I stopped by a Loves truck stop in Iowa to fill my pickup yesterday. After waiting for a pump, I got the diesel/premium pump first. Looking at the 91-octane premium. It contained 10% alcohol. With the price, it’s getting double corn holed. Not sure the 2% of octane is worth the extra cost, still getting ethanol. Also have heard, some states in the grain belt can have over the posted % of alcohol without ramifications.
I don’t remember the exact science (i can look it up again if this thread gets real heated), but I learned that if your car/truck does not require higher octane fuel, you will see zero benefit using it. If your car does require it, you could damage your engine by not using it. It’s really meant for sportscars/performance engines. Now, the flip side is that non-oxy is usually 91 around here so that’s why you’d want to use it in non-sports cars, but your example said it had ethanol so again, see point one. If your filling up a regular engine with 91 octane to try and get some sort of “boost” other than it being non-oxy, your throwing your money away.
Higher octane doesn’t burn as easy as low octane and it prevents pre ignition/pinging. Knock sensors on modern vehicles should prevent anything bad from happening from using low octane gas
I ran a programmer on my 2014 Ram. My programmer would tell me what my knock retard was.
If I was running the 91 tune on my truck and put 87 octane in it. I would see 3 to 4 degrees of knock retard on average.
If I floored it i could see up to 6 degrees.
As stated all modern engines with electronic ignition have knock sensors to adjust your timing as needed.
Performance wise The difference between 89 and 91 tunes was very very very minimal.
I understand 87 octane meets the minimum octane for my motors, {9.9 and 115 Yamaha 4 stroke}. I don’t pay the extra for a few percent octane. As I mentioned above, it was the ethanol added to the premium that caught my eye. When I moved a few years ago, I had some ethanol that was a year old. I tried to use it to burn some wood scraps and such when I cleaned out the garage. You could literally put a match out in it. When I was working, my boat would sit for months at a time. Also, it destroyed the fuel line on my 2002 Mercury. I’ve just had less outboard/small engine issues in my life eliminating it completely. With the cost, I still make my truck choke it down. Alcohol belongs in your stomach, not my gas tank.
Why not just use the no ethanol 87?
Why not just use the no ethanol 87?
That’s a pretty rare find, at least in my area. Some marinas have it, but that’s the only places I’ve ever seen it.
I picked up boat gas today.. I was to shocked to read anything else after I seen the price of non oxy. 
4.99 pet gallon
I picked up boat gas today.. I was to shocked to read anything else after I seen the price of non oxy.
4.99 pet gallon
It’s just part of the “transition” and nothing to be concerned about ……
I paid something for $5 non oxy this weekend ah yeah that hurt. To push mow a yard now its going to $40 lol.
I’d use 87 or 89 if I ran across it. Yeah, it sucks the worst putting it in the mower. Cheap gas $5.09 here yesterday.
I paid something for $5 non oxy this weekend ah yeah that hurt. To push mow a yard now its going to $40 lol.
I’ve had the same crafstman push mower for 17 years. It’s only ever had 87 in it. Starts 1 pull every time even after sitting all winter. I don’t get the want to run spendy gas in such a tool. Never 1 time have I had a fuel issue with it.
I’ve watched my dad struggle with small engines for years because he wouldn’t shell out the extra $5 per summer to use non-oxy in them. I’ve never had a problem in anything I own now, presumably because I run non-oxy in everything that is not my daily driver. I’m not burning 500 gallons of gas every year in my mower, the extra few bucks per summer is worth it for the always clean carbs IMO.
Engines running compression ratios higher than 10:1 “should” be running higher octane gas in order to achieve maximum output. I say should because most of us run these vehicles and run 87 to no ill effect due to KR sensors as stated above. 2016 silverado 5.3l I can see slightly better economy running 91 or 93 on an appropriate tune file because I’m getting a more complete burn as this is a “high compression” engine in a traditional sense. The extra 0.5 – 0.75 MPG isn’t worth it at the moment due to price.
Wish we had non-oxy 87 around these parts but I’ve only ever seen it one time in northern MN on a sled trip.
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>iowa_josh wrote:</div>
Why not just use the no ethanol 87?That’s a pretty rare find, at least in my area. Some marinas have it, but that’s the only places I’ve ever seen it.
Some of the newer Kwik Trips have no ethenol 87. Osceola and Somerset, Wisconsin. I was surprised to see it.
Oxygenated premium gas is nothing new. In fact, most MN Kwik Trips didn’t transitioned to Non-Oxy premium until just a few years ago.
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4.99 pet gallon 
