock on regular gas, it will start to retard timing until the knocking goes away. This will hurt performance and fuel economy. A member did a test on his TL and found using regular got worse gas mileage than using premium and that in the end he wound up spending the same amount of money for gas.

Plus I work on cars all the time where the customers don't put in premium and the engine runs like crap on a cold start until the engine figures out whats going on.

pits200

I personally put 91 or better in my car the majority of the time.

I just don't know what to think because it can just be like the placebo effect where people think that their car runs worse on regular gas because they hear about all the side effects from lower grade gas.

But do you think the majority of people would know the difference if someone filled their car up with gas but didn't tell the person whether it was regular or premium.

I'm betting the majority of the people wouldn't know the difference in the way their car performed.

Also, they say the performance loss is 2% and that there is no gas mileage loss. There are many other factors that effect car performance by more than 2% in day to day travel. Air temp/humidity/weight of passengers/elevation.

xs0ysaucex

Like fuzzy says its only a small difference of 15-20 cents, so it comes to what... 2 dollar difference more or less. haha I probably have that under my car seat. Ill take my few hp over a couple bucks any day. Gas prices will not be declining, so we should all deal with it.

jaysizzlecity

Ah Dah...... 91 93 octane only people....

02CL-TypeS

I'll only put 93 octane or higher. My engine was @ 105,00 when i bought it and I tried using mid-grade (89) after I had been putting 93 premium octane in.

I could really tell a difference after the engine got warm. Acceleration, even slow acceleration, felt sless responsive and not nearly as smooth. I can't even imagine the jump from 93 to 87

artbran

iTrader: (2)

Thank god. someone finally sees it the same way that I do...

jaysizzlecity

If you been putting 87 into your CL-S your crazy. I will never put anything in my car that will hurt it. Take care of your CLs and your CLs will take care of you.

pits200

Ha, i don't but Im just passing along information from a reputable source and not some guy who was a mechanic 30 years ago when it was known to be horrible to put lower grade gas into certain cars.

disgruntlednut

High compression and low octane fuel are a bad mix. Sure, motors have come a long way since the early nineties with knock sensors and other methods of preventing detonation, but the bottom line is...


When I hear someone say "I just use the cheapest gas"... If you would rather save 2 dollars on a fill up and gamble with your car's motor... or simply can't afford the 2 bucks... Toyota makes a car called the Corolla, check it out.

CL6

And why is Dexter Ford an 'expert' exactly? Aside from coming back with the same name as a rapist, a Dexter Ford has written for the LA Times about such weighty subjects as wanting to star in his own Corona commercial and taking a kayak trip off the coast of Palos Verdes. No thanks on the 'expert' title.

MISTAZOOM

I dunno... ive been running my car on 87 for the past 7 months or so which i went for an emissions test and passed with flying colours. Yeah yeah yeah my car should pass anyways, but my ratings were unbeliveably low... even the tester was made note to me on how good my car was running for the age and distance driven. BUT with that being said i indeed hear and feel a difference when i use 87 when compared to 91/3. My engine is whisper quite when using the better stuff, while using the cheap stuff i hear the engine a bit more. Its not loud or have any knocking sound but i can tell its not as smooth. Which grade gives me more distance, well, i just got 530km from a full tank to the full light coming on... ill try the next few full tanks on the cheap stuff to see if it changes much. Personally, i dont think its going to change much. Ive eye balled it before and it was basically the same. Give or take a few kms due to AC and some different driving habbits. For the price difference im still going to use the good stuff... i can live spending the extra $3-$4 per tank.

fuzzy02CLS

iTrader: (2)

Most of those articles can be true for a lot of cars. And they are geared for those people that put 93 into cars that don't need it & waste their $.

The fact is most cars can run on 87 fine because their engine compression ratios are low. Like 9:1, 8:1 etc.(most GM & ford cars) The CLS is a big exception because of the high compression ratio of 11:1. The higher that # on a car the worse it will run on 87.

