Remember the Gas Panic that was happening…a few years ago? Oh wait, a few weeks ago. It’s funny how people have just sort of accepted it now. There’s still the occasional post about it, but no where near the amount during the month of May/June.
Anyway, it’s also funny how you learn the most when you least expect it. A few days ago I was browsing through some car forums when I came across a thread called, “premium fuel.” Generally, this means a few people exchanging hot air back and forth about how it does or doesn’t make sense. Well, for the first time, a poster really convinced me by saying:
Originally Posted by Kelly
you should run the lowest octane your truck will run on without knocking.
anything over that is a waste of money and can actually hinder performance.octane has nothing to do with how clean the fuel is, it has to do with its resistance to pre-ignition (knock)
if your cloggin injectors, its because of dirty fuel, not the octane level……anyone that feels a performance gain from switching to 91 from 87 (as long as the car/truck doesnt knock on 87) is mistaken.
I also found more info from this site:
Myth
Premium gas will make my car run better.
Fact
You may notice an improvement in performance when you first run a tank of premium gas. The computer will soon adjust to the higher octane and performance will return to about what it was. When you put regular back in it the computer will again have to adjust and the performance will be less than you are used to until it does.
If your car calls for regular gas and you have to run premium to make it run right something is wrong with your car, not the gas.Myth
Computers on cars “learn” so I can run regular gas in my “Premium Only” model.
Fact
NOT! If your car calls for premium you better use it unless you want to buy pistons and rings and valves and a trip to Disney World for your mechanic. If it calls for premium it probably cost over $50,000. If you can afford that why are you scrimping on the pennies, to make the insurance payment?
What does Freedumb think? I did my own homework. Higher octane rating = less tendency to autoignite. Octane Rating being the typical 85, 87, 89, 91, 93 ratings you see on a gas pump. If autoignition happens, you generally see a phenomen known as “knock,” or “pinging,” because the gas burnt too quickly. So higher octane rating means that your gas is less prone to cause knocking. That’s good right? Well, if your vehicle’s engine actually requires that high of an autoignition temperature to perform, then yeah, but if not, it’s just a waste!
If your engine is designed to run on 85, then it makes no sense to put 93 in it. It’s an overkill. Why? Well, your engine doesn’t need that much resistance to knock. It’s burning fuel at a lower temperature than the autoignition point. You get no more power from a higher octane gas!*
Take a look at this quote:
It might seem odd that fuels with higher octane ratings burn less easily, yet are popularly thought of as more powerful. The misunderstanding is caused by confusing the ability of the fuel to resist compression detonation (pre-ignition = engine knock) as opposed to the ability of the fuel to burn (combustion). However, premium grades of petrol often contain more energy per litre due to the composition of the fuel as well as increased octane.
A simple explanation is the carbon bonds contain more energy than hydrogen bonds. Hence a fuel with a greater number of carbon bonds will carry more energy regardless of the octane rating. A premium motor fuel will often be formulated to have both higher octane as well as more energy.
POWER DOES NOT EQUAL OCTANE! Quality of the gas = Power. Octane = resistance to knock/autoignite. I repeat POWER DOES NOT EQUAL OCTANE.
So the bottom line? If you car recommends premium, run premium. If you car calls for regular, use regular. There is no additional benefit for using a higher grade fuel than your car requires. Your cars “brain” may adjust timing if you use a higher octane gas, but it won’t increase performance, and in fact using a higher grade gas than required may LOWER your mileage and cost you more! Quality of gas DOES make a difference…you can have more energy per liter based on the amount of carbonbonds versus hydrogen bonds in the gas.
*Let me add one caveat to the argument above. If, and that’s a BIG IF, your vehicle manufacturer placed a “brain” in your vehicle that can detect the presence of a higher octane gas, it is theoretically possible that it adjusts timing when higher octane gas is detected, advancing it, thus improving performance. Why would a car manufacturer actually invest in placing more advanced timing into a vehicle without charging more? Giving performance away for free? Maybe because they already have the components in place on their more sporty models, and it doesn’t make sense to re-engineer something. I’m not sure, just making things up now. Cars that require higher octane, can run on lower octane, but will run with retarded timing. This is to prevent the gas from combusting too soon. It’s required to prevent damage from happening to the engine. There’s no benefit to the manufacturer to do the opposite. Now on to the Little Green Pill scam.
Later in the evening, I watched some TV, and they had a special investigation on the Little Green pill, which is basically a pyramid scheme, preying on folks that believe these pills will increase their cars mileage. You can read the explanation behind “how it works,” and see for yourself, but the Texas attorney general recently shutdown Bioperformance, Inc., makers of the green pill, due to, well, being a scam. Watch this video for yourself…not the same one I saw, but it’s about the same thing. The scary thing is, people believe it works! The founder is a preacher converted to pyramid scheme leader! The people in this seminar were singing and cheering him on like this product was the answer to everyone’s problems. It really was scary watching and listening to these people raving about how their cars mileage improved 10, 20, even 30 miles per gallon.
CONCLUSION
Premium fuel does nothing to help improve performance in a vehicle that does not call for it. The Little Green pill does not increase mileage.
I’ve been buying premium since I got my truck! At least I didn’t fall for the little green pills. *hides bottle under my chair* 