Regular gas lasting longer than Plus?

Hey ladies and gents,
I filled up with regular gas a week ago and on the way home it seemed like my truck is burning this fuel at a slower rate vs 89(Plus) that I've always ran in the truck since I bought it in Jan of 15. I fill up at that travel center all the time usually and I believe that when I get home I have less fuel than I did this time around.

Thoughts???

 

There's no way to tell unless you calculate your actual gas mileage over several tanks. There's probably no measurable difference between regular/plus/premium for a stock truck.

 

Ok
yeah I've always heard that regular fuel would burn out quicker than plus or premium so the money you save wouldn't neccesarily be a savings. I guess I will have to see
Just hoping maybe others have tried and lets me know their experience

 

there is no benefit to running higher octane gas (this has been meticulously proven) when your vehicle is not tuned for it. run what the manufacturer recommends (US 87 octane in our case). If you add the S/C then you will need higher due to the increased compression.

Butt dyno's are always wrong, but fun to ponder...

 

nice sounds good. Will certainly keep trying it

 

because ethanol additives are utilized in 89 plus
and ethanol is not as efficient, nor equivalent to std. 87 unleaded fuel.

"Ethanol fuel has a "gasoline gallon equivalency" (GGE) value of 1.5 US gallons (5.7 L),
which means 1.5 gallons of ethanol produces the energy of one gallon of gasoline."

^ fact... std. 87 unleaded is more efficient.

more ethanol = lower fuel economy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel

https://www.bellperformance.com/blog/the-major-differences-between-ethanol-and-gasoline

89 plus and 92 octane is nothing more then a scam
Unless the mfgr. recommends/requires a specific fuel octane rating.
Otherwise use the fuel octane rating recommended by the mfgr.

Most common low compression engines sold in todays average cars
are tuned/'puter mapped to run efficiently on 87.

Using a higher octane rating is just a scam
conjured up by the fuel marketing industry.
Simply to coerce more money outta' the unsuspecting - unknowing people.

screw that ethanol crap
does one dilute their beer with water ?

Maybe...
'cuz in california they scam the public by switching
from summer blends to winter blends.
All in the jest of creating lower VOC's.
Which offer an marginal difference except in refinery/production costs.

Another scam and ripoff to the unkowing public.

 

gotcha man.
thanks

 

Just so you know, 87 octane ALSO has 10% ethanol. About the only place you can find ethanol-free gas is at a marine dealer. My son's flex-fuel malibu will tell you ethanol percentage if you have a decent scan tool that displays real-time data. We just checked yesterday and the car had decided it was running on 9% which is close to what is advertised.

 

yeah forgot to mention that to the previous poster.
in that case if 87, 89, and 93 has 10 % ethanol and my truck is stock, i guess 87 is all I need and it should run as efficiently as 89

 

I tested 2 fill ups of 92 octane in my Tacoma on a trip, got .2 mpg less on that leg of the trip vs 87 octane. The difference may have been that part of the trip we didn't go as fast due to the road. There is no benefit to using higher octane gas than recommended.

 

I always have to be that guy, but..... higher octane will almost always yield better mileage and power. Especially in Toyota 5vz (which is what I'm most familiar with). Toyota's knock system advances timing (total amount of possible advance is subject of debate) until knock is heard and then ECU pulls back to a safe level. Higher octane means less knock, which means more timing, which means more power and better gas mileage. Primitive fuel injection (think ODB1), TBI or carb'd engine will not gain so much from higher octane level because the ECU or lack of can't adjust for it.

Now you just have to do the math whether the increase in mileage (and power) is worth the extra expense of the premium fuel. Your better comparison would be between e10 fuels (most stations) and ethanol free fuel, which is around $.30/gal higher here.

Right on with the ethanol additive fuels though. e10 fuels wont' get the mileage or power as pure gas. My local pumps have 93 ethanol free gas

 

If you have a high-performance vehicle, premium will help. A corvette comes to mind, as well as other such vehicles like the SRT-8's from Chrysler, etc. But if a vehicle is made to run on 87, and the timing is not retarded as a result, you get nothing but a thinner wallet.

