Vehicles that require premium gas

[Diamondpilot]

My experience is you MPG will suffer with regular and yield no savings

 

[buickanddeere]

Curious about your opinions. I'm a diesel guy, but recently bought a VW Tiguan SUV. It has the 2.0 liter turbo engine. It says it requires premium gas.

I rarely drive it as I am always using the trucks, and when I do, I'm not throttling on it. Nor does it get really hot here in the summers compared to the south.

So I'm wondering......is it really necessary? We also do not have ethanol here.

I have been putting premium in it, but a couple times filled it with regular when it was WAY cheaper. I noticed no difference in fuel mileage or power. Actually it seemed harder on gas with premium.

Thoughts?

Plug in a scan tool and watch the detonation sensor and timing ******.
I would assume that the manufacture speced premium for a reason.

 

[buickanddeere]

I don't know if you should use premium or regular but I'm pretty sure that almost all gas stations in Ontario are selling gasoline mixed with ethanol.

Crappy Tire 91 octane is no ethanol. 87 and 89 may contain up to 10% ethanol

 

[buickanddeere]

When towing with my old 2003 sierra in the summer time. The cost per mile was lower with premium vs regular. When just putting around empty summer or winter, 87 octane tractor gas was cheaper per mile.

 

[MrFoPow]

I always use premium in everything. Required or not.

 

[LD1]

My experience is you MPG will suffer with regular and yield no savings

Experiences in what? My gassers consist of a 2001 saturn SL, a 2005 ram 1500 hemi, and a 2008 nissan sentra. I notice NO increase whatsoever using premium.
Just for kicks, I bought some 93 no-ethanol fuel to run in my saturn. Which is about a buck more than 93 that has ethanol. so ~$3.69/gal last I drove by. Went from ~35 MPG to 37MPG. Using the numbers above......At 1.99 for 87 and 2.86 for premium.....I'd have to get 50 MPG for what say about no savings to hold true. And that just aint gonna happen. Heck, even if I could get 10% or 20% better fuel mileage with premium.....it aint worth spending 45% more for it.

I always use premium in everything. Required or not.

Any reason to do that other than extra money burning a hole in your pocket?

 

[3930dave]

What you NEED to do is use a quality injector cleaner every 10K miles or so. I replace a bunch of injectors in that engine and when they fail the engine will misfire when it just starts for a few seconds or so.

Techron, Liqui-moly LM2007 or BG44K all work quite well.

VW has had so much trouble with fuel injectors that there is extended warranty on them.

http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/acms/cs/jaxrs/download/doc/UCM463188/CSC-10056164-3276.pdf

Regards, Fred

How a typical engine computer compensates for octane has been well covered here. Some engines may throw a code, if timing has to be pulled back all the time/extensively. Not a big deal usually, and many variables like driving style can come into play as to whether a code flags.

I'll second that Fred. I was also thinking of the detergent aspects of Premium when I started reading this thread, that can be a much bigger deal than just resetting an engine code.

Rgds, D.

 

[Paystar]

Well so far like I say, I have not gotten any more mileage running premium in it. It all seems the same except paying extra for premium. That's why I was wondering.

Our trucking company now also owns a truck stop/gas station. As far as ethanol in Ontario Canada, our fuel supplier told us all the gas that is loaded at the Sault Ste. Marie tank farm is non-ethanol. Anything loaded out of Finch Avenue by Toronto is ethanol.

 

[not2old]

My Volvo V70R runs on both but makes more power on premium. My Cadillac CTS V says to use premium only. Volvo is turbo, the Caddy is supercharged. It's important with both to have no detonation or you risk engine damage more than with a naturally aspirated engine. Most premium around here has no ethanol.

 

[ultrarunner]

Premium here is 10 cents of mid which is 10 cents more than regular...