Do you need premium gas?

[MakinDoForNow]

Now I won't claim to be a math whiz or anything, but you're not going to achieve anywhere close to that now. I will take you at your word about many years ago, when premium was .20c more per gallon, even though that doesn't seem like it could work either.

Right now my local station prices are:

87 - $2.999
89 - $3.449
93 - $3.799

Filling up our G70 usually takes 14 gallons. That works out to $41.99 for 87 or $53.17 for 93, a difference of $11.18. The car will go about 350 miles on either grade, there is no difference.

That's about .119c per mile for 87 or about .152c per mile for 93.

To get the same cost per mile, the G70 would have to go and additional 95 miles per tank on 93. That would mean that fuel efficiency would have to increase 7 miles to the gallon on premium. We don't see any difference, but if there is one at all it is probably more like 1/10th of what would be necessary to make financial sense.

Lastly, my favorite internet car forum trope is the whole "if you can't afford 93, you can't afford the car.." -- no, none of us accumulated any wealth at all by throwing money in the garbage.

OMG I think I did that when "Reg" went from .299 to .349 and "ethyl" was .04 or .05 more! And the station that was .10 cheaper was rumored to be selling "drip" = condensate in natural gas pipeline! Times have changed!

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[Down]

Attached is the AAA study which used a wide range of vehicles under a wide range of circumstances.

https://newsroom.aaa.com/wp-content...ium-Fuel-Phase-II-Research-Report-FINAL-2.pdf

Of course, OP would have you believe that this isn't a valid study since it didn't align with their opinions, but essentially the improvements you will see the premium fuel will not make it a worthwile ROI, especially if you live in an area like I do where premium is .60-.80c more per gallon.

The report is 68 pages long. The main points are the cars (all of which recommend but do not require premium) saw an average of 2.7% better fuel economy and 1.4% more horsepower while running premium. That means a car with 250hp and 25mpg on 87 would have 253.5hp and get 25.7mpg on premium.

You can decide if the significant cost increases are worth that to you. My recommendation is to use premium in vehicles where it is required and no where else.

I've seen you sparring with JASmith but I can't find a single instance in this thread where the OP put forth any opinion, much less one to ruffle your feathers. I gotta ask, why are you flipping the OP shit now?

 

[MLowe05]

OMG I think I did that when "Reg" went from .299 to .349 and "ethyl" was .04 or .05 more! And the station that was .10 cheaper was rumored to be selling "drip" = condensate in natural gas pipeline! Times have changed!

Indeed. I saw gas here in GA at 3.10/3.20/3.30 in 2008. I was driving a supercharged Mercedes at that time, so 93 was all she got. For a long time we only seemed to buy cars that absolutely required premium, and slowly the price between grades crept higher and higher.

 

[JASmith]

Attached is the AAA study which used a wide range of vehicles under a wide range of circumstances.

https://newsroom.aaa.com/wp-content...ium-Fuel-Phase-II-Research-Report-FINAL-2.pdf

Of course, OP would have you believe that this isn't a valid study since it didn't align with their opinions, but essentially the improvements you will see the premium fuel will not make it a worthwile ROI, especially if you live in an area like I do where premium is .60-.80c more per gallon.

The report is 68 pages long. The main points are the cars (all of which recommend but do not require premium) saw an average of 2.7% better fuel economy and 1.4% more horsepower while running premium. That means a car with 250hp and 25mpg on 87 would have 253.5hp and get 25.7mpg on premium.

You can decide if the significant cost increases are worth that to you. My recommendation is to use premium in vehicles where it is required and no where else.

Again, you're so frazzled that you can't even follow the conversation and are just starting to repeat yourself rather than add any new information.

The OP is deacon14, the person you are losing the debate with is JASmith.

There are no modern vehicles that require premium fuel that I am aware of, knock sensors are so sensitive that any modern vehicle can adapt timing/boost/air-fuel ratios/etc, which means that MLowe05 believes that anything above 87 octane shouldn't exist and its some kind of worldwide conspiracy and that Ford is lying when they say that they recommend it and that it is required to achieve the advertised performance numbers, particularly when its hot or when under high load like towing.

The only valid defense made so far regarding my previous statement of the Ecoboost losing 25hp in the summer and 15hp otherwise is that Ford doesn't publish horsepower numbers for both 87 octane and 93 octane... turns out they did: https://www.fordescape.org/threads/2-0-ecoboost-245-horse-premium-and-231-horse-regular-fuel.103889/

The 2.0T Ecoboost in the 2018 Ford Fusion, the same generation engine used in the Maverick, made 245hp on 93 octane and 231hp on 87 octane per Ford specifications page, a 14hp difference. When hot, which is where octane really matters, its reasonably to expect that to grow at least 10hp, right on the mark of my claim. Source for that? The Ford Maverick Owner's manual:
https://www.ford.com/support/vehicle/Maverick/2022/owner-manuals/

 

[MLowe05]

There are no modern vehicles that require premium fuel that I am aware of, knock sensors are so sensitive that any modern vehicle can adapt timing/boost/air-fuel ratios/etc, which means that MLowe05 believes that anything above 87 octane shouldn't exist and its some kind of worldwide conspiracy and that Ford is lying when they say that they recommend it and that it is required to achieve the advertised performance numbers, particularly when its hot or when under high load like towing.

There are plenty of modern engines that require premium, it is just extremely unlikely you're going to harm any modern engine with 87 octane.

Who was arguing that Ford is lying, or that you need premium fuel to get their advertised performance? Those are not in dispute. Both AAA and C&D tests showed improvements with premium fuel. My argument is now and has been this entire time that premium fuel has a poor ROI in both HP and MPG given the additional costs.

 

[JASmith]

There are plenty of modern engines that require premium, it is just extremely unlikely you're going to harm any modern engine with 87 octane.

List two 2020+ turbo models, and I'll link to their owner's manual. You'll find that just like the Ford Maverick, they merely recommend 91+, they can all run with decreased performance on 87.

 

[Sjbuck2021]

List two 2020+ turbo models, and I'll link to their owner's manual. You'll find that just like the Ford Maverick, they merely recommend 91+, they can all run with decreased performance on 87.

No carbon issues with running 87 with turbo? I had issues on my last turbo and was told to run top tier premium. I was using mid grade but still had carbon buildup issue.

 

[Coachman]

Are you asking about gas for the hybrid, or the EB? The EB will probably benefit from the higher octane (the manual indicates this to be true). I’m not sure on the hybrid but I’d GUESS not. Have you looked at the manual yet?

Just a little FYI . . . I have a 2013 Toyota hybrid I purchased from a Toyota dealer and the people there told me NOT to run any octane higher than regular (89) gas in the hybrid. Otherwise I might encounter problems, they so inferred.

 

[Deleted member 1370]

Saw a vid on Youtube and they said that to get the mileage as advertised by Ford you had to run premium gas. Has anybody heard that? Tim Bartz what do you say you Maverick wizard?

I just filled it up today when it was down to a half tank. I put in 91 octane to play it safe. Albeit that was 30 bucks just on a half tank.

 

[MLowe05]

No Maverick of any kind "needs" premium fuel. They are tuned for 87. Run 87.

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