colemac

Hey guys,


I know there is posts on this and I was also wondering as for Canada drivers what company do you find is best for fuel performance and economy in Canada?

lusid

91oct + Is the recommended fuel.

BradE

I'd run minimum 91 in a TL-S. High compression engine + low octane = not good mix.

ABP_04TL

iTrader: (2)

<----- 93 in my UA6, BP Fuel

CdTriX

whoa, all the way out in PEI!

I use petro canada 91 because i have like a whole lot of points (i drove a thirsty toyota 4runner for 4 years) so i racked up a lot of points. their gas seems to be pretty good.

recently on a road trip, about 500 kms... i was able to get 7L/100km out of my 5AT and i'm just under half a tank. that was with a tank of 94 from sunoco.

the thing with gas in canada is that, we don't have specific oil providers like in the US. whatever is local to our area is what we get regardless of brand and additives are put in by all the gas stations to meet those "features".

i only go to sunoco when it's the same price as petro premium..

average city driving i get 9L/100km and if i'm playing around i get 10L/100km

short distance long drives i get 8L/100kms.

SG81

iTrader: (1)

Sunoco Ultra 94 is great. just don't put regular gas or you'll be on here soon complaining about engine pinging and knocking

colemac

Good call guys so as for Kms per tank on average what are you getting?

CdTriX

so far, on my MID i have 459 and the computer trip says i have another 245kms to go, that's 701kms + the 10L reserve tank when the light comes on so it could go another 100kms if you drain it completely.

regular city driving (toronto) i get about 550+ reserve tank
high way driving i get 650+ reserve tank

when my light turns on, i only pour about 45-49L and i believe we haev 65L tanks so the reserve tank is pretty big.

does anyone know if the MID calculates the light turning on, or is it the estimated fuel for the remainder of the tank. if i'm pouring only 45-49L when the light turns on, i have 16-21L of fuel left in the tank?

i usually get to 250 at half a tank. and usually in the 450s at 1/4 tank

colemac

Wow thats good. I usually get around 500 city driving at 650 for highway. What type of TL do you have and trainee?

LessisBestmakingendsmeet

Buy premium unless you are hurting to save that extra $200 a year....

CdTriX

i have an 05 5AT in AM.

bone stock other than a rear sway bar.

once you get used to the car, you can find the optimum driving style to maximize fuel consumption. i was doing 450 in the city when i first got the car.. now i know how much gas i need to give it etc etc..

JoeTL'81

Ultra 94 from Sunoco is all I put in my car

JTS97Z28

iTrader: (4)

haha yup and if your hurting that bad for cash you shouldnt be driving a Type S.

1995hoo

I used a fair amount of Irving last summer when driving around Nova Scotia. Had no problems (I also had to put in a partial tank of regular in Louisbourg since there's only one gas station in town, an Irving that sells only regular....didn't have any problems, but I only put in $10 worth to get me back to Sydney the next day). Never had a problem with Ultramar or Petro Canada either.

CdTriX

can you buy those octane boosters if you only have access to regular?

wally mart sells them

1995hoo

You might want to make a different thread asking about that. More people will probably look at it. The subject line of this thread will no doubt cause a lot of people to ignore it because they'll assume that it's someone saying "I don't really want to pay for premium, can't I use regular?" There have been lots of those threads over the years, hence why people don't reply to them.

If you don't have access to premium, then you don't have much choice on using regular. The car will run on it, but you'll lose power. I don't know whether the octane boosters help as I've never used them (only put regular in the TL that one time mentioned above).

I hate cars

Not another one of these threads............

A search would've answered all the questions.

Regular will do engine damage over time.
Regular will get worse gas mileage.

In the end you save money running premium.

Store bought octane boosters only boost a few points as in 91 to 91.3 octane. If you can't find preimum and want to boost it, try some Tolulene or Xylene available from Home improvement stores or paint shops. Each has 116-118 octane, tolulene is the primary ingredient in octane boosters at the store. Don't go higher than a 20% mix. 2 gallons of the stuff on a full tank will bring 89 to 91 or more.

