What Octane Gasoline Should I Use In My Vehicle?

Have you ever been at the gas pump getting more gasoline for your vehicle and wondered which octane rating of gasoline was right for your car?  Well, this article is for you. You may have seen the different gasoline ratings of 87, 89, and 93 and wondered what the difference between the different ratings really meant.  

Octane or the octane ratings of gasoline is a visual representation of how much compression and heat the fuel can withstand before igniting.  This is important in higher compression engines because they compress the fuel and air mixture to higher compression levels than a regular engine.  

This article will explain what the different octane ratings on the gas pump mean and which gasoline you should use for your vehicle. Depending on what octane rating of gasoline you decide to go with can affect your car miles per gallon and the overall performance.

What Is Octane?

If you have a supercharged or a turbocharged engine you may know that your vehicle will more than likely take premium gas.  This is because with a turbocharged or supercharged engine that blower is forcing more air into the engine and more air into the cylinder walls of your engine.  

Because of the added pressures within the cylinder walls, you have to run higher octane gasoline to prevent the engine from pre-igniting the fuel in the cylinder.  If your car requires premium fuel you can usually get away with using a lower octane fuel but I wouldn’t do it consistently as it may lead to damaging your engine over time.  

If you have a supercharged or turbocharged engine I would always use the highest octane gasoline that you have available at the pump as there are many more things that can go wrong with a boosted engine especially when you start to get in the higher RPM ranges.  

While most if not all supercharged or turbocharged engines will require premium gas to be used on them some luxury cars that are naturally aspirated also require the use of premium gasoline.  

What You Should Know About Octane Ratings

You may have seen the different octane ratings of fuel at the fuel pump, the most common ones are going to be 87, 89, and 93.  These are all going to vary by what state you are currently in and which gas station you go to visit. Some gas stations will have 94 octane fuel while some gas stations will top out with 91 octane fuel, it all just depends on what gas station you end up going to.  

If you do not use the correct octane ratings for your vehicle this can lead to issues with your engine performance and can ultimately lead to having your engine explode.  

If your vehicle is designed to use a higher octane fuel and you put in low octane fuel this can lead your engine to pre-ignite the fuel before it should be ignited in the combustion cycle.  This can cause your engine cylinder to try to force the piston in the cylinder wall back down before it should which can cause your engine to grenade itself spilling pieces of your engine all over the road behind you.  

Other common signs that your fuel may not be up to par with what your engine should be running is that you may start to hear funny sounds from your engine when you accelerate. The most common sound that you will hear is called engine knock.

Engine knock sounds just like it is named as you will hear a knocking sound coming from your engine compartment when you put your foot on the accelerator.  If you do start to hear engine knock coming from your engine you may have a batch of bad fuel or you may be running a lower octane rating fuel than your engine is designed to be run on.  

One way you can get around your engine knocking without getting premium fuel in your gas tank is to use a fuel injector cleaner such as Lucas oil fuel additive.  Lucas oil fuel additive is designed to help clean your fuel injectors and fuel system but it also has the added benefit of neutralizing bad fuel in your fuel system and artificially increasing the octane rating of your fuel in your gas tank.  

If your engine is running poorly and you think you may have got a batch of bad gas you should try pouring some Lucas oil fuel additive in your fuel tank to see if that helps things out.  It’s a relatively cheap solution if that ends up fixing things.

Lucas Oil Fuel Treatment – 1 Gallon    

Selecting The Right Octane Gasoline For Your Vehicle

If you are wondering which octane gasoline rating is best for your vehicle you should check your fuel filler cap to see what type of gasoline they recommend you use for your vehicle. On my car when I open up my fuel filler cap it says on the inside that premium unleaded fuel is recommended to be used in my vehicle. You should go with whatever fuel your vehicle manufacturer recommends as that is what they used when they were tuning your vehicle during the testing phase of the vehicle.

If you use a higher octane fuel than what is recommended on your vehicle you are usually just going to be wasting your money.  If your vehicle’s engine was not designed to be able to take advantage of the higher octane fuel this means that it typically will not be able to effectively use the higher octane gasoline which may or may not end up causing issues with your engine.

If your engine is not able to effectively burn all of the gasoline in the engine that excess gasoline will be pushed out of the exhaust ports of your engine and be sent down to your catalytic converter.   This unburnt fuel can start to cause issues with carbon buildup on the exhaust valves of your engine and can start to clog up your catalytic converter over time.

You should generally always use whatever octane your vehicle manufacturer recommends as long as it is available. I have heard of some people that use premium gasoline once in a blue moon to help clean your fuel system instead of using a fuel additive and doing this once in a while should not hurt your engine.  

You may end up finding that this actually helps increase your MPG of your vehicle which if it does then that’s good. However, if your engine was designed to be run on regular octane fuel or 87 octane fuel you should probably use that fuel most of the time you go to fill up your fuel tank.  To learn more about what you can do to increase your cars MPG check out my other article.

If your vehicle manufacturer recommends that you use premium gasoline and none is available around your area at the time you should be able to get away with using a lower octane level gasoline for a short period of time but you would want to try to go with the next highest octane rating like 89 or 91.  

You also wouldn’t want to fully fill your gas tank with the lower octane fuel as it would dilute what remaining high octane fuel you have left in the tank.  You would then want to stop again before fully using the lower octane fuel and refill your tank with premium fuel to make sure that you don’t cause issues with your engine, especially if you have a supercharged or turbocharged engine.

If you do have to use lower octane fuel on your turbocharged or supercharged engine you would want to make sure that you are not fully revving out your engine while you have the lower octane fuel in your gas tank.  As long as you keep your engine RPMs low you should not have an issue with your engine.

Finding Cheap High Octane Gasoline

If you wanted to be able to find the cheapest high octane gasoline in your area I would recommend using the GasBuddy app on your phone.  The GasBuddy app once downloaded will ask you to put in your information about where you are currently located at.

From there it will use the data collected from other users using the app to tell you which gas stations around you currently have the cheapest high octane or premium fuel.  You can then take your vehicle to that gas station and know that you are getting the best deal for fuel in your area.

Gasbuddy also works for regular 87 octane gasoline as well and it gives you the option of picking if you want to search the gas stations based on regular octane fuel versus premium octane fuel.  

What Octane Rating Of Gasoline Is Right For My Car?- In Conclusion

Now you should know more about the octane ratings of gasoline than you ever wanted to know.  The general rule of thumb is to use whatever octane rating fuel that your vehicle manufacturer recommends you to use in your vehicle.  

You can usually get away with running a higher or lower octane fuel in your vehicle for a short period of time but you wouldn’t want to keep doing that consistently.  

If you can’t afford to put premium gasoline in your vehicle then you should make sure that whatever vehicle that you end up going with only needs to use regular 87 octane fuel and is not designed to be used with premium gasoline.

Hopefully, this article answered your questions of what is octane and what gasoline should I use?