Which Gasoline to put in the VERSA

[versace2007]

Ok. Here's one that everyone might be interested in knowing or want to know, if you have the information, please share! I use shell gasoline all the time and they have Unleaded, plus, and premium, I think. But is it safe to use the highest grade of gas in the versa? I use all three, depending on how much money I have on me, but I never go lower than an 87. Which gasoline would you guys recommened to use for best performance and. and what gas station????

[skoobahead]

Your Versa is made to run on 87 Octane fuel. Don't waste your money on premium. Your car doesn't need it.

[kmil123]

Dear Officer:

Pardon the pun.......you say you use Shell gas.........That, IMHO, and in the opinion of the so called "experts" is a real "SHELL" game. As long as you use the correct octane (87 I believe) the brand makes NO difference whatsoever...........EXCEPT for the Shell company..........they are the one's perpetrating the deception and they are the ones profiting. I say they should be "arrested" :-) !!!

[cireecnop1]

?????????

I think it does make a difference on the quality of gas you use, In my experiences, Texaco gas was the best to use for my 71 comet. my town no longer has any Texaco stations. So I now use Shell, I would use BP but the closest one is too far for comfort. I might be delusional but my older cars seemed to run better on certain gas.

[marleyfan]

It does make a difference which brand of gas you use. Different refineries have different quality controls. I live in Canada and back when it was worth the half hour drive I would sometimes fill up across the border. I found that my car would not run well with Arco gas. Chevron here in Canada seemed to give me the best results.

[proxim2020]

my town no longer has any Texaco stations.

You still have Texaco stations, they are just Chevrons now...lol. They merged a while back, that why they seem to be disappearing all over.

Just use the recommended octane. I've read many reports of people actually experiencing lower MPG and performance when using higher octane gas. As far as brand, yes and no. Performance wise, gas is gas. The gas you find down the street is the exact same gas you'll get everywhere else. Octane 87 is exactly that. It's not a category of fuels, but a measurement. As far as what's going to be best for the engine down the road, then yes there's a difference. Each manufacturer inserts their own amount of detergents into their fuels, most less than others. Detergents are responsible for controlling the amount deposits in your engine caused by burning fuels. The fewer deposits means you are less likely to experience performance problems from clogged fuel injectors and gunk in the upper fuel system. A few years back, BWM, Toyota, Honda and GM got together to create a standard in the level of detergents. These are known as Top Tier fuels. To be included on the list, all grades of gas much contain the level of detergents. The only manufacturers on the list are:

QuikTripChevronConocoPhillips76ShellEntec StationsMFA Oil CompanyKwik Trip/Kwik StarThe Somerset Refinery, Inc.Chevron-CanadaAloha PetroleumTri-Par Oil CompanyShell-CanadaTexacoPetro-Canada

You can read about the standard here.[URL]http://www.toptiergas.com/deposit_control.html[\URL]

[Ever Victorious]

It does make a difference which brand of gas you use. Different refineries have different quality controls. I live in Canada and back when it was worth the half hour drive I would sometimes fill up across the border. I found that my car would not run well with Arco gas. Chevron here in Canada seemed to give me the best results.

"Back in the day", Arco was an independent company with very poor quality control.

Arco is now controlled by BP, and is just as good as any other gas out there.

FWIW, Texaco has been the only problematic gas I have ever run into. Though I've heard stories about Shell slowly eating your seals.

Higher octane gas is useful only in engines that need the increase... such as turbos or extremely high compression engines.

[XterraVersa]

You still have Texaco stations, they are just Chevrons now...lol. They merged a while back, that why they seem to be disappearing all over.

Wrong there. In Colorado, the Texaco stations were changed to Shell. It was part of the government deal to not monopolize the Colorado Market.

Pretty much all gas in South East Colorado is BP. Denver is either Shell or Conoco. Some Sinclair. Its funny watching other branded trucks pull into the terminal in Denver or Colorado Springs to pick up a load of the competitions gas to sell at their stations.

Gas=gas=gas. The brand is mostly the additives added at tthe station by the driver.

Also in Colorado only 85 & 91 octane are produced. 87 is a blend of the two.

