Trying different grades of fuel on 4th gen

Project Farm tested all 3 grades: https://youtu.be/TX3LY4fPNRI?si=bzOvDfPopUjkreqI

 

Gave it up as a waste of time at 2 minutes. Not planning on driving a generator around.

 

The math is the same.

 

I feel triggered by this comment as I sit here surrounded by my rough country boxes... Please like and subscribe.

 

This indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of how engines work and what higher octane is for...

 

The problem is the video would be titled something like "Octane: the Ultimate Test", and then 20 minutes later we still wouldn't know what the impact is.

 

I posted this on reddit a couple of months ago. Definitely not scientific but it is real data.

My reddit post (only correction is I'm now approaching 10k miles):

Just completed a 2k mile road trip from Texas to Kentucky down through Tennessee and back. Picked up a middle-sized tow behind U-Haul (single axle) on the way home that was loaded with one apartment’s worth of stuff. I have a ‘24 Limited (which now has over 7k miles on it).

Here’s my MPG for those interested:
No trailer, 87 octane, 75mph: 20-21 mpg
With trailer, 87 octane, 65-70mph: 17 mpg
With trailer, 89 octane, 65-70mph: 17.5mpg
With trailer, 93 octane, 65-70mph: 18.5mpg

The mpg was calculated manually as the on board computer is always optimistic. I kept the speed equal but obviously I have no control over the road going from rather hilly (Tennessee) to flat (Louisiana-Texas) so I’m sure there was some impact to the mpg. I used tow/haul mode while pulling the trailer which the best I could tell just made the transmission stay one gear lower than it otherwise would’ve been so it avoided some downshifting as I was going uphill.

The truck had zero issues pulling the trailer and I hardly knew it was there. I did try the built-in trailer back-up assist that uses the camera to help you back up in a straight line but I found it not sensitive enough to be useful and so it was easier for me to just use my mirrors.

The trailer empty weight was 900 lbs (per Uhaul website) and I estimated the total weight to be in the 1600-1700 lb range.

 

When Ive done something to piss off my wife I just take her out for a nice romatic dinner at Red Lobster and everything is good again. Its the same thing. Could I try just not pissing off my wife and revving the shit out of my engine when im next to a third gen at a stoplight? Maybe. but wheres the fun in that.

 

RUINING my NEW 2024 Tacoma with the WRONG GAS!?

Then some face on the thumbnail like

 

Lol, this is exactly what I was thinking of with that post.

 

The fuel that a bunch of engineers designed truck for, and the book was written for, is what you should put into your truck. If you think you know better than a bunch of Japanese engineers, by all means, do what you want.

Boeing and Airbus don't try alternate hydraulic fluid in their planes they read about online. Why would you suspect that you know better than vehicle engineers?

 

Don’t get too excited talking about what Boeing engineers know - it’s not that impressive.

 

When I was a kid born in Everett, WA, about 4 miles from the plant, the slogan was, "If it isn't boeing, I'm not going!"

Now it's..."If it's boeing I'm not going" and that has an ominous portention.

 

To me it's not rational to spend considerably more money when there's no obvious or reasonable result for it. Across turbo and non-turbo engines I have decades of making same trip to our cabin from the nearby farmer's coop that sells a wide array of fuels with different octane and without alcohol so have done lots of testing.

Our mid-1990s turbo engine needed higher octane most of the time just to not ping. Our modern turbo not. Under load the modern turbo engine with high octane and no ethanol can benefit at times with high octane but it is rare when paying towards 20% more is worth it.

The only time I ever heard our 2015 Toyota V6 ping or noticed obvious advantage with higher octane was loaded traveling at high altitude.

I can understand this from an enthusiasts viewpoint but I'm sticking with generally getting more out of premium coffee and beer than gasoline.

 

Boeing an acronym = Bolts Optional on Everything

 

I would tend to think if you hear pinging with the 87, then you need to step it up. If no pinging, you're just wasting money with higher grades. The engine will tell you.

 

You also really need to consider what trip segments were made with what type of fuel. I always get "better" gas mileage heading down to sea-level from the mountains than in the other direction. The work required to lift a truck 2000 feet in elevation impacts gas mileage.

A better dataset would be a round trip on each type of fuel, same payload...