I took my 2012 SHAWD in for service and told them about a weird noise (almost a clicking / vibration sound when accelerating at low speed). I thought at first it was a loose cat heat shield or something.
It turns out the dealer told me my engine is pinging and asked if I put premium fuel.

The things is I have had the car for 60000 km now (from 40 to 100) and have never ever once put anything lower then 91 octane in the car.
I do however fill up 95% of the time at a gas station on a native reservation on the outskirts of Montreal, Canada, where gas is a little cheaper, especially premium fuel. The gas station is not an independant though. It is a banner place (Petro-T), albeit not a wide spread one such as Shell or what not.

This raises some questions that you may be able to help me with :

- Is there such a thing as "sub par" premium fuel that could cause this ?
- If I start filling up elsewhere, will it fix my issue ?
- Is Costco a good place for premium fuel ? I have heard various things about it.
- Can this be cause by other factors then octane issues ?
- Could this have caused irreversible damage to my engine ?
- If so, how can I prove the fuel they sold me is the culprit ? Is there a way to test the octane of the fuel they sell ?

Thanks as always !

 

If you have access to software and an OBD reader to check out the fuel trims, timing, etc... that may give more clues as to whats going on.

No disrespect for native reservations, etc, selling gasoline, but at some point in time you just have to ask yourself if there is an issue there.

My guess, the dealer is probably right, assuming they did their due diligence and eliminated all kinds of other obvious reasons, i.e. oil, filter, etc. It may still be 91+ octanes but the filters, pumps, gas tanks etc at that gas station may be have reached their end-of-life and haven't been replaced... so you end up filling up with garbage. It may be a good idea to ask Petro-T corporate when was the last time they had serviced that gas station with new equipment. Link with contact info: http://www.petro-t.ca/en/client/page11f50.html?page=134&clef=0&Clef2=38

Just my 2 cents +HST

PS. just thought about it... it may be the case that the ethanol content of that 91+ octane gas is a tad too high, so ask them how much % ethanol is in their gasoline.

 

Could be octane related. Get a large bottle of Chevron Techron, (not to be confused with Chevron WITH Techron). Put in half the bottle and go buy some NAME BRAND GAS-93 octane. Run that tank through and repeat using the other half bottle of Techron. This may well take care of the issue.
Best,

Simplemonk

 

sounds like the fuel you filled.

my wife filled regular by accident recently and the sounds you described are exactly what i heard when i was driving the car. At first i thought it was the car next to us as it surely can't be the tl we always fill premium. Turns out it was us due to the wrong fuel grade.

Try adding techron or, filling with premium fuel from a different station and see if it still happens. Our car is fine now.

 

In central NY on prior vehicles (87 octane) I have used gas from the reservations and noticed a sulfur smell pretty consistently, but in most cases it wasn't enough to dissuade me from taking advantage of the lower cost. It may have been something adverse with a recent shipment. As other suggested it wouldn't hurt to trial another station for a week or so.

 

...but please continue to support your local reservations!!!