Premium vs Regular gas

Any thoughts on best gas for Toyota Tacomas?

 

This has literally been beaten to death on any and every forum for just about every vehicle there is. The owner's manual says 87 or higher. Which means it was designed to run on 87.

If you have a power adder then you run the octane recommended by the manufacturer of that power adder. Generally, 91 because that's widely available. If you built your own power adder system as I did on my 1st gen, then it's a no-brainer, you run the highest octane you can get at the best price so you don't run into detonation at the power levels that you're shooting for...because BOOST.

I have a turbo 1st gen 4cyl, that gets 93 in because it's readily available in the south where I live. I have a supercharged 3rd gen that also gets 93. My 86 4runner 22re gets 87, and my 72 chevy with a 454 BBC is currently drinking 93 because I put a bigger carb and exhaust and working on it to make a lil more power, more octane comes more timing advance, more timing advance comes more power (to an extent).

My girlfriend's 16 Rav4 hybrid gets 87, and if we find a pump that has a higher allowable rating of corn (not E85, but it's allowed up to E30 if I remember correctly) then it gets that because guess what?!? THE MANUAL SAYS YOU CAN USE IT, and it's cheaper.





I vote that octane threads go through some kind of approval process before being allowed to be posted on the main forum...

 

What does your owner’s manual recommend? I’d go with what the engineers who designed it would recommend.

 

Would have never thought to ask…..

Everyone else does. Octane is a measure of how fast the fuel burns, higher octane, the slower it burns. Helps in high compression engines to combats pre ignition, when the fuel mixture in the cylinder burns without the spark plug firing it.

 

You should re-title this topic to: Wasting money vs Not wasting money.

 

cow gas duh...

 

Awesome thanks for the good answers

 

i have only ran premium (93 in Virginia and 91 in california) in my tacoma but my tacoma has been supercharged since it was brand new.

 

One of these guys again, only run cam2 racing fuel.

 

Higher octane possibly can boost performance and fuel mileage. BECAUSE of the VVTI system. Older stock engines without VVTI will reap ZERO benefits from higher octane.

The 4.0 definitely can benefit from 91 octane, HOWEVER the results aren't exactly worth the price.

Here's my personal experiment-

i logged in 3 full tanks in a row going the same route to work and back every day. I was getting 240-260 miles on 16 gallons.

I put 91 octane, drove same route for 16 gallons. Two full tanks later, i went 240-260 miles. I decided to keep using 91 for a while, just to see.

After 3 full tanks of 91, i had no noticable difference in by butt dyno. BUT, the fourth or fifth consecutive tank of 91 i actually went 300 miles on 16 gallons!!!

I kept using 91 and kept getting 280-300 miles on 16 gallons.

Now, the price difference at the time (years ago) didn't really justify the higher price of 91 in order to get 30 more miles on the tank.

If i wanted to go longer between fill ups, higher octane did make a difference in my stock motor. But if i used lower octane one time, it would take three full tanks of 91 for the VVTI and computer system to actually benefit.

This is already a studied topic on these engines. There isn't anything to argue and opinions don't matter...

 

Interesting MPG improvement - I might have to test it myself - Thx

 

I filled up w/ premium for about 10 tanks during a recent xc road trip. I did not see any mpg improvement. And now w/ the cost of gas skyrocketing, I'm glad I didn't b/c I would've been convinced to keep using premium. Glad I'm back to regular.

 

I swear they add water to gas in nyc. Its shit.

 

Nice info I will stick to my 87 octane then

 

yah probably has been beat to death, but I'm going to chime in anyway due to recent experience. I recently drove over 7000 km (5000'ish miles) from Alberta to California to Colorado and back. I was towing a small 2000 pound micro travel trailer. On the way down I was using 87 octane gas and was consistently getting 14 mpg, but had an interesting experience in Montana where I was above 6000 feet for a tank and I got 16 mpg... just for that one tank, even though the elevation changes were similar to the other tanks. I thought about it and concluded that 87 octane at 6000 feet plus is likely like 90'ish octane at lower levels... at least that's what my tiny brain came up with. So I decided to do the test... drove all the way south on 87 octane. Got a consistent 14 mpg other than that one tank. On the way back I splurged and only used 91 octane. Got a consistent 16 plus mpg other than one tank with a horrible headwind which took me back down to 14 mpg. Now we are not talking just a couple of tanks here, but probably 10+ on the way south and the same on the way back.

My conclusion... 91 octane does make a difference on the highway while towing, and running the price difference I was slightly ahead of the game by using the 91 octane. I don't know if I wasn't towing how much, if any, the difference would have been. I will continue the test just for my own giggles now that I'm home and have the trailer unhooked.

Your results may vary - 2013 tacoma with 4.56 gears.