Premium Gas Necessary?

Post by **cubbyjkg** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 5:02 am

I have an 08 Maxima and now that premium gas is over $4, its starting to put a dent in the wallet. I know on the fuel door, it says premuim fuel is recommended. Has anyone use reg or mid grade fuels on their maximas? Will it hurt the engine or void the warranty?

Post by **MinisterofDOOM** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 5:27 am

Won't hurt the engine or void the warranty. Go ahead and run low-grade. If you go to cheaper stations (which put less detergent in their non-premium gas) remember to run some fuel treatment through the tank every so often to keep things nice and clean. Several dollars per fillup savings more than makes up for the ~$5 every 1500-300 miles fuel treatments cost.

Post by **jltibbs** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 5:33 am

You should save yourself more money in the long run with premium. The low grade will not burn as efficiently with your stock platinum/iridium plugs. This means the plugs will probably wear out sooner than normal. Plus, the cost of a bottle of fuel injector cleaner or fuel treatment (a good one) usually costs more than just paying the $.20 more per gallon for premium. Knock sensor could come into play as a ghost code forcing you to pay $140+ for an unnecessary part just to get past emissions. My .02.

Post by **MinisterofDOOM** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 5:40 am

My dad runs only regular in his '04 and hasn't seen any "ghost codes." Reg is fine in the VQ35.

Not my cuppa tea, for sure, but there's no reason not to if you want to.

Lucas is great fuel treatment and only costs $5. A can of BG 44k is good for a few thousand miles and costs about $15...which you'll make up in a couple fillups at a $.40 difference.Chevron regular has the same excellent detergents (and in the same quantity) that their premium does. A few other brands do this, too, I believe, but I'm not sure which.

I do agree that you'll see better fuel efficiency with premium. Question is: is it enough to make up the difference?

And of course the car makes slightly less power on regular.

Post by **jltibbs** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 5:54 am

IMHO it is nowhere near worth it to run regular. When the vehicle was produced it was made to run premium. If you run regular with platinum/iridium plugs, the fuel will burn off faster due to more water/sediments. Plus since there's more chance of you putting solid contaminants into your tank with regular, you will more than likely have to replace the fuel filter sooner than needed. Maybe even the possibility of fuel pump replacement further down the line, but sooner than you should have to.

Decreased MPG, early replacement of plugs, fuel filter, possibly the fuel pump, and any other parts that could sustain long term damage due to use of low grade fuels, does not seem worth it at all to me. I put premium in both of my vehicles and it will be hard to convince me otherwise. I know the benefits of cleaner fuels, and the disadvantages lower grades. It all depends on your wallet and the want to make what you bought last longer.

Post by **DevonD** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 6:37 am

yeah. Whenever I put a tank of Premium in my car it instantly runs smoother and pulls noticeably harder. Im pretty sure its not just in my head anyway.. My dad's Murano is the same way. We can both run Regular but your engine isnt running as well as it should or can.

Post by **chrunner09** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 11:35 am

I've been using Plus for quite some time, and i mean, $.10 is really going to make THAT much of a price difference. Although, i make sure i use synthetic oil. That way, it still runs smooth on mid-grade, plus i put RESTORE in my oil. My car's got 145,000 miles on it, and it still runs great

Post by **blazncypher** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 12:52 pm

I have a friend who builds race cars and he told me that unless you drive a really high end car (porsche, ferrari, lambo, bentley, etc.) premium gas is a complete waste of money. We think we are going faster or running smoother, but it is all in our heads. Our cars dont have a high enough compression ratio to really benefit from the higher octane. Now as far as differences between fuel companies, their is a huge difference their. Chevron is the best because of techron, it is by far the best additive in gas these days, followed by shell and then mobil. Whether you use premium or regular most companies put the same additives in their fuel. Also our cars are designed to automatically adjust its timing to variances in fuel quality so if you put low grade fuel in your car it adjusts, etc. The only advice I can give is STAY AWAY from cheap fuel leke ARCO or THRIFTY they completely suck and will leave dirt behind in your fuel passages. Go for Chevron and get regular and do an occasional fuel additive if you think your system is becoming dirty.

Post by **allensteiner** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 12:56 pm

**** got heated up in here:) us premium fuel is crap as it is, lowest octane numbers in the civilised world! i'm not sure what japan has but europes lowest is 95 and shell v-power used to be 100 octane when i left 6 years ago, i think now you can get 102. why? because of the history of crappy us made low compression vehicles. european and japanese cars have higher compression and need the octanes for a proper burn. the low grade fuel being 91 octane causes headgaskets to fail! shell in the us sells v-powerrated at...94 that's no power.

there's a relatively cheap trick to boost the octane level of even regular unleaded crap by adding toluene - something race car drivers use. you can get it at chemical supply stores cheap.and store bought octane boosters? they say they boost up to 10 or so points 1 point beeing...0.1 octane - worthless.

read on this:http://www.elektro.com/~audi/audi/toluene.html

Post by **blazncypher** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 1:03 pm

Post by **Gman8990** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 2:07 pm

run regular... its no big deal... its a nissan... not a ferrari... weve had 3 maximas and ran regular on all of them

Post by **Gman8990** » Thu Jun 05, 2008 3:39 am

Jltibbs you crazy man... hahaha... not all of us are made of that money... and we have had 3 maximas ('87 crash, '95 crash, and a '99 have now). We have run nothing but regular and had 270,xxx 170,xxx and 113,xxx

Post by **MinisterofDOOM** » Thu Jun 05, 2008 4:06 am

blazncypher wrote:I have a friend who builds race cars and he told me that unless you drive a really high end car (porsche, ferrari, lambo, bentley, etc.)

