01tl4tl

while its true the gas enters the trucks from the same hose at the refinery--

the differance is the final mixing station just before the truck--where boosters-retarders and other secret sauce are put in to each grade, and to each different brand of gas

You may get 5 brands from one refinery- each with its own special blend
So all gas is NOT the same, and anyone who says their 91 car runs perfect on 87 or engine is fine on 87--have you taken the engine apart- removed the injectors and have the flow rate and pattern tested on a machine?
Do you know how much buildup is in the egr ports

If you believe romping on it cleans the piston tops and valves,,you are misinformed

Zigma

is BP not good? That is what I always use, 93 oc.

westas2

Always 93 Shell or 94 Sunoco for me

Bobby2

Wow I thought I was the only one who noticed the Shell gas respond better for my TL.

recoveringphan

I fill up where ever is convenient at the moment...but I always use premium. There are a few stations reasonably close to my house which use 100% gas (no ethanol), and try to used those stations as much as possible.

pilotman28

I use Citgo. I've had nothing but good MPG in both my Passat and my TL .

Rick_TL-S

As I've already accepted. Rest assure, if something happens, you won't see me on here crying about it.
No difference at all. I've told my dealer & the shop I had my exhaust installed at. Both told me the car is obviously losing power, but that it isn't the worse thing I could do. Only Jotech advised that I at least put in Premium every once and a while to help.
Understood.

I've had both Premium & Regular. The last time I got Premium, I got 264 miles out of the tank. The previous 2 times with Regular has given 280 & 283 miles.
I'm in no way saying this disproves you, but my car has simply gotten more mileage out of Regular. Given there are also differences in the amount of time I've spent on the Highway & City with both gas-types, however.

But, I need to fill the car up again, and just for the sake of it, I'll fill with Premium this time.

Bobby2

I will never use below 91 in my TL. I poured 87 in my TL by mistake and the engine started to make knocking noise.

SouthernBoy

If I am not mistaken, Citgo is Venezuelan owned with Hugo Chavez's hand in the form of a controlled nationalized company. Might want to think about where your money is going.

Just a thought.

andyc123

WHAT???? If anyone knows of a list or a resource to look up stations that sell 100% gas, please post. 10% Ethanol
is a federal mandate, not that I give a shit about mandates, but I'd rather put 100% gas in my tank than
10% Ethanol.

Also, if you do the math (and I'm not sure exactly what the numbers are since I don't have my C/D magazine in
front of me), Ethanol gets something like 75% of the miles per gallon as opposed to gas. That said, you are getting
1 or 2% worse mileage with the 10% ethanol addition.

I hate cars

Two times going by miles per tank is invalid. It has to be mpg over many runs.

I did the exact same 280 mile trip from Vegas to Bakersfield every weekend for nearly a year. I also did the same 102 mile trip from Fresno to Bakersfield every day for a year. I kept detailed fuel logs and there is no doubt that premium gets better mileage. The difference would be even more noticable in city driving. With the amount of money I spent on fuel, if I could've saved money on regular I would've done it.

I've monitored the car with a scanner and it will ping at a steady state cruise on 89 octane. The timing is retarded and you lose power and mileage.

Then there's engine damage from the detonation. It may not be an outright failure but it's hell on the rod and main bearings and pistons and rings. You're literally pounding the life out of them.

raffijian

Don't skimp on the gas. Stick with Premium.

I would also suggest using Lucas Fuel Injector cleaner once a month.

My brother is a mechanic and he swears by it. Can't hurt.

recoveringphan

The mandate is a state-by-state thing (if I'm not mistaken), and while we DO have the mandate here in TN, there are still at least 2 stations in Knoxville that are at least advertising 100% gas. Dunno how much longer it's gonna last, though. I think it's a shame. Not only does mileage suffer, but the last thing this country needs is another reason to subsidize corn.

piggydog

always had good results with chevron, is shell better for the TL?

NetDiver

91 octane Shell every time. But today, just for the hell of it I put in few gallons of 100 octane from 76 station. I doubt that I'll notice any performance gains from stock engine, but I'm curious if there will be any mileage gains. Even if there is, it would be hard to justify $6.49 / gallon. At that rate I would have to get more than double the mileage.

YeuEmMaiMai

lol telling someone that they have to take their manifold apart every 75K = YOU are misinformed....... constantly babying an engine and never opening the throttle plate results in MORE BUILDUP due to lack of airflow into the engine. this leads to more fuel deposit on the valves and intake tracks after the injectors. having driven hundreds of thousands of miles I can tell you from personal experience that I have never had an engine suffer due to carbon / deposit build up amd that includes my last 3 hondas/acuras that have a total of 500K miles on them.

Take out grandma's car that has never seen anything above 1/3 trottle let alone WOT and just watch the crap come out the tail pipe.........

sucking seafoam through your intake and putting it in your fuel goes a long way towards keeping your intake / injectos / piston tops clean

but go a head and tell everyone to take their intake manifold apart every 75K then more to ya man....and fyi fuel milage is an excellent indicator of engine performance and I manage 23 city 27 miixed and 32 highway.

I would change out plugs before I would rip a manifold apart.....even though Honda states 120K for plugs, 80-90K is a great time to change them due to the wear on the electrode

andyc123

If anyone else reads C/D, Csaba had a lot of articles on this in the past. The gov subsidies to try alternate fuels did squat, and just raised prices on corn,
which the typical farmer didn't benefit from. Ethanol only works when it's right next to the refineries due to todays distribution system. Henry Ford envisioned
farmers being able to grow their own fuel, which is impossible in todays distribution system; it works for only a very small population.

