We wife’s BMW 325i needs premium gas to run well. My late BMW 323i needed the same. I tried regular once and that didn’t work at well at all.
You picked an idiotic brand of car for your rant. You should have said that it was a Chevette.
Buy premium if your manual recommends it. But if you buy premium for a car that’s designed for regular, you could end up getting worse gas mileage.
(And yes, the gas prices listed in that article do look quaint)
Just topped off the tank with 91 octane premium at $3.23 a gallon. Why? Because the station was out of 87 octane, and a station down the street was charging $3.79 for 87.
When I got to the pump, there was no line. After I topped off, there were three cars queued up behind me.
An R1 on 91 Octane??? There must be a difference between US and UK octanes; I wouldn’t run a lawnmower on 91 octane - the least we can get is 95. Both of our Triumph Spitfires run on 97, I believe they were designed to run on at least 4 star (98 leaded) and ran better on 5 star (100 I think), I assume they are the same engines you have in the States?
Urbanchic - what British cars do you own, just out of curiosity?
Just checked my Suzuki SV650 manual and that says use 91 or higher octane, but that’s an American looking manual (tires instead of tyres, etc.).
Bingo. The UK uses RON octane number; the US uses (RON + MON)/2 as an octane rating. Roughly, the same gasoline will be rated five points higher in Britian than in the States (so your 95 octane is about 90 in the US).
[utl=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octane_rating]Wikipedia article
Tuco, we have a Land Rover Discovery and a Jaguar XJ6.
I agree with the prevailing sentiment here. My VW Jetta Turbo REQUIRES premium. And that’s not an expensive car. The thing is, premium always costs about 20 cents more than regular. That’s the equivalent of a fixed cost. When I decided on that car, I figured that I’d use about 1,000 gallons a year, which will cost an additional 200 dollars - well worth it for a more efficient engine that has all the power of a larger engine but with better fuel economy. Now compare that to the amount that gas prices IN GENERAL have risen over the past few years, which IS a big deal. 20 cents - not a big deal. Gas prices that have DOUBLED - a big deal.
It might run o.k. on regular, but why risk damaging the engine to save a paltry $200 a year?
Let this be a warning to all who would post under the influence. YOU will eventually sober up, but your post will still be drunk!
Lynn
For the Straight Dope