[BillStrong]

The secret is to find the company with the newest tanks. and the most traffic. Fresh fuel in clean tanks is the best. Just use 87. anything higher is a waste and you will actually get more power from the 87 than the 9X.

[BenzTech Gone Versa]

The older cars needed higher octane so the engine would not ping.i tried all octanes on the v...all same isht.just dont get gas from a station with the tanker filling up ,all the nasty sh@ton the bottom of the gas stations tank will get into your tank,wait atleast an hour if so.

[MinisterofDOOM]

Dear Officer:

Pardon the pun.......you say you use Shell gas.........That, IMHO, and in the opinion of the so called "experts" is a real "SHELL" game. As long as you use the correct octane (87 I believe) the brand makes NO difference whatsoever...........EXCEPT for the Shell company..........they are the one's perpetrating the deception and they are the ones profiting. I say they should be "arrested" :-) !!!

This is absolutely not true.

Firstly, you'll find that different branded stations buy different qualities of fuel. The upper-echelon stations like Chevron and Shell buy the cleanest, most expensive fuel. Cheaper stations like Maverick buy whatever costs the least. There's more to measuring fuel quality than just octane. Better gas from a good station will for the most part be cleaner (less foreign particles such as sediment).Then there's the amount and quality of detergents used in the fuel. Higher-tier stations will offer the best of both. Lower-tier stations will not.There are also things like moisture content, age of fuel, etc.

All of these factors make a HUGE difference in the quality of fuel and how it affects your car.Don't buy cheap fuel. Even if you believe there's no difference, your car knows the truth. Be nice to your car. In the long run, your car will pay you back for the quality of fuel you treated it to.

[weems84]

I just put premium(v-power shell) for the first time in my V. Generally every car that I have put V-power in runs smoother and with a little more pep. same goes here for the V. Haven't even finished my first tank of v-power in my car yet so i'll see how it goes. May have a biased opinion though, family has owned a shell gas station for almost 15 years now. LOVE V-POWER!!!

Another point: The premium gas has seemed to help give smoother shifts throughout all gears. Can't tell if its in my head or if it made a difference. If anyone else has noticed this please post as well. Again i used shell v-power gasoline.

[cireecnop1]

I agree I like Shell too.

[proxim2020]

I find it funny how people believe they get more power out of 91+ fuels when the car doesn't need it. An octane number is a representation of the amount of compression that could be applied before the fuel will ignite itself. When that happens it's called knocking, pinging, or pre-detonation. 87 and 85 (where available) are the most volatile fuels. They require the least amount of compression before they spontaneously ignite. As the number beings to climb, the fuel gets harder and harder to ignite by compression and with a heat source. We see cars like sports cars and race cars running 100+ octane and we automatically associate the power with the fuel, but it's not true. These car run at a much higher compression and need the higher octane to prevent knocking so they can stay at peak HP. The power comes from the engine design, not the fuel. If more power is needed, it would be better to switch to a fuel that provides more power, like alcohol. Simply put, there's no more "energy" in 89 and there is in 91+.

[gottafly]

Like others say, you should stick with 87 Octane fuel that the owner's manual requires. Octane is no indicator of performance, it's simply a measure of how well the fuel resists compression ignition prematurely (knock), which is an important technical characteristic for spark ignition engines. Put simply, higher Octane fuels have a higher activation temperature, or stated another way, they burn less easily. This is important for high compression engines like those in hot motorcycles and go fast cars, where you don't want your fuel igniting while still on the compression stroke, but not for the fairly run of the mill engine we have in the Versa. I'd be curious to see what the manual says for Versa engine that is sold in Europe of Australia because of the different Octane rating measurement systems used there versus here in North America, ie: (R+M)/2 here vs just the RON used there.

Different fuels of the same Octane rating could give you somewhat different performance though. The Octane rating, however, does not provide any indication of the energy contained in the fuel. What is important to know is what is in the fuel.