He's partially right. But it's not the brand that determines it, it's the engine. The VQ isn't one that NEEDS premium. It can benefit from it, but doesn't need it.

Most newer engines don't require premium. Unless they're in something making a lot of power, or they're turbo, there's nothing to need premium for.

Remember that octane is a measure of resistance to knock. Modern cars can compensate for knock by retarding timing (which decreases power). However, LOWER octane fuels have HIGHER energy content. The problem is, most high-power motors have high-compression (or are turbo or supercharged, which equates to the same thing), and are more prone to knocking, so they have to have high-octane fuel to run properly.

Even the VQ has high enough compression that low-octane gas risks knock. But retarding timing combats that. Jltibbs is right that the effects of running at "normal" timing are better on the engine, though.

allensteiner wrote:**** got heated up in here:) us premium fuel is crap as it is, lowest octane numbers in the civilised world!

That isn't because of fuel quality. It's for two reasons:1: We use a different octane listing system than the rest of the world. We list an average of two numbers rather than the higher of the two like "the rest of the world" does.2: Our altitudes in many places mean lower-octane is equivalent to higher octane (this is the same everywhere, but when you're comparing high altitude to low altitude, it makes things look worse than they are). 91 at high altitude is as good or better than 93 at sea level. We're so high here in SLC that you can even buy 85.

chrunner09 wrote:I've been using Plus for quite some time, and i mean, $.10 is really going to make THAT much of a price difference.

Exactly. Even with my car's HUGE 22 gallon tank, It's only ~$4 per fillup in the worst case. Totally worth it for me. When it's taking just under $90 to fill up, what's another $4, eh? MAYBE 25 bucks more a month to run premium isn't that bad.

But again, I'd rather keep people informed than be another "nooooooo...only run premium or you're going to hell" kind of guy. Not that anyone in here's been that way.

Post by **allensteiner** » Thu Jun 05, 2008 4:36 am

MinisterofDOOM wrote:That isn't because of fuel quality. It's for two reasons:1: We use a different octane listing system than the rest of the world. We list an average of two numbers rather than the higher of the two like "the rest of the world" does.2: Our altitudes in many places mean lower-octane is equivalent to higher octane (this is the same everywhere, but when you're comparing high altitude to low altitude, it makes things look worse than they are). 91 at high altitude is as good or better than 93 at sea level. We're so high here in SLC that you can even buy 85.

Exactly. Even with my car's HUGE 22 gallon tank, It's only ~$4 per fillup in the worst case. Totally worth it for me. When it's taking just under $90 to fill up, what's another $4, eh? MAYBE 25 bucks more a month to run premium isn't that bad.

But again, I'd rather keep people informed than be another "nooooooo...only run premium or you're going to hell" kind of guy. Not that anyone in here's been that way.

good piece of info about the octane number. still the higher the oct the lower temp it needs to burn thus the better a burn you get with premium. i'm also not one to say that you have to run premium but don't you all want the best for your car? i'd eat ramen noodles only if i was poor to the point of having to put lower grade fuel in my car.

btw Minister...i live 600ft higher than you

Post by **McSteve** » Thu Jun 05, 2008 5:42 am

doesn't the timing advance with low octane fuel and thus you lose some power? (Considering you can get you timing advanced at the delaership to17° and gain DYNO proven 3-5 hp) Plus I live in phx AZ and at high temperatures cheap gas tends to knock?

EDIT retards is what i meant, because advancing gains power as i stated lol
Modified by McSteve at 6:48 AM 6/6/2008

Post by **allensteiner** » Thu Jun 05, 2008 5:48 am

low octane retards so you have a power loss.

Post by **Gman8990** » Thu Jun 05, 2008 12:30 pm

minister has it figured out here... the VQ does not NEED the premium... so heres my questin to you... are you racking your maxima? like legitimately? not just for fun... but like a real race car??/ no... hterefor it doesnt need premium

Post by **johnnyd6404** » Thu Jun 05, 2008 12:41 pm

Don't use regular i totaly agree with jltibbs it will just lead to problems down the road. Plus it makes the car sound like sh**. Totaly worth the little extra cash. It's only an extra 4 bucks per fill up. If your that worried about that much cash dont go to starbucks one day a week... your car will thank you for it.

