87 Octane plus Octane booster?

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SkyKid - 31 Jul 2007 20:01 GMT

I was listening to a car radio talk show this past weekend when a caller
provided a solution for car's that state super unleaded is the
preferred fuel. His strategy was to use regular unleaded (87 Octane) and
then use an Octane booster. This, the caller stated, will allow you to
get some of the operational benefits of a higher Octane fuel for the car
but not have to pay the very high prices of a super unleaded (93 or
higher Octane) fuel. To my surprise the hosts of the car show agreed
that this could be a strategy.

I was surprised in that my understanding of high Octane fuel was not
only the higher Octane rating but also a more cleaner, more refined
fuel. By simply using regular unleaded (87 Octane) and then just adding
a Octane booster (usually just a distillate), you would get a fuel
mixture that was on par with a super unleaded (93 Octane or higher) fuel.

Any thoughts? My 07 Patherfinder recommends 93 Octane fuel. So far, that
is what I have used but it is getting very expensive. I don't know if
using a Octane booster strategy would be good for the vehicle.

Regards,
SK

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E Meyer - 31 Jul 2007 20:44 GMT

On 7/31/07 2:01 PM, in article 46af870a$0$30622$4c368faf@roadrunner.com,

> I was listening to a car radio talk show this past weekend when a caller
> provided a solution for car's that state super unleaded is the
[quoted text clipped - 17 lines]
> Regards,
> SK

I think it would be difficult to know if you actually achieve 93 with the
octane booster.

Does it actually pay? How much more is a tank of premium vs. a tank of
regular & how much does the booster cost?

Around here (Dallas), the difference is about 30 cents per gallon, so with
the 20 gallon tank on my '02 Pathfinder, we're only talking about a
difference of $6.00 if the tank was completely dry (which it never is).

By the way -- there's a guy who calls himself "common_sense" who will
shortly start screaming at you for this post. He apparently believes that a
drop of anything other than premium in a Nissan will cause the world to
abruptly end.

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Ed White - 01 Aug 2007 14:51 GMT

> On 7/31/07 2:01 PM, in article 46af870a$0$30622$4c368...@roadrunner.com,
>
[quoted text clipped - 25 lines]
> Does it actually pay? How much more is a tank of premium vs. a tank of
> regular & how much does the booster cost?

I have a 2006 Frontier with the 4.0L V-6. My Owner's Guide allows for
the use of regular grade gasoline, but also says for maximum power and
fuel economy premium should be used. I've had other vehicles in the
past that made the same sort of claim, but had never been able to
detect any imporvement when using premium. However, with gas over
$3.00 a gallon, and premium only around $0.20 per gallon more, I
thought I would take a chance on running premium. After I made the
switch, I saw an immeadiate and consistent 3% to 5% imporvement in
fuel economy (I keep detailed records). I ran premium for a couple of
months (over 5K miles) and the improvement was consistent. With gas
hovering near $3, this amount of improvement was very close to
justifying (on economic grounds) the use of premium fuel. To verify my
resutls, I switched back to regular. Guess what, the fuel mileage did
not return to the "pre-premium" average. In fact, it was just as good
as with the premium. I don't buy one particularl brand of fuel, but I
do buy from the same group of stations (Shell, Citgo, Raceway, Hess,
Exxon) and I drive almost exactly the same route every week, I am
baffled. I am going to run regular gasoline for another couple of
weeks and then switch back to premium to see if there is any change.

As for the use of Octane Booster, I can't imagine they are good enough
to make up the gap in octane between regular and premium. See
http://www.europeancarweb.com/tech/0503ec_octane_boosters_tested/index.html
. Based on this article, I'd say the Octane Boostes were mostly a scam
- if not potentially damaging to your car. I read the FAQs at a couple
of web sites run by the makers of these products. One flatly stated
that you needed to run the grade of gas recommended by the vehicle
manufacturer. STP's Octane Booster appears to not really boost octane
at all, rather they just claim it will clean deposits that might make
the engine require higher octane fuel. And, as usual, nobody out
claims the good folks at Amsoil. They boldly claim that their product
can raise the octane rating of 88 octance gas to 93 octane gas.

http://www.goldeagle.com/104plus/faqs_104plus_detail.asp?product=104%2B&ID=63
http://www.stp.com/faqs_fuel.html#
http://www.amsoil.com/lit/g1431.pdf

Ed

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