Don't care.

Kroger gas station (next to the supermarket) is the closest to me and along with QT have the cheapest prices, plus I get an extra 3 cents off per gallon with my Kroger card so I usually just go there.
...or I could go right next door to Conoco Phillips and get the same grade gas for almost 20 cents more per gallon ...

 

I have always just gotten the cheapest brand available and have never had a problem...

 

I always go to Shell as well. I get the best mileage out of the V-Power, and even the lesser grade I use in the wife's Pilot makes a difference.

Example: I just drove 3000 miles on a trip to and from Colorado with the Pilot. Out of necessity, I had to stop at one no-brand station in BFE, and at another stop in Missouri had to use 10% ethanol.

Here's the diff:
(All tanks with me driving, similar type of highway driving, and I drove until the low gas level light came on)

375 miles on tank from Shell, 87 octane
350 miles on tank from Shell, 85 octane--87 octane not available at that station (7% fewer miles)
357 miles on tank from no-name station, 87 octane (5% fewer miles)
323 miles on tank with 10% ethanol, supposedly 87 octane (14% fewer miles)

Bottom line: AVOID ETHANOL, use a brand name, and use the right octane for your car.

 

WTF 85 octane???

 

How many gallons per fill up?

 

We only have 87/89/93

 

What Gas Brand still has 85 Octane?

 

Damn, anything less than 91 octane in the 911 produces an annoying knock according to the forums. I'm too afraid to try Here we only have 87/89/91.

 

Colorado law states that 91 is the highest we can get, and then we also have 87 and 85. Oh, and better yet it's impossible to find gas without ethanol.

 

Top Teir gas only for my car. Its usually 76, shell or chevron for me then.
Right now 76 is 6 cents cheaper then chevron, and chevron is 16 cents cheaper then shell, but is usually about the same or slightly more.

I pass by a 76 going to school so my last like 10 tanks have been 76 although I notice better economy with chevron though.

In reality its only a couple bucks between top tier and lesser known brands, so why not?

what caused it to die? just curious.

even my mom puts top teir in her 92 camry. and once in a while premium lol

 

Isnt it great that the GOVT is forcing this shit on us, but yet wants cars to get better mileage

 

As with you, I see close to 60 miles less per tank when i have to use 10%

 

but their are studies showing different fuel grades have no affect on gas mileage

 

I was going to say that the cost of name brand gas outweighs its mileage advantage but the Shell down the street from me is only $.05 more/gallon than the Racetrac I usually go to ($2.71 vs. $2.66). To do a full fill up in my car would only cost $1 more so I might start using Shell....

 

I'm about to hit 150,000 sometime in the next few months on my TL.

 

all 4 of the cars i have owned were taken near 200k.
im only 8k away from that mark now in the prelude... every, single one of them have received 93 octane for the lifespan of my ownership...

the next car i buy, will probably also hit 150-200k..

 

Was low on oil and I got lazy and didn't check the level for a bit (normally checked it regularly), and missed it. Engine shit the bed.

FYI, putting premium in a car that requires regular doesn't do anything but waste money...

 

Not out of 70,000+. Out of the 56 replies (as of my reply) 7 cars have been reported over 150k miles.

And that's just this topic on this forum. I also just gave my sister an old Chevy pickup which has 166k miles on it that we used as a hauler/Home Depot car. One of their cars also has 170k miles.

The warranty on my wife's car is about to expire, and I will not keep a German car out of warranty, so she'll be getting a new car by Jan 2011. Her words "I like keeping my cars for a long time, so next car I buy I want to be able to keep until it dies".

A lot of people like to run their cars towards the 200k mile mark. Many of my neighbors who have shiny new cars have a car they keep as an extra which is one they've had for years and have well over 100k miles. Just b/c they're not forum members or haven't replied to this topic doesn't mean there isn't a large number of them out there...

 

Wow, Colorado is weird then . Hey, but I shouldn't say anything, people from other states think NJ is weird cause we can't pump our own gas! Life is strange!

 

oh yea, i know.
and +1 on that mileage thing. 229k on said mom's camry. Taking a 200 mile trip this weekend on it.

 

come again.

 

168,000 here

Although my tl requires premium it has only seen 91 a few times.

When my parents bought the car new, they filled 89 for like the first 5 years then its been 87 since. I've had the car for 3 years and I fill 87, I try to sneak in 91 once in a while but my parents don't let me. (I'm using their money for gas so its their decision).

We always fill top tier gas though. Either shell, chevron or mobil. Shell is usually my preference, then chevron then mobil.

