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Regular vs Premium gas, Genesis 15-16 yr

14K views 11 replies 6 participants last post by  colinr4329 
#1 ·
Is There any difference with horsepower or torque when putting premium in 3.8 V6? I like feeling classy when putting premium but is it beneficial in car? Had a Bmw x5 2009, horrible mpg, but horsepower was amazing.
 
#4 ·
Top tier is top tier. The only thing different between grades of fuel from any top tier provider is octane, which is the measurement of how much pressure a fuel can withstand before pre-detonating. In an engine that doesn't directly adjust to a higher pressure for a higher octane gas, premium fuel provides ZERO additional benefit. Use what the manual recommends: regular unleaded. If you want to pay for premium, use regular and send me the extra money ;-)
 
#6 ·
Test results? Like the ones that the engineers at Hyundai did when they created the engine, and then wrote in the manual "regular unleaded gasoline"? Seriously. Every car that I've ever owned that would adjust to higher octane gasoline would say something along the lines of "use premium gasoline for maximum performance" in the user's manual. Since it's not in the Genesis manual, I feel pretty confident in saying that higher octane fuel will do nothing other that make your wallet a little lighter.
 
#7 ·
The responses endorsing the use of '87 octane are right on target. Even if could actually measure the imperceptible difference (NOT) that would come of using 'premium' gas - do the math. On a cost per mile basis you'll never make up mileage for the huge price increase to put premium in.
With all due respect for those that they are getting better cleaners in the premium grades, you're being duped. Each brand uses the same cleaners in their entire line of fuels.
 
#9 ·
Thank you for the respectful challenge. I realize its poorly worded. By that I meant that if you take the Chevron brand, for example - they are well known for their techron additive; that's in all of Chevron's fuels (I did not mean that all manufacturers all use the same cleaner). Furthermore, I should have clarified that I was referring to the 'name brand' (now called tier one) brands (there are quite a few of them). Sorry for that omission.

Years back when I was hearing the classic service department statement - "oh, you need our $125 fuel injection cleaning service" I was chuckling to see that they were simply buying the $25 pressurized can and simply squirting it through the shrader valve port on the fuel rail. At that time I did some research and found (at that time) that all the 'name brand' fuels had their own formulations of some sort of cleaner. Although back then I could not find explicit affirmative statements to what I purport, I found that they all either inferred or stated in one way or other that they put their cleaners in all their grades of auto fuels.

So... to your challenge - yes it was perhaps more sweeping that I should have inferred and it is somewhat dated, however at the time I also canvassed alot of folks that were gear heads like me and none of us did anymore than buy the least cost 'name brand' fuel in the area. None of us ever experienced any issues. To this day I still have not. Unfortunately I don't have that information available since it was some time back and I didn't take copious notes - so I cannot rise to your challenge today. At my usta place of work I'd be buying cookies for you tomorrow at lunch (we had a challenge system - if someone had a claim at lunch and anyone challenged it as a BS claim, the challengee had 24 hours to provide evidence - if they didn't, the gang the next day ruled and the challenger and participants would receive cookies from the challengee).

Since then there has been a good bit more standardization. The following article adds some insight on the quantity of tier one fuel companies. https://www.consumerreports.org/car-maintenance/study-shows-top-tier-gasoline-worth-extra-price/ Notice that artical does not distinguish grade of fuel, only manfuacturer. I just did a quick check at Chevron - same - no distinction I could find that was grade related (and Texaco's website says every gallon of their fuels has it). I also checked BP - their website states "All grades of BP gasoline with Invigorate® are backed by our BP Fuels Guarantee". At another section of their website "It makes the concentration of detergent in all grades of the company's gas higher than the EPA minimum requirement." I'll let y'all check other manufacturers but I'm confident that you'll find today as I did years back.

One last item for thought (slightly related topic) - nowadays since our legislature made the corn farmers rich (and drove up the price of other dependent commodities), the blends with alcohol in them are typically seasonal and do not hold up long before starting to spoil (for lack of a better term). They start to decompose around 90 days per my buds research. Furthermore, the non-automotive small engine manufacturers are denying any warranty coverage on lawn maintenance engines due to 'bad fuel'. This typically occurs when the crappy polymers in the fuel systems of the made in China junk engines decompose and turn to gelly. It has nothing to do with bad fuel, it has everything to do with how many rubber based products dont' hold up to alcohols. Fuel lines essentially can disappear (become super thin then leak) and carb gaskets literally turn to goo. You don't have that problem in auto engines because the manufacturers revised product to handle the newer alcohol based fuels. I actually called one of the big name manufacturers on it a couple of years back and quizzed the warranty rep - it was a young kid who had no technical background at all. It drove me nuts, dogmatic claim so they didn't have to fix their problems. Bottom line, I only buy REC fuel for my boats (due to long term fuel breakdown) and lawn tools (due to the fact that the REC fuel blends do not attack the polymers like the alcohol based fuel).
 
#10 ·
#11 ·
Thanks for your complete (and interesting) response to my challenge. Snickerdoodles will be just fine...

I'm quite familiar with Top Tier fuel standards as well as with dealership practices at liberating dollars from owners via fuel "flushes" and intake valve "cleaning" (although the last has at lease some rationale for GDI engines). You are on solid ground with the fact of cleaning additives in modern fuels, especially those adhering to TT standards. Where you strayed is in extending that fact to a claim that manufacturers add the same specific formulation and amount of cleaning compound to each and every grade they market. That remains an open question without clear evidence either way from any manufacturer that I've come across.

P.S. Thanks as well for the comments on alcohols. In addition to the negative effects of distorting grain markets worldwide, I had heard of some of the problems with small engines, but had no idea things were so serious.
 
#12 ·
I owned two vehicles having around the same kilometres (150,000). One vehicle was mechanical injection and the other electronic.
I carried out a full service including replacement of fuel filters and tank filters. Injectors where removed, inspected and tested for flow rate and spray pattern and then cleaned using the ultrasonic cleaner.
The before and after results where astounding. Starting, economy and performance greatly improved.
At 320,000km the tests where repeated and a small difference in spray pattern was noted on the mechanical injectors. It needs to be noted that none of the injectors wherever uniform from day one.
My conclusion is that the health of the injectors were maintained by using in (American terms top tier gas). Australian standard gas has extremely high sulphur content were as 95 and 98 RON has less than half the sulphur content. One may argue about the performance/economy claims for top tier fuel (perhaps in a new thread) but based on my real world experience I would only use top tier fuel for its lower sulphur content and proven cleaning at least in my experience.
. As a point of interest Hyundai recommend 91 RON or higher for the 2 litre multipoint Elantra.
 
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