Normally, the purest gasoline distilled at the refinery will mostly be a soup of longer chain hydrocarbon molecules with 7 to 11 carbon atoms. Fuel mixtures of Gas with Ethanol or Methanol may have the same Octane rating as a pure Gas fuel, but will have less energy due to the presence of the partially oxidized, short chain hydrocarbons that make up these oxygenates that are mixed in with the gas. Fewer long chain hydrocarbons in the mix means fewer carbon bonds, which means less energy released when all the bonds are broken during combustion. Addition of these oxygenates and other octane enhancing compounds like MTBE to the mixture can allow you to keep the Octane rating high (combusts at higher compression), while you add other (often beneficial)additives that keep the engine from gumming up, start easily in winter, produce less pollution, CO2 emissions, etc. The amount and type of these additives change from season to season and are different for each manufacturer, so your performance may change slightly depending on when and where you fill up. The overall result is: more additives = less energy content of the fuel.

If you simply want more power, then you have to find the fuel that has the most energy content, or increase the compression of your engine. You'll also get better mileage.

[versace2007]

how do I increase the compression of the car?

[MinisterofDOOM]

At the risk of oversimplifying:

There are basically two common ways to increase compression.

The first is to actually change the physical size of the combustion chamber, either with new heads or pistons (or both).

The second is to add some form of forced induction to the engine (supercharger, turbocharger). This effectively raises the compression by increasing the amount of air (and fuel, when done properly) in the combustion chamber. This doesn't actually alter the engine's compression ratio, but the effects are basically the same. You'll find that a normally aspirated (non-forced-induction) version of any given engine will usually have a lower compression ratio than a forced induction version of that same engine for exactly this reason.

[silent dave]

The power comes from the engine design, not the fuel. If more power is needed, it would be better to switch to a fuel that provides more power, like alcohol. Simply put, there's no more "energy" in 89 and there is in 91+.

wrongo buddy. there is About 30% less energy in ethanol than gasoline which is why many people get lower gas mileage on higher octane. many companies use ethanol to raise the octane of their fuels.

i stopped reading about halfway through so...

[DreamU]

I'd be curious to see what the manual says for Versa engine that is sold in Europe of Australia because of the different Octane rating measurement systems used there versus here in North America, ie: (R+M)/2 here vs just the RON used there.

Here in Panama my Tiida gas cover says to use only 95 octane. I am told you subtract 4 to get an equivalent US rating which makes it 91. I am surprised that I can't use the US 87 Octane equivalent. I was hoping to get away from paying higher octane rating when I sold my Acura CL-S.

[Ever Victorious]

That's odd... I used 87 octane on my V with no problems. What's different about the Tiida that would require higher octane?

Well, actually on another note, my Legacy says I am supposed to use 91 Octane, but I've used 87 octane on it (and the two Legacies I have owned before) with no trouble, so the manufacturer may just be overestimating.

Again, just use the lowest octane gas you can use without pinging.

[gottafly]

Here in Panama my Tiida gas cover says to use only 95 octane. I am told you subtract 4 to get an equivalent US rating which makes it 91. I am surprised that I can't use the US 87 Octane equivalent. I was hoping to get away from paying higher octane rating when I sold my Acura CL-S.

DreamU - do you have the 1.6L engine instead of the 1.8L engine which is standard with Versae here in North America? If so, that may explain the difference. The 1.8 engine only requires 87 Octane (91 RON), but if the 1.6L engine has higher compression, it may require a higher octane rating.

[DreamU]

DreamU - do you have the 1.6L engine instead of the 1.8L engine which is standard with Versae here in North America?

Yes, I have the 1.6L. I have the Tiida brochure which the Panama salesman gave me. Although the owner's manual does not have the compression ratio the sales brochure does! It lists the 1.6L as 9.8 and the 1.8L as 9.9. Assuming that compression ratio applies in the US for the 1.8L motors then I have no idea why they request 95 Octane here.

[cireecnop1]

Okay, I might not know what I'm talking about but,.....In an older car wouldn't you want to use a higher octane fuel?

I mean since the carbon deposits that would build up over time would cause the compression ratio in the cylinder to rise?

or no?

[DocPlez]

That's also true here in Nevada .. all Texaco became Shell stations.

Doc

[proxim2020]

Yes, carbon deposits in the engine can cause pre-ignition. It's a pretty common problem with cars with lots of mile. The deposits can hold so much heat that they ignite the fuel before it should and cause knocking. Higher octane fuel would solve this most times. I had this problem in my old Honda. Bad conditions can knock all the way up to 93.