You guys that are saying that some gas stations add 10% ethanol, where would they say that at the gas station. I might wanna start looking out for this.

 

Honestly, what are you actually saving at the pump? 2 bucks? why? (and please dot say it adds up cause i fill my tank just about every day and i know what gas costs)

 

Tell my parents that. I've tried to convince them that I need to put 91 in my car but they really dont care and they get mad at me everytime they find out I put in 91, so I only do it once in a while. Its their money and I really can't argue to much. If it was my money I would be putting in 91. Ohh and just to clarify, well over here I think its 3 dollars extra per fill up haha. But yea, I try to sneak in 91 sometimes but dont do it to often just because my parents get mad.

 

Dont tell them?

 

For me being in Milwaukee with Emissions, that is impossible to find. We have to drive up north to get the "Good Gas". Or at least get outside of the emission required counties to find some.

 

What do you mean by grades? Is that octane level, or ethanol content or something else?

I would believe that if you drive a car that requires 87, you would get no difference in gas mileage if you used 89, 91 or 93, which may be what you are saying...

If you drive a car that requires 91, but use 87, depending on the ECU to retard ignition, you should get worse gas mileage because the engine is running less efficiently than designed

If you drive any car with the minimum manufacturer required octane level, ethanol "enhanced" gas should yield lower gas mileage because the energy content in ethanol is less than that of gasoline.

 

Red text is sarcasm

 

My 911 requires 91. A significant number of 911 owners, more so in Cali it seems, mix 100 (usually at the track) with the 91 to get a higher octane. Do you guys think it makes that much of a difference on the track?

 

maybe porsche and some other brands recommend 91 cause its easily avaliable. Would they recommend 100 octane if they sold it along side 87/89/91? Just something to think about.

 

IDK but the engine is definitely sensitive enough to produce knocking with lower octane. I was just curious whether there was any "real world" benefit in going with higher octanes on the track since some tracks in Cali have 100 octane pumps as well. Would there be any benefit in street driving performance going from 91 to 93?

I bet fsttyms1 knows teh answer.

 

chevron or shell...76 if nothing is around, then I use 92, 87 at the other places.

 

anything above highest readily avaliable octane is probably useful if you have a high compression engine running at extended periods of high RPM or with FI.

 

I decided I was going to save money by using 89 octane gas in my car. Then I looked at my container and saw about $50.00 change. Then it dawned on me I haven't checked my air pressure in a month. I won't mention the numerous short driving trips I take. So I have decide "what the hell I'm going 91 octane". If I was 100% commited to penny pinching I wouldn't have been doing all of those money spending things.

So basically what I am saying is unless you are 100% commited to good gas saving principles just go 91

 

 

Running 87 or 89 costs you MORE money. The TL is designed and tuned for 91. Running less octane causes knock which retards the timing. You lose power and mpg and it's hard on the engine.

In reality, the gain in mpg from running 91 more than offsets the cost and you get more power to boot.

 

Is there any benefit to higher-than-91 octanes?

For example, 91 isn't sold in CT so I always use 93.

 

In theory once you get past the pinging (detonation or preignition) threshold there is no more power to be gained. In my particular car I've found it still pulls timing due to pinging on 91 octane. I slowly added 100 octane to the tank in small increments and monitored the knock with a scanner. Around 96 octane it finally stopped pulling timing.

So assuming your TL behaves like mine, there is a small amount of power and mpg to gain from going a little higher with the octane.

I should mention, this "pinging" is not audible by ear but it can be monitored using a scanner plugged into the computer.

I only have one data point which is my own TL. In the winter is barely pulls timing on 91. In the summer it pulls a ton of timing which hurts mpg by up to 30%. Many times I'll mix a little 100 or 109 unleaded that I have laying around to get some of that "winter" power back.

 

nope, any octane higher or lower than what the engine is optimized for is inefficient. I believe there's just wasted fuel left over during the combustion process if the octane is higher.

 

Octane does not control the mixture nor does higher octane it burn significantly slower. Octane is just it's resistance to uncontrolled burning or detonation. Too much octane only hurts the wallet but on certain high output engines it's cheap insurance to keep the engine from blowing.

Once you have enough octane to stop detonation you're just wasting money but everything burns the way it should. Our TLs are octane hungry and there seems to be a little benefit of going higher than 93 octane. I don't suggest 109 unleaded or anything like that but if I were going to track mine hard for a day I would run a mix of 100 unleaded with 91 to get at least 96 octane.

But yes, that first part is right. The only problem is I belive the TL's engine is "optimized" for something higher than what Acura recommends unfortunately.