read_connect(); //$GLOBALS[ezoic_db]->read->query("use 17things"); ?>

What is the difference and benefits of premium gasoline vs regular?

I see three different gas pumps at each fill-up station. Usually they are named Unleaded, Unleaded plus, and Premium or something similar. What do these names means, and what the the benefits and cons of getting premium vs the other two? Is it supposed to be safer for your car or something?

Related Items

4 Responses to “What is the difference and benefits of premium gasoline vs regular?”

  1. -Matt- said :

    The difference is namely the octane rating of the fuel. Premium fuel is higher octane and less combustible. There is no benefit to using premium fuel unless you have a car with a high performance engine that recommends it, especially if you have a system with forced air induction.

    It may seem odd that more powerful engines use fuel that doesn’t ignite very easily, but there is a reason. Uncontrolled ignition is undesirable. By using a fuel with a higher octane rating, an engine can run at a higher compression ratio with no issues.

    Running a lower octane fuel than recommend can reduce the engine’s power output and efficiency, but there is no benefit to using a fuel with higher octane than recommended.

  2. Hal Kudhugh said :

    premium gas has higher octane, which is more kick and power..like the difference between beer and whiskey…there’s more alcohol in whiskey, so you drink less to get drunk.

    modern cars don’t require premium grade gas; the engines and computer config allow for regular unleaded to burn just as efficiently as premium would in older cars.

    motorcycles benefit the most from premium…old muscle cars need the higher octane of premium too.

  3. tony said :

    definitely ,your car will run better with premiun gasoline

  4. Sean said :

    -Matt- is the most correct.

    The names are just generic names given instead of calling them by the octane rating (85, 87, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 98, 100, etc.), because unless you’re an auto enthusiast who happens to understand basic chemistry, you don’t know what an octane rating is. Plus, it’s a marketing technique. People see “Premium” and instantly think “better”, which means they will spend more money on the fuel, even if they don’t need it. Basically, to understand the difference, you have to understand, in a fair amount of detail, how a car engine works.

    Here’s a basic run-down. The engine has 4 strokes, intake, compression, combustion and exhaust. These are all pretty self-explanatory. Intake stroke is when the air and fuel are sucked into the cylinder. Compression is when the piston is moving up and it is squeezing all the air and fuel into a smaller space, creating pressure in the cylinder. Combustion is when the air/fuel mixture is ignited by the spark plug (or other means, covered later), which creates rapidly expanding gases that force the piston back down. This is also known as the power stroke, as it’s the stroke you feel when you push the gas pedal down to accelerate the car. The last is the exhaust stroke, which is simply the piston moving back up to push the burned gases out of the exhaust.
    To make the most power and get the best fuel economy, there’s a couple specific statistics that must be covered. First, is air/fuel ratio. The ideal AFR (Air/Fuel Ratio) for standard gasoline is approximately 14.7:1, or 14.7lbs of air for every 1lb of fuel. If the ratio is less than 14.7:1, say 12:1, that is running “rich”, or more fuel is injected than is necessary. If it’s above that, say 16:1, it’s running “lean”, or there’s more air than fuel, so all the fuel burns too quick. Too lean can cause damage to the engine, and an excessively rich setting will also cause damage, however just about every engine is tuned to be rich, because a vehicles engine never operates under ideal conditions, scientifically speaking. The second thing to account for is WHEN the spark plug ignites the fuel. If it ignites it right when the piston gets to the top of the compression stroke, it’s incredibly late, and the energy in the fuel will mostly be wasted because the piston is already traveling down, so the gases are being allowed to expand more leisurely. If the spark ignites the fuel too soon, as in more than 30-40 degrees of crankshaft rotation before the piston hits the highest point (called TDC or Top Dead Center), then you get a loss in power. This means the fuel ignites and the gases are expanding rapidly while the piston is still moving up the cylinder, which causes a lot of stress on the engine.
    Now, to throw a monkey wrench in that, we add heat from compression. The hotter the air/fuel mixture is, the more likely it is to ignite on its own, without the spark plug firing. This heat can be from running too lean, higher compression ratios, or forced induction (turbocharging or supercharging). Compressing a fluid causes it to heat up because the molecules are running into each other more often, so that introduces more heat.

    Now, what all this has to do with fuel is this.
    When you have higher combustion temperatures (higher compression ratios or turbo- or supercharging), you need a fuel that is harder to ignite, so that it doesn’t start burning on its own, uncontrollably. This is the octane rating. The higher the number on a fuel, the more resistent it is to igniting. They all contain basically the same amount of energy, so in that way, they don’t have any advantage. However, if you put premium fuel in your honda civic, you can see fuel consumption go down, and experience a loss in power, because the lower compression and conservative tuning is made for lower octane fuel, so it has a harder time igniting the premium. Likewise, putting regular fuel in a performance vehicle or a turbocharged vehicle will cause a severe retarding of the timing and a drastic loss of power (on a turbocharged Subaru WRX, for example, I’ve seen them lose as much as 60-70hp!)

    So, in a nutshell, it’s safer to use premium in a vehicle that needs it, and it’s a waste in vehicles that don’t.




Message:

[newtagclound int=0]

Subscribe

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Archives