Scott en Aztl‡n
In the same post you also "Now this is the ultimate stupidity. These people would rather shatter their pistons with detonation-pre-ignition than take the bus to work."
The "research" you have done driving your Cobra does not prove a damned thing except that *your*Cobra* knocks on regular. It hardly proves that everyone else will suffer certain engine destruction by using 87 octane gas.
In fact, there appears to be a mountain of information from people that build cars and formulate fuel saying that you're off-base.
Just this thread would provide a full page of links to credible sources that say premium is not necessary in the vast majority of cars. Among those sources are the people that build the cars.
Back to:
In the vast majority of cars the ECM, in fact, can retard the timing enough and enrich mixture to compensate for lower octane, and can do so with fair margins. When it can't the emission system would be impacted and the check engine light would come on for starters.
I am more loyal to the quality of additives than the octane. I recently put my '95 Explorer to sleep. Over 200,000 miles. In those miles I was able to see that low quality gas, not octane, was the biggest cause of sluggish performance. And yes... gas is gas... you always hear that. But there are definite difference in additives.
I am a fan of Techron and have fed my cars a pretty steady diet of Chevron gas - My wife was usually the offender when cheap gas went into the tank (usually in her car). :) I have got her to agree to stick with the "Top Tier" brands now for the new car. Chevron was the first to start touting that "Top Tier" stuff, but there are several brands that meet the standard. Shell, Unocal (76), Conoco and a couple of others.
