Premium Gas

I found a thread on this, but it was for the Gen3's, so decided to start a thread here. 2011 Tacoma I bought brand new in 2011. It has the 4 cylinder engine. I’ve always run regular gas in it, but there is no regular gas in this small town right now. Is it ok to run premium gas in it? The tank is about half full and I try to never let it get below ½ tank as I do most of my driving in very remote areas with no cell service.

 

Yes it will be fine and cause no issues

 

No harm, just wasted money.

 

Premium gas won't hurt anything. Your truck doesn't require premium to run but higher octane won't hurt it.

 

It won't hurt it. The only reason not to run it is that it's expensive and your performance won't benefit from it. But, if it's your only option, there's no reason not to run it.

 

Great! Thanks for the quick replies. This was a couple of days ago that all stations in town were out of regular. Maybe they are back in stock now, but if not, I’ll splurge for premium.

 

No point in premium on such a low compression engine, an argument can be made for ethanol free though.

I run ethanol free but it's not necessary I'm just extra.

 

In my city, if the station runs dry on regular, they sell premium at regular prices. You may see that.

 

no problem running premium but you sure dn't need to...so no worries for you

 

you can always run higher octane, just a waste of $$ if you have choice, but you can/t go the other way
if your automobile needs premium [usually 91 or 93 octane] you can't be running 87 in there - it can cause all kinds of engine issues

my 128i needs the good stuff, and i try to avoid ethanol gas as well b/c i want that car to last forever so i maintain it to a T
the taco was designed to run on 87 so that is what it gets - if it were a bit older, i might avoid ethanol as well - just don't feel like it is as picky as my car is about that stuff

 

A lot of stations “accidentally” order way more Regular gas than they can hold and they tell the driver to just put the rest in the Premium holding tank. When you pay extra for Premium, odds are you’re actually paying extra for partially-to-mostly Regular anyway haha.

 

That's not how it works. The stations don't order a set amount. Like your own fuel take the delivery truck fills the holding tank until it's full. There's no extra fuel that needs to be dumped into another tank.

Maybe some unscrupulous stations are filling premium tanks with regular sometimes, I don't know, but I wouldn't say "odds are" you're filling with regular from the premium pump.

 

When I was a “Petroleum Transfer Technician”, I had to measure the tanks with the dip stick, getting the depth of gas in the tank. Call the delivery company with the volume needed, they show up with the semi with the divided tanks on it, and they fill ‘er up.

 

Here is what an ethanol plant manager told me.....
Choose one and stay with it. If you switch back and fourth, when you go from pure gas, which has some impurities that can cling along the fuel lines, injectors,etc. Then when you switch back to ethanol blend, which is actually alcohol, that alcohol is a solvent and will loosen that debris and could plug things up.
But I have switched back and forth with no problems but just a tank ot two. However I would not run premium for a couple of years then switch to ethanol. Same is true with my small engines, they get only premium because the ethanol /alcohol will dry out the rubber fuel lines, rubber and plastic carb parts, etc.

 

I can’t recall ever seeing a gas station around here run out of regular and selling premium at regular prices isn’t something many would do. Went to get gas a little while ago and they had regular. Not cheap either, but I’ll remember this thread and realize that if I have to have gas and they are out of regular, there is no harm in running premium.

 

As mentioned, premium in an 87 recommended vehicle won't hurt anything other than your wallet. The other way though, she'll be hurting!
https://youtu.be/Tp8INMugpf0

 

Technically you will gain a little horsepower n torque due to the adaptive timing nature of the ECU's on our trucks. Its not much.

That stated, zero hurt to the truck whatsoever.