Post by **Gman8990** » Fri Jun 06, 2008 2:24 am

No it wont... Ive gone 113,xxx miles and have had nothing... ive had a maxima run to 270,xxx with regular... its not a big deal... its just a preference thing... if you want to sure... if you dont... ok then...

Post by **allensteiner** » Fri Jun 06, 2008 3:19 am

Gman8990 wrote:No it wont... Ive gone 113,xxx miles and have had nothing... ive had a maxima run to 270,xxx with regular... its not a big deal... its just a preference thing... if you want to sure... if you dont... ok then...

you have it nice though living almost at sea level - plenty of o2 in the air. i live almost 5000ft above and there's no air to breathe for me so my eng doesn't get much more for a good burn and power. i bet my max would hall some serious *** living down - below

Post by **McSteve** » Fri Jun 06, 2008 3:58 am

hm and just a thought. There is a reason the owner's manual recommends premium and says not to put anything lower than medium grade in it. I'm pretty sure that nissan doesn't have a contract with all the gas stations urging people to buy expensive gas. Higher compression engines run more efficiently with high octane fuel, and I did notice an increase MPG with premium. so practically speaking. The difference for a fill up is maybe 5 bucks. So if you are seriosuly worried about your money, just let of the throttle and don't accelerate more than you need and let of the gas way before traffic lights and cruise.

Biggest gas guzzler = Driver

my dad got like 3 MPGs more than I did while driving the same car. So there is your money saver.

Oh and btw. If you have the dough to buy a brand new max, you should be able to spend the .02 on gas, except you spent all your savings on the ride ^^

and @gmanmaybe it is more noticable on the newer engines than on the older ones, considering the same engine on the 99 produces 190 hp and on the 00-01 235, maybe compression increased and fuel makes more of a difference. The new engines now make 265. granted it has .5l more displacement but still

Post by **maxhopper** » Sat Jun 07, 2008 6:07 am

Lots of good points being made.

My thoughts:

The European octane ratings are higher because the use a different method to rate their fuel.

The fuel maps are designed to run most efficiently on premium. Using lower grade fuel will result in the knock sensor retarding timing and therefore decreasing performance. By decreasing performance, you get worse mileage per gallon.

For example: Say your standard fill is 15 gallons. Using regular grade fuel saves you $3 (saving $.20/gallon). Using permium you get 28mpg. Using regular grade you get 26mpg. Computing that out to miles per fill equates to 420 miles per tank with premium .vs 390 miles per tank with regular. That is a 30 mile difference which is over 1 gallon's worth of fuel, which at $4/gallon: you just lost over $4 to save $3.

This is just an example, since I only run premium, I have no idea what kind of mileage my Max would get on regular. This is just to point out that saving money on the front end could wind up costing you more in the long run.

Post by **johnnyd6404** » Sat Jun 07, 2008 6:31 am

[QUOTE=maxhopper97]Lots of good points being made.

For example: Say your standard fill is 15 gallons. Using regular grade fuel saves you $3 (saving $.20/gallon). Using permium you get 28mpg. Using regular grade you get 26mpg. Computing that out to miles per fill equates to 420 miles per tank with premium .vs 390 miles per tank with regular. That is a 30 mile difference which is over 1 gallon's worth of fuel, which at $4/gallon: you just lost over $4 to save $3.

You have it right my last car was a crapper dodge and your equation works out perfectly when I ran super I got an extra 40 miles to the tank at 20 mpg thats 2 gallons which in todays prices equates to $8 so to save $3 you end up loosing $5 so it makes sense. I dont know if it works out in the max cuz I never use regular but I assume it's the same.

Post by **allensteiner** » Sat Jun 07, 2008 1:16 pm

you guys get good mileage. i pump premium only and don't think i get close to 28mpg but my odo is broken so it's kinda hard to say. i still have a lot to do on the engine to make it run like it should. plus my tires don't help either

Premium Gas Necessary?

Premium Gas Necessary?

Re: Premium Gas Necessary? (cubbyjkg)

Re: Premium Gas Necessary? (MinisterofDOOM)

Re: Premium Gas Necessary? (jltibbs)

Re: Premium Gas Necessary? (MinisterofDOOM)

Re: Premium Gas Necessary? (jltibbs)

Re: Premium Gas Necessary? (DevonD)

Re: Premium Gas Necessary? (chrunner09)

Re: Premium Gas Necessary? (cubbyjkg)

Re: Premium Gas Necessary? (allensteiner)

Re: Premium Gas Necessary? (blazncypher)

Re: Premium Gas Necessary? (Gman8990)

Re: Premium Gas Necessary? (blazncypher)

Re: Premium Gas Necessary? (MinisterofDOOM)

Re: Premium Gas Necessary? (allensteiner)

Re: Premium Gas Necessary? (McSteve)

Re: Premium Gas Necessary? (allensteiner)

Re: Premium Gas Necessary? (cubbyjkg)

Re: Premium Gas Necessary? (johnnyd6404)

Re: Premium Gas Necessary? (Gman8990)

Re: Premium Gas Necessary? (allensteiner)

Re: (maxhopper97)

Re: (johnnyd6404)

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