What do you think? Is premium a ploy designed to add to Big Oil coffers? Or, do you think it’s a “must” for all high-compression engines, no matter what we said? Want to chime in with a second opinion on something else we said? (It wouldn’t be the first time. But you probably already kno…

O.K. Start by takeing any basic automotive engine course and pay a lot of attention to the parts that talk about compression, power, timing advace, and detonation. Then try rewriting this little fable of ypurs.

I own a 2006 Mini Cooper with an automatic transmission. I tried a full tank of 87 octane instead of the recommended 91 octane. The car turned into a SLUG. The car has only 116 horses to start with and it seemed like it lost 40% of the power! After two tanks of Premium 91 octane, the power came …

The reason many cars use premium is for higher performance. Note to cclarify: Car manufacturers make high performance engines usually by increasing the compression and that in turn requires high octane or retarded timing which would eliminate the performance advantage. So just to clarify things,…

As I’m sure others will bring up, altitude also affects octane requirements of your engine. At a higher altitude, air is thinner, so you pack less of it into your cylinders, effectively resulting in a lower compression ratio. As a result, your engine’s octane requirement is lower at higher elevati…

My brother-in-law just bought Pontiac G6 hardtop convertible and asked me about Top Tier Detergent Gasoline. Yep, there is such a thing. Is it important to buy fuel only from these suppliers? http://www.toptiergas.com/

My '03 Jeep GC Overland with 4.7L HO V-8 runs fine on regular fuel, altough the mfr recommends Premium. Does the computer constantly adjust the timing to compensate for lower octane? Am I doing any long-term harm to the engine? My mileage is mostly highway with little load on the powertrain. Thanks… …

Many of my friends put premium into their regular cars…waste of money. I can run 87 octane in my 87 Porsche 944S which requires 90. Knock sensor takes care of it…slight loss of power in my opinion, but my brother notices no difference when he borrowed it and tried both octanes. My daughter’s 94 Gala…

I have WRX (turbo). Will running regular gas kill the turbo. I drive 40-50K a year and would love to save some money. Thanks for the replies.

I am anticipating getting a new car, and I would like to see more posts on emission affects upon using lower octane fuel in a higher compression engine which “recommends” high octane fuel. Some people have told me that lowering the octane will result in a “gummed up” engine with time.

Premium versus Regular

The Show

system July 31, 2007, 8:01pm 16

It’s probably all a scam by the oil companies with a lot of help from the auto manufacturers, but why has my stock '98 5-spd Neon always run better on premium?

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Premium versus Regular

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