When I first bought my 4.0, I tested this for 4 tanks of each. Zero different in MPG driving the same route each day to / from work. ZERO difference. I did the test because I found conflicting statements about minimum octane requirements on the internet. This included daily driving to work, as well as a couple of trips a week to the local boat launch (about 30 miles) towing a 19' bass boat. Anybody can run premium if they want. But it is a waste. Some claim nonsense here, such as "I ran premium and my RPM dropped by 200rpm at 70mph." You can probably find that regarding either grade of gas or spark plugs here... If someone "wants" something bad enough, they will likely find it. Whether it is imaginary or real is another topic.

BTW you can't just advance timing until knock is detected. There is a point, which is RPM-sensitive, where advancing further reduces performance, even without preignition happening. The ECU typically has an upper limit on advance that is mapped to vacuum and rpm levels.

 

Holy smokes batman. Changing to a higher octane also changed the gearing of my truck too!!!

With a naturally aspirated motor you shouldn't see much of a difference. Add a little boost and you def will. I'm supercharged but back in the day when premium was $0.20 more than regular, I would run it every tank. Now just 89. But I did notice that if I filled the tank half 89 and half 93 I felt like I had more throttle response, almost like running 93 was running to rich and a waste of gas. But that was just the feel of the right foot on the skinny pedal.
Stick to regular for daily driving and if you're under load, a bump up might help.

 

It's worth taking into consideration the potential for phase separation in the large tanks beneath gas stations. This can result in the advertised 87 becoming less. 93 can be insurance of sorts but the best is 100%

 

As usual, different scenarios for different folks. I run 91 in my taco because I can get ethanol-free gas in "premium" octane ratings here, but 87/89 are mandated to be at least 10% ethanol. 91 does offer more power than 89. Note I said power, not mileage. But on my hilly commute, that extra bit of power means fewer shifts on the hills in cruise control, and better mileage. Is it worth it, financially? It's break-even within a few cents per fillup, depending on the price difference. Is it worth it to me to not support insane subsidies on corn and keep the government from forcing ethanol down my throat? Yep.

 

This.
Also, seems there might be a misunderstanding among some, octane number or rating is not indicative of ethanol content. Just wanted to clarify, in case that was a misunderstanding some had.

 

You'll be getting better fuel mileage on lower octane fuels. Octane is essentially a safety measure and you should only use as high as you need to maintain a safe knock threshold due to the reason listed above (better economy).

 

Still misinformation. If you make MORE power with high-octane fuel, you MUST get better mileage. It takes a certain level of power to drive a truck at a fixed speed. If you make more power, you will either (a) run faster or (b) back off on the accelerator which will use less fuel. This is all about thermal efficiency of converting an unburned hydrocarbon into energy by burning it and converting it to a rotational power output. It takes a fixed number of btus to drive a truck at a fixed speed through a given gearset. If you change the btus, you must change the final speed.

As far as ethanol goes, it is the biggest ripoff you can find. A gallon only contains 70% of the energy that a gallon of pure gasoline contains. That is a 30% (or often higher, you can find test results with google) reduction in MPG, just to support all the corn-based ethanol the government has gone gung-ho over.

 

This. Everything else is pure speculation, or specific to someone else's unique enviromental conditions/driving style.

OP. Do the math, not the guessing.

And if you find something that does get more MPG, with only a controlled variable like fuel, it will cost more. So then do the additional math to determine the ROI.

 

So much wrong. More power = more economy? Lol. Thermal efficiency and power are two different things. As octane increases thermal efficiency decreases.

Ethanol is great for its cooling properties. Running strictly low load conditions petroleum is great. Ethanol has an advantage under high load because it cools much better and a lot less is wasted for non-fueling applications. A gas engine at max load will run somewhere near 12:1 afr meaning you're just pissing all that extra fuel away trying to keep things from exploding.