Quote:
Originally Posted by schteve_d
I kind of do the same thing, I guess. Whenever I drove home to BC and am going through the mountains I will put a couple of tanks of the good stuff through it when I'm hitting the passes and working the engine. The rest of the time I just put in regular.
Don't know if it does any good or not, but I always feel like it'll clean things up a little while the engine is really working up those big hills.
I go home twice a year - once in the summer and once at Christmas - and usually drive so I can take the dogs. That ends up about the same, twice a year but four tanks or so.
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When you're going through the mountains, i.e. driving at a higher altitude, there is even less reason for you to use premium.
The idea with premium is that it is more resistant to detonation (ie premature ignition, or knocking), and hence allows for cars to use a higher compression ration, or artificial aspiration such (turbo/super chargers). When you're at a higher altitude and you've got even lower ambient pressure, the chance of knocking is even lower, so you adding the premium isn't doing a darn thing. In fact at high enough altitudes you can actually wind up with imcomplete combustion due to the higher octane, meaning lower fuel efficiency, and more carbon deposited in your engine.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee
I'm pretty sure premium fuel burns easier and therefore requires less work from your engine but I could be wrong and am definitely no mechanic. I've heard it cleans your engine too, but I'd also be interested into the exact reasoning as to why this is good for your car if somebody knows it.
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That's a pretty simplified way of saying the exact opposite of what the reality is. As I said, a higher octane rating indicates resistance to auto ignition, so in reality it's actually regular that "burns easier".
As for the part about requiring less work from your engine, there really isn't a single part of that that makes any sense.