Premium fuel?

I definitely do believe in winter gas. I've noticed a difference in the last couple tanks in my Ford. Seems less peppy and getting slightly worse fuel mileage.

 

Welcome,
We have been running ours it's whole life of 6k miles (3/7/19 purchase) besides road trips we get 14.1-14.5 mpg all city. Even our interstate is a 15 minute drive at most.
I didn't get to vacation in it this year so I cannot speak on that. Our fall trip was canceled due to family health issues.
The only change we have is tires (OE size) just a bit more aggressive.
As for fuel blend; I only know about diesel. They blend it with something to lower the freezing point of diesel. On that note; a few years ago we decided to test the frozen diesel talk. