Oh My Goodness!!

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Originally Posted by TeeEye7

Same price for us 100 miles north of JT. I think my employer would frown if I followed his plan of action...............;)

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Just steal it from the Fire Department, chalk it up to a "friendly rivalry"... and hope they don't light your house on fire as a "retaliation prank". :p

My Mazda has a 15.5 gallon tank, I generally refuel at the quarter-tank range (the gauge mark is way off though) and it's around $33 for that. I always try to fill up so I can gauge my mileage (calculating the amount of gas I just put in - and thus used - against the trip odometer which I reset at every fillup), which has been floating between 23 and 25mpg lately (consistent for my 4-banger: 21 street, 28 hwy).


Premium gasoline (91 octane) isn't generally needed for a modern engine unless it's a higher-compression engine, mostly found only on German cars, where they get more explosion out of the gas in a tighter area via more precision and need that added extra bit to avoid knock and misfire. If you're putting it in your car and it doesn't say "premium fuel required" on the dash and/or fuel door, you're wasting your money (some cars say "premium recommended", like Jeep/Chryslers, there you can use regular 87 octane to save money and you'll only have a minuscule performance reduction). Now, were we talking about eking every last nanosecond out of your zero-to-sixty times, then it'd matter, but for the average SUV, your 0-60 times are embarrassing anyway and you won't notice the performance drop.

My car says premium recommended (and its German) but I rarely put it in with no noticeable effects. I would be hard pressed to get any detonation unless I was doing some serious hill climbing or repeatedly burying the pedal which I do neither of. Detonation isn't limited to German cars and their perceived finer engineering. If you're running a turbo or supercharger or towing stuff you need the protection but farting down the road at 60 mph doesn't put the needed load on any engine.

If it's a Mercedes, Porsche, or BMW, it's actively bad for your engine, it strains the systems trying to compensate for the lower octane and over time that puts more wear on the machinery. However, if it's a VW, they're not as fragile and precision-themed so it's not a problem.

And you're right about German cars not being the only ones, I was just using them as the example because most of the famous international auto brands that come out of there fall under this situation where other countries' car brands don't have this as overwhelmingly. And I left out "high performance" cars because, well, let's face it, if you don't know your high-priced sports car needs premium, you deserve to have it break down, teach your stupid *** a lesson. :p

Wow uh . . . yall are seriously going to kill me when I say this, but I'v been complaining about gass going up to 3.15 here in Kansas lately. I know it'll go higher soon though, wich will suck. It costs me about 32 or 33 dollars to fill up my car tank when it's on the E.

Um . . . please don't hurt me. Im new to the board?

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Originally Posted by Exhaust Port

Giant Eagle? I did the same thing when I needed to buy a tool from Home Depot. When to Giant Eagle, bought $100 gift card for the fuel points, then went next door and bought the tool from Home Depot. I had an employee at Home Depot tell me that a gentleman bought his whole kitchen setup with gift cards ($10,000+) so he could cash in on the fuel points at Giant Eagle. The best is when they offer double points (20 cents per $50 spent).

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Ah cool, you know about Giant Eagle.

yeah, it's a great program.

Home Depot is there best selling gift card.

Contractors make use of them. (yet you know they don't pass that savings on to their customers...)

I have a further "advantage" (I'm sure you must get that reference, Exhaust Port.) of the fact that my fiancee works for their corporate office. So she knows what is going to be on sale, what cards will be double points, etc. If you go to their website, she maintains that and designs many of the graphics you see on the site.

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Originally Posted by Slicker

She only gets about 25 feet per gallon but the 100,000 gallon tank more than makes up for it. :thumbsup:

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Actually should be nuclear power for the most part right?

Yeah, my V-8 Cherokee says to use Premium. Either way, it's not shaving much off the price to fill my tank.

I try to barely drive at all any more, combining errands, and reserving special trips for "fun days," like when I'm going out to do something special.

It costs $75 to fill my tank and I do my best to make that last the whole month, so I b*tch about having to drive any extra - more than I want to.