EL19

iTrader: (4)

The one time I did put 87 in my car. DISCLAIMERI was almost out of gas, well the light came on and the only station around only had 87 LOL) After i put in about 10 bucks worth the car took about 3 or 4 cranks to start and shuttered horribly when trying to pull off. I immediately went and bought some seafoam and cleaned that shit out and filled up with 93. Car started right up.

These cars CAN run on 87 but i wouldnt reccommend it to anyone. My sister has a Lexus RX300 and shes been putting in 87. She claims she cant afford 93. I told her if she couldnt afford the xtra 4 bucks a fill up then why buy a Lexus? I told her that her motor would suffer the consequences. Now she is throwing all of these bad o2 sensors and CAT threshold codes. Wish she woulda listened

Gregory_20706

I dont use regular (87) Octane gas either: however I will say that making a statement like" u only save about $3-$4 a fil up is kinda silly if u look at the long run...lets say u fill up once a week (which i cant do because my tank doesnt last a week); there are 52 weeks in a year $3 saved per fill up...3x52 = $156..... 4x52= $208
And thats for people who actually only have to fill up once a week. people who need to fill up more than once a week are saving even more money. So i wouldnt call people who use regualr gas stupid crazy or any of those things because maybe they have other things more important to them them some frickin octane...the economy is terrible and folks try to save anyway they can...dont make them feel bad for it. I guess i said all that for nothing because i dont use 87 octane.
But I will put (87)REGULAR (full blend gas) in my tank, before i use PREMIUM(watered down 10%) ETHANOL SHYT (which is cheaper for a reason) that shyt doesnt last and my car runs a lot less smooth..whether its regular or premium. Talk about filling your car up with crap.

mystikk

For years, my parents have put in 87 in each of their Suburbans and they would wonder why the engine is heaving and rumbling erratically at idle. I keep telling them to put in higher octane, but they're adamant about saying "it doesn't matter."

I was nice enough to fill the tank up one day with 91 and the engine stopped complaining. To this day though, they're still using 87 ..

LukeaTron

The trade off between regular and premium is complicated affair. There's more to it than the simple delay in timing. The flame front actually moves faster though lower octane fuel because it is easier to ignite. To get the peak performance you would want to pick the lowest possible octane that will not result in retarded timing under heavy acceleration.

Lower octane fuel also has a slightly higher energy density but I don't think it's enough to mean anything. The burn rate on the other hand does play a not insignificant role, particularly at high RPMs. One of the reasons power starts dropping off near the red line is that piston is moving down about as fast as the flame front is moving through the fuel air mixture. Again this is a complicated interaction because as the piston moves down, the pressure in the combustion chamber is dropping, further slowing the burn rate.

I can say there is noticeable difference in throttle response in my TSX if I put less than premium in the tank. It also sounds different when cruising. I'll stick with the premium.

Gregory_20706

It may be the octane or it could be the gas station...those no name station gas made my old car(not acura) run wierd no matter what octane level i used but something like shell or BP would run great regardless of whether i used regular or not.
But if u used the same station and a different octane for ur parents car and had that result..then maybe it was the octane needing a boost.

StonedCL

iTrader: (1)

I used to ALWAYS use premium till about a year ago I started using regular and I havent noticed a difference. My car is not knocking and the gas miliage is the same so i will stick to regular!

clpassenubye

iTrader: (20)

I agree. In the past I have tried many different gas stations like Valero, Costco, Arco, United, and I have to say that there is a noticeable difference in the performance of my car when I use Shell instead of any of the others mentioned at the same octane so not all gas is created equal even if its the same octane. Some people are more aware of their cars performance than others and some just don't care so they say it doesn't make a difference but it does.

ScottyNorq

93 or higher? Where do you get higher then 93? We only get 91 in Colorado.

EL19

iTrader: (4)

the track LOL

pai_gow

Canada

I have been using Sunoco's Ultra 94 octaine up here since I bought my CLS and have had no complaints from the engine what-so-ever.