Since I'm already off on a tangeant, get your 100% gas while you can. It's a dying concept.

I hate cars

Going by the fact that my TL will detonate at part throttle on 91 octane and assuming all TLs do (I know, it's just an assumption) you have the potential to pick up a couple hp and more importantly low end torque that is lost when the computer pulls timing from pinging.

Going from my results when I had mine on the scanner all the time for a week, mine would quit pinging all together at around a 96 octane mix. There's the potential to get better mileage and power with a real weak mix of 100 and 91 to get 95-96 octane. You'll never make up the extra money spent but it will soften the blow.

jack the ex-cynic

there were a couple in cleveland TN, where i live, that advertised 100% but they've since taken the signs down.

i've put premium in my TL type-S from the day i bought it. the dealer of course did not but what can you do... i also put it in my old 4-cyl accord ('04 EX) the last few fillups before i traded it in. i did not get an appreciable difference in gas mileage (although it was better) but response was noticeably better (it's pretty hilly here). i drive very similar routes from fillup to fillup so it wasn't a scientific test but close enough for my own purposes.

jack the ex-cynic

so i put 93 octane in consistently (either shell or chevron) - how often should i do this seafoam/additive stuff?

SouthernBoy

I use Chevron Techron Fuel System cleaner every 10,000 miles in my vehicles and I burn Amoco (BP) in their engines.

woot427

iTrader: (5)

According to this, the gasoline I produce in my backyard is just as good as that magical Shell gas or eco friendly BP stuff...

also some other good info in here as well...

http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home...d=family-autos

NAiL05

I pulled out my plugs when I was doing the 100k change on the car...I noticed something...I read the plugs and there was some detonation happening in the engine plus it was running really hot. The person i bought it from was running regular or mid grade by the looks of it. It wasn't too bad though but the plugs were in pretty rough shape. I have been running premium ever since I have received my vehicle. Yes there is a power increase and difference between using gas...Saying there is no power difference between regular and premium is absurd especially on newer cars with higher compression engines. Maybe if you do a lot of stop and go and not as much spirited driving there might not be a difference felt between the two but if you do a lot of HPDE and so on you will definitely notice a difference.

koshia

I envy you guys with the 93+ octane level. I can't seem to find any damn place above 91 octane. I ran into a 93 OC like 200 miles outside the city, but inside the city it seems either 87, 89 w/ ethenal, or 91.

QT / BP :/

01tl4tl

the higher than 91 is found in certain parts of the country- I dont know if its altitude related or why- but thats the way it is

higher than 91 where 91 is sold- wont help the car run any better

gas used to have MTBE, thats been found to be bad for the Earth,
so Ethanol 10% (that car makers agreed they could make the cars run on max 10%) is the new spec--thats only bad for everything else... like the economy and your fuel mileage

A few places are not in compliance yet, I can get each right across the street from each other!

I wonder if the 87 users have ever pulled the plugs as the poster above did- and give them a good look to see whats going on inside the engine

On the bikes, we pull the spark plugs every few weeks just to see whats up with the jetting and plug heat range

01tl4tl

LOL talking about carbon buildup and there is a banner ad for BG44 showing a valve with crud on one half and spotless on the other

koshia

Even if there is no performance gain, what about the build up inside your engine? Would that be enough of a reason to use higher octane? Just wondering.

Tolik

shell all the way

Tolik

and o ye i started i similar topic before
https://acurazine.com/forums/3g-tl-2004-2008-93/shell-vs-bp-699109/

whizzups

Sweet! Good looking out.

CocheseUGA

93 seems to be the only high-grade sold around here.

01tl4tl

koshia
All gas comes with cleaner added now- well most brands
If the car says 87 thats what it needs to be happy (usually less than 8 to 1 compression engines)
The TL has a high compression engine which requires 91, type S even more!
running 93 wont make it burn any cleaner than 91

Use a quality product like redline- bg-or seafoam to clean the crud out once a year and maybe some in the gas every 5000-- wont hurt keeping it clean
I prefer redline in the tank and seafoam in the manifold
May give bg a try to see the differance it time to clean, they have some impressive pics and vid of cleaning in action

koshia

I have a TL-S, hence why I wanted 93 or higher hehe.

koshia

I can't edit my message, but another question:

91 Octane gas & 93 octane w/ 10% ethenol ... which is better? I have heard stories about ethenol not being very good for the engine.

Babnik

Does that eliminate the need for putting injector cleaner in the gas tank every few months like I've been doing?

Babnik

Why would that increase the need for higher octane compared to a regular TL?

NAiL05

Ethanol is fine for the engine...Most engines are made to run E10-15. Some can handle more. A higher octane does not mean better performance all the time. I think the street 91-93 octane is just fine for the cars...Not really much gain when going higher unless you want to eat up o2 sensors...Leaded gasolines love eating o2 sensors up. You also have to factor in if the ECU will compensate enough to see a power gain. Some engines can do this some can't.

I hate cars

It doesn't. It's a common misconcetption. Compression ratio is the same for all 3rd gens.

koshia

Well, it is apparent that I was confused. In accordance to what you guys said... I pretty much have been wasting my time driving around looking for a higher octane grade. I'll start using the redline.

Thanks everybody.

I hate cars

These cars crave octane, TL-S or base.

93 is sufficient but mine still pings on 91.