CdTriX

well, he had a lot of canadian based fuel questions so it's different then the regular 87 vs premium.

myron

iTrader: (4)

I use Huskys 94 sometimes, sometimes petro 91+, but everyone says that shell Vpower 91 is the best gas but there aren't that many of Shell gassstations around here. Never put anything in my car under 91.

CdTriX

i could never buy into the Vpower shenanagans that shell tosses at people.

we have access to 94, so their Vpower isn't a strong point in canada. maybe in the US where 94 is harder to find.

01tl4tl

shell chevron 76 and many more all meet Teir 1 standards- so a search for that and you country or region for a list of stations

Toulene is used in many of the octane booster products- use the formula provided if you must use it in an emergency-it can be harmful in wrong dose
note the bottles never tell you how many gallons to add it to- so the real benefit is unknown for most

For shelf products contact the maker and explain you can only get 87- what should you use--they will know for sure.
In general its several times more expensive to add enough booster to overcome the 20-30 cent per gallon price differance between fuel grades

Canadian ziners- the low fuel light comes on with 3 gal ~12-13L remaining so you have plenty of time to find a station of your choice..50 miles average
(would you guys translate your numbers for us yanks- thanks)

It wont kill the car to run a different brand than your favorite, or even normal tier2 gas if you have too, its just a car- it will survive
I alternate-chevron most of the time- then shell -or 76
cant tell from butt dyno in car or bike of any major differance between brands

note2: a normal TL- not customized with turbo or supercharged- will NOT gain any power from running higher than 91/94. Thats what the pistons need for explosiveness and retardation
More octane has more flashover retardation timing- we dont need that, its for extreme high compression engines so the air heat (and other factors) generated by the upstroke of piston doesn cause premature ignition of fuel before it reaches close to tdc- thats really bad

hate cars.. with his blower on the play car, needs 118 to satisfy the needs- but your TL-S does not...

KaMLuNg

iTrader: (5)

91 octane as a minimum...

sometime i wish i lived in Australia... petrol gas only comes in 94 octane... 1 grade option and that is it... the other nozzles are for the LP petrol and Diesel... but i would hate paying by litre... sorry Canucks...

CdTriX

we pay maybe 10-20% more for gas then americans do we're almost at 1 dollar a litre in toronto. 1 gallon = 3.72 L that's $3.72 a gallon here.

last time i filled up 94 was 1.10 per Litre = 4.09 per gallon CAD, converted it's 3.79 USD per gallon!

1995hoo

That's nothing. Last time I was in the UK I paid 95.9 pence per litre for diesel (petrol was maybe 2p cheaper). At the time the pound was worth $2. That means I was paying 95.9p x 3.78 = £3.625 per US gallon, or $7.25 US per US gallon.

1995hoo

This isn't quite fair to the OP. He didn't ask the tired old question about "premium costs more, can't I use regular to save money." Instead he asked what brands of petrol other Canadians recommend and then he asked whether an octane booster is a good idea for times when he can't find premium. The latter question is a lot different from saying he doesn't want to buy premium—rather, there are just some filling stations that plain old DON'T CARRY IT. If you're running out of fuel in that situation, then you have two choices—buy regular and run the car on that until you can get super, or else buy regular and add the octane booster. From your comment it sounds like the octane booster isn't worth it unless you routinely have to use regular.

I hate cars

The TL is octane hungry. 91 is the abolute minimum. While it's true that most cars won't pick up power or mileage from anything above 91, it's not always true with the TL. I've run data logs and it still pulls some timing on 91. It will benefit from 94 if it's available. If it will overcome the price difference, I don't know.

I hate cars

I just looked at the title and posted.

Regular won't hurt on occasion but it will over the lifetime of the car. If it's going to be an every day event, some tolulene mixed in a 15% mixture will do well.

CdTriX

Europe is a different story.

Canadians share the same land mass with americans and are simply seperated by an imaginary border... yet we have to pay more for gas. Hell, even some of the gas is mined from the tar sands in calgary, get sent to the US and then sent back to canada..

colemac

Thank you Cdtrix and 1995hoo for sticking up for me! As a matter of a fact with your argument about 91 vs 94. I will be completely honest with you. I was driving through the states a few months ago and then I stopped at a bp got 91 octane then about 600 - 700 kms up the road there was a mobil gas station which I believe is imperial oil. It had 94 octane and I was hoping to get about 50 more kms to a tank. That being said I didn't end up getting any better and the 91 I thought burned just as good or better then the 94. All in all I think it cost an extra 4-6 dollars us for the 94 so I didn't think it was worth it...

Thoughts....

1995hoo

I've used 94 in the TL occasionally, but not recently. Sunoco used to sell 94-octane gas here in the DC area, but they phased it out due to MTBE regulations and now they sell 87, 89, 91, and 93. The 91 octane is usually 2¢ a gallon cheaper than the 93, and I've noticed no difference whatsoever in the TL's performance and fuel economy when I use it, so if I'm at a Sunoco I buy that if they have it. (Sunoco are the only chain around here to sell 91. 93 is the norm since the mid-1990s; prior to that, 92 was standard.) There's also a Wawa down in Woodbridge that sells 92 octane (and charges significantly less than the stations in Fairfax County, where I live), and that gas is fine as well.

I think the last time I bought 94-octane gas was at a Petro Canada in Ottawa a while back right before I was driving home to Virginia. The car ran quite well on it, but the fuel economy (I keep track for each tank in a booklet I keep in the car) wasn't really any better than it is with 93 when I do all-highway driving. The only car I've driven that ran NOTICEABLY better on the 94-octane gas was my brother's 1974 Volkswagen Beetle. But as I say, it's now irrelevant for me around here because it's not sold, so I can't do any kind of long-term research to see if it makes a difference.

Bottom line for me is that it's not worth it to go out of my way to find the different grades of 91+-octane gasoline. The price difference generally doesn't warrant it—I'd waste more in gas going out of my way than I'd save through a different price or a minimally higher fuel economy. (I only use the Wawa mentioned above if I'm going that way for other reasons, as it's some 13 miles south of where I live.) As long as it's a reasonably reputable gas station that carries 91 or higher, I'll use it. "Reputable" meaning, for example, there's a brand of gas called Liberty that's sold here in Virginia that's usually cheaper than the big-name brands. I was wary of it but did some research, polling people I know, and nobody had any problems with that gas, so I tried it and it's been fine. It's 10¢ a gallon cheaper than the BP across the street. I usually use Sunoco, though, because it's the most convenient location.

As I noted earlier in this thread, the only time I've ever put anything lower than 91 octane in the TL was a situation where there was absolutely no choice in the matter—the Irving station near Louisbourg was my only option for gas, and they only had 87, and if I didn't put something in the tank I wasn't going to make it back to Sydney, so that made the decision easy. But since I was going up the Cabot Trail the next day I made sure to put in only about $10 of regular, just to hold me over until I could find proper gas.

CdTriX

the first time i put 94 into my car, i felt it hesitate a little, not sure why but it did.

so i put in a full take of 91, then drained it, then put in a tank of 94.. then i felt no difference at all just a bigger hole in my wallet

I hate cars

Octane can't cause hesitation. I've run straight 109 in my TL.

You're not going to see a large benefit going higher than 91 with mostly freeway cruising. You're going to see the benefit during heavier throttle city driving.

It's not about the burn rate, they're all too similar to matter. It's about staying away from detonation and not pulling timing.

CdTriX

i put 1/4 tank of 94 in the car and it kinda hesitated a little. i'm going to get some fuel injector cleaner with my next tank and see how that goes.

it didn't hesitate like in a misfire, but it kinda... bogged a little. but it went away