Is it OK to use regular rather than premium gas in a 1995 Acura Legend. The book that came with the car states that only premium should be used. I would prefer to use regular if it will not damage the car.
If it states that premium is required, use premium. If it states that premium is recommended, try regular, but keep track of your milage, you may lose more that you save.
Read the owners manual carefully. If the manual says “premium fuel is recommended” then you can use a lower octane and you will see an engine performance decrease. However, if the manual states “use of premium fuel is required” then you cannot use a lower octane fuel without damaging the engine. Piston damage (holes/cracks) is a common defect that’s caused by using regular fuel in a vehicle that requires premium fuel. I believe your Acura requires premium fuel so you can’t switch to regular.
For a 1995 Acura Legend, premium fuel is REQUIRED.
Why would you want to risk damage to such a nice car?
Stick with premium gas, as required. You bought a premium car, it needs premium gasoline.
If you can’t afford premium, trade the car for something that runs on regular.
Feel good time!
The difference in price between regualr and premium gas is about $0.25 per gallon around here. For every 10,000 miles you drive, the cost difference is about $130. That’s about 36 cents per day. It’s still less than a buck-a-day if you drive 20,000 miles per year.
At least I hope that helps you feel better. I’d buy premium and get the most out of the car. It may not have variable timing, which is required to chenge grades. Without variable timing, you run the risk of serious damage to the engine.
1995 is an old car. In truth a more modern vehicle would be capable of dealing with regular when premium is required. 15 years ago not so much.
Wrong. If it were capable, then premium would be RECOMMENDED, not REQUIRED.
If something is REQUIRED, then it is. . Required.
Read what Tom & Ray have to say about this:
http://www.cartalk.com/content/features/premium/
May I politely suggest that you use the button marked “Search” above? This has been discussed to death here, easily a hundred times by now.
Try a tank of regular and see what happens…Most “unleaded fuel only” engines will run fine on regular. If anything damaging is occurring, you will HEAR the engine complain because it will make a pinging, rattling noise, especially when you accelerate. You can control this detonation by simply lifting your right foot a little…Damaging detonation will make enough noise that you can not ignore it…
It is my contention that the difference in octane between regular and premium 87-92, 5 octane points, is not enough to damage an engine… Supercharged racing and aircraft engines are very touchy about proper octane, but mass-produced automotive engines that are sold and driven all over the world have a broad tolerance for fuel octane without suffering damage…But like I said, your engine will let you know if it doesn’t like the fuel you are feeding it…
I don’t think varible valve timing has anything to with octane requirements. Vtech just has seperate cam profiles. Knock sensors has adjust ignition/spark timing.
One cannot lump every car into the yes it can, not it can’t category. Even vehicles of the same make, model, and engine may react differently. There are a lot of factors involved other than the octane rating.
The manuals for my prior and current Lincoln also state to use Premium but after a quarter million miles of Regular I have yet to see one iota of mileage loss, performance loss, or even a hint of pinging. That even includes pulling 11,000 foot passes in Colorado in the heat of summer and running on 85 octane. The spark plugs never lie and they say everything is just fine.
I’m in agreement with Caddyman; the engine will let you know if it’s unhappy.
Here is the opposite senario: Will premium gasoline damage a car designed for regular? Back in the late 1960’s I had a colleague who owned a VW Microbus. He bought his gasoline from a Clark station where the only grade was premium. In fact, Clark advertised premium gasoline for the price of regular in those days. At any rate, the valves burned out in the Microbus and my colleague’s mechanic said it was due to the fact the premium gasoline was used in the VW microbus.
Now I always thought this was bogus. Since the VW Microbus that my colleague owned had an air cooled engine, I wondered if air cooled engines shouldn’t use premium gas. In the interest of science (and to get out of mowing) I have run premium gasoline in a mower I bought back in 1988. I am still having to mow the yard and I haven’t had that first problem with the mower.
I can think of no reason premium would burn valves. More likely they weren’t adjusted correctly.
I agree. I thought the reasoning of my colleague’s mechanic was bogus. As I said, I couldn’t duplicate the problem of burned valves running premium gas in my Toro push mower. I could have bought a six pack for the extra money I’ve spent over the last 22 years for premium gasoline for the lawnmower over regular gasoline. I wished I had applied for a government grant for this research.
There was a car talk puzzler where a father had serviced his daughter’s car and filled her tank with premium to return to college. The car wouldn’t start the next morning after the daughter arrived at her college when the temperature had dropped to below zero. She had never had problems before in subzero weather,and the condition was attributed to the premium gas having a higher ignition point than the regular. I always felt that this puzler was bogus as well. I doubt that a few octane points would raise the flashpoint high enough to keep the engine from starting in zero degree weather.