Must be for the tractors and farm stuff. lol

 

Dittos: If I wanted to use regular, I'd kept my Honda Insight. As for saving 20 cents.
If you get just 2 miles per gallon better with premium, it cost you the same! And if you think gas is high now, wait until next year! It's only going to go higher! So buy it now while it's cheap!

 

I agree here- if you buy a "performance" car (use that term loosely), accept the fueling requirements and enjoy it. My dad bought a Vette a few years back and would ***** about gas being expensive and use regular- come on now.. Yes, the car has a knock sensor to detect knock and pull timing (probably adds fuel too) but that is a safety feature in case it knocks for some reason- not meant to be used to mask cheap gas. Yes, it may work, but performance will suffer and as was mentioned earlier- you still have the high compression regardless of where timing is.

It may work, and I doubt any damage will be done- especially if you reset the ECU after a fill up and let it "re learn" with the crap gas, but why? You own a sports car, accept it. Buy a Civic if you want economy.

I agree with the comments about profits and such- it does suck! Just neglecting your car that you purchased knowing it's requirements- just to spite them doesn't seem logical to me.

Joe

 

This is nothing new. People were complaining about the price of gas when it went over a $1.00. And, remember, the price is driven by supply and demand. If we used our cars a little less often, we could save...but, we choose not to that, as a Nation. During a visit to see our daughter in Minneapolis, my wife and I walked four miles round trip to get an ice cream cone. Everyone else in the ice cream store drove, and looked at us as if we were crazy.

Even when given the chance to buy more fuel efficient cars, over the last two months, with the so called Employee Pricing, people bought trucks and SUV's...go figure. Of course they still complain about the cost of gas as they sip their $7.00 Latte coffee's.

This is a Capitalist society and it is driven by the people buying what is sold. If you don't think the profit margin is fair (whatever the market will bare) then you have the choice of not using the product.

I personally will continue to use the premium grade of gas since it has an upgraded additive package to help keep the engine and fuel injection system clean. I am averaging 23 miles to the gallon with combined city and highway driving.

Sorry to be so long winded, but I have been hearing this complaint for 25 years!

John

 

Well I have saved hundreds in gas money, over the last few months. Yup since my trans got killed along with the electrical and haven't been able to drive it for over two months now. So things could be worse, at least enjoy the fact that you have a cool car to drive.

 

Any of our European friends have any comments on the price of gas in the USA. I, kinda, remember paying $2.50 a gallon while traveling in Italy in the early 70's. Still remember it was like liquid gold. Since then I was always glad gas was "cheap" in the US, til now that is.

 

I had heard that petrol in Europe was around 8 bucks US, so that's why they will get the new High Powered V6 Jag. and new Triple charged diesel Benz all to themselves.

 

Your gas IS CHEAP.

In the UK the average price of a gallon of unleaded is £4.05 ($7.30)
Yes we've all read that the price of crude has doubled in the last year, but I wish our petrol was at your price for just one day so we could all fill up CHEAP.
Over here it is not the price of crude that inflates the price of fuel but the greed of our Government who rake in a staggering £74 in TAX for every £100 spent on fuel.
Now that IS something to moan about!

By the way Saskins, the UK government has caught onto so many high mileage users buying these new super Diesel cars and for the first time ever it is now more expensive to buy diesel in the UK than unleaded, diesel £4.25 ($7.60).

 

Wow, that sux. Talk about taking advantage of there own people. So MacJake what do you spend (US) in petrol a week?

 

At the present time I am working close to home with a daily trip of about 50 miles so my average weekly fuel bill is around £56 or $100.
Previous years doing around 35,000 miles a year average fuel bill was, @ £3.50 gallon, £4080 or $7345. Weekly that is about £80 or $144. Now at £4.05 gallon it's about an extra £10 a week or $18.
Unfortunately since the pumps in the Uk went from showing Gallons, they now show Litres, the fuel companies have been given a license to print money. Years ago if the price went up 2 pence on a gallon people would shop around for the cheaper station, nowadays the companies add 2 pence a litre so often its hard to keep up. With there being 4.5 litres to the gallon you can see how complacent we have become.
What would happen if your local station added 16 cents to a gallon overnight?
When they first changed from gallons to litres they put up a conversion table on the pumps so you could convert your litres to gallons, if you ever get to see one you will laugh because they started at 20p a litre and went up to 50p litre. Now you can read it and double it and add some. It's great to be British.

 

Sound like "Imperial Gallons" to me...LOL.

I know we complain a lot here, but I know what you mean after traveling the world over (a few times). Most just don't know how lucky we really are.

 

I'm still waiting to hear if from people who actually use Regular on the X-Fire, or decided to test to see if it works as well...My initial results so far are encouraging (and FYI, I drive the X-fire like it's meant to be driven, and noticed no change in performance)...in fact, I seem to be getting an extra 4 MPG using regular over premium! Weird.

 

I agree that its silly trying to save a few cents with regular. Think about it, premium is usually about .20 more than regular and on a 10 gallon fill up, that's $2.00, no matter how high the gas goes. So if people are sweating about $2.00 my suggestion is start walking around looking for cans to cash in to cover the difference, get a part-time job working one day a week, charge to cut your neighbors grass, wash cars, etc. I don't like it anymore than you guys do, but you gotta put things into perspective about the gas we put in our cars.

 

Man - my car pings on 91. I cringe at the thought of Regular. The increased mpg isn't unusual - in fact lower octane burns faster and more efficiently and all things being equal, actually will make more power. BUT the higher octane permits higher compression, boost, timing, etc. all which will make even more power over just the lower octane fuel.

Joe

 

Hundreds of dollars in stereo equip. but too skimpy to spend the few extra cents for premium?

 

You should read the article (which is not incidentally the title of this post) before commenting. According to DC dealers, including that of the SRT, there is VIRTUALLY no advantage to using premium. If that's true, and no one has really commented definitely on the question thus far, the only reason to pay 'a few extra cents for premium' is because someone has labeled it to be premium. In other words, it appears that the reason for using premium is because, X-Fire owners just follow the rules (after all the sticker says to use premium)... Rather than think for themselves or because they like the idea that they pay extra for gasoline over 'regular' people, which is equivalent of being a snob...fortunately, I'm neither.

 

Lol, increased octane equals less detonation which equals more timing advance which in turn equals more power. It is basic ECU/knock control operation. I can think for myself and between the added timing, less knock and increased cleaning capabilities- it is a "no brainer".

Joe

 

Not disagreeing, but I hear that the new German computers that are on the MB models, help eliminate the knocking/cleaning concerns...they read that you are using premium/intermediate/regular, and adjust the cars firing operation, so the type of gasoline/petrol used really is not that important.

 

Yes, they do adjust timing and fueling accordingly based on knock- pretty much all EFI cars do, but retarding the timing to compensate for lower octane will have an adverse affect on performance.

It is not "that important" as in it will blow up if the wrong fuel is used, but it is not doing anything for performance. I just know enough about cars to know that I would not run anything less in a 10:1 compression motor no matter what the ECU will do. It will not hurt anything, but for the small price difference, I will not lose performance over something so simple. If I were taking a long trip or something on the highway where I wouldn't be driving "spiritedly", then I would probably just fill it with regular to save some $$$ over the course of the drive (like from NY to FL or something). I just will not use it in my daily driving.

Joe

 

I should clarify since it may seem like I am being a jerk in my other replies - I am not trying to convince you otherwise or tell you that you are wrong, if you do not personally notice any performance loss or hear any knocking, then run with it.

Joe