When I "go out," for any social life, I stick to the places that are very close by here and I can get turned down by just as many girls versus if I went downtown or the beach to have my fragile ego crushed. Meanwhile, it costs me less money to get abused locally.

I don't go on toy runs, but strategically do my shopping when I have connections at the stores telling me "now is the time." Also, when I can, I avail myself of HasbroToyShop and NewForceComics, amongst others. I've cut back so much (due to being uninterested / untempted mostly) that I won't have to go out shopping until almost summer!

So that's that. But I'm already over-spent on gas this month and I'm $50 behind what I budgeted for April's fuel as well. *sigh*

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Originally Posted by Blue2th

Actually should be nuclear power for the most part right?

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Not the Kitty Hawk. It's the last conventionally powered carrier in the fleet.

So's Slicker's Mom.
Sorry. Couldn't resist......

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Originally Posted by JediTricks

If it's a Mercedes, Porsche, or BMW, it's actively bad for your engine, it strains the systems trying to compensate for the lower octane and over time that puts more wear on the machinery. However, if it's a VW, they're not as fragile and precision-themed so it's not a problem.

And you're right about German cars not being the only ones, I was just using them as the example because most of the famous international auto brands that come out of there fall under this situation where other countries' car brands don't have this as overwhelmingly. And I left out "high performance" cars because, well, let's face it, if you don't know your high-priced sports car needs premium, you deserve to have it break down, teach your stupid *** a lesson. :p

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Modern cars, especially a luxury car, have "knock sensors" that adjust for different octane gas so you can run whatever you want in them. Here's a quote from a Porsche engineer:

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All Porsche engines are designed for premium, too, but it's not available everywhere. "Our cars must be able to drive all over the world, and so we are able to run on regular," says Jakob Neusser, director of powertrain development at Porsche's research and development center in Weissach, Germany. "You don't have to feel that a mechanical problem or anything else will happen" using regular gas, even in the highest-performance, regular-production Porsches."

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It's 99% advertising hype. The oil industry pushes premium gas since the profit margin is higher. Car manufacturers want to lead buyers to believe that their car is so finely tuned that only the best gas will do. As far as I've ever seen there has never been a formal study to indicate that a change in octane will change your mileage. The percentage change that most drivers claim to get could easily have been achieved by any number of different driving conditions between fillups.

A higher compression ratio by itself doesn't cause detonation, only atmospheric (higher air temps) and engine strain/work load will. A turbo/supercharged engine is preheating the incoming air which can lead to detonation no matter your compression ratio. So unless you bury the pedal on every start the knock detector doesn't even have to do any adjustment and possibly effect the top HP/Torque (but is someone really going to notice 1, 2, 3% less?)

I believe that octane hype is similar to what folks say about the sound quality of Bose equipment, "Better sound through better advertising". So "Better mileage/power through better advertising". It seems car forums are full of threads about this just like audio forums are full of talk about premium speaker cable.

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Originally Posted by jedi master sal

Ah cool, you know about Giant Eagle.

yeah, it's a great program.

Home Depot is there best selling gift card.

Contractors make use of them. (yet you know they don't pass that savings on to their customers...)

I have a further "advantage" (I'm sure you must get that reference, Exhaust Port.) of the fact that my fiancee works for their corporate office. So she knows what is going to be on sale, what cards will be double points, etc. If you go to their website, she maintains that and designs many of the graphics you see on the site.

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That's sure is an awesome connection you have there. I'm a huge GE fan, especially since the introduction of Fuel Perks. They are very slowly rolling out more gas stations around us. They added one by my folks so they are pretty lucky. Our nearest one is still a 20 minute drive and we pass probably 5 gas stations on the way so it can be tough to cash in those savings at times.

I heard that they were having problems with the Government over their Fuel Perks program. It was something about the government not liking them discounted a federally taxed item or something like that. Did that ever blow over? I've found that you can't earn points when buying liquor because of the "sin" tax on it.