Different grades of gas in the 2016 Tacoma

Unless your engine and computer are designed to take advantage of higher octane fuels, then it's a waste of money to buy higher octane fuel. Buy what your vehicle was designed to use. I know some manufacturers used to say the best performance would come from the high octane fuels because they had designed them that way, but could run on low octane because the knock sensor would detect knocking (air/fuel mix lighting off before the engine needed it to, which means the rotating assembly is fighting to complete the rotation), report it to the computer, and the computer would back off the timing (telling the system to ignite the mix later) to a point that the sensor no longer detected knocking.

 

Thanks for that information. I didn't know that.

I think I'll still experiment with different grades just to satisfy my own curiosity.

 

Joke's on you! Fat Albert used the last of the JATO rockets a few years ago!

 

Computer usually has a few more tricks up its sleeve than just timing, also.

Varying the amount of time the EGR runs, increasing the amount of fuel pumped in (more fuel cools the cylinders down and makes the chamber conditions less than ideal for burning gas, therby reducing knocking), if it has vvt, it'll use that too. As with most bandaids though... These are usually immediately set to the extreme when the computer isn't happy, so your engine becomes unhappy in a hurry - puts o2 sensors and cats at risk immediately, oil degredation speeds up, you risk washing your piston rings and marring up your cylinder walls, etc. So it isn't recommended to continually run low octane in the ones that "can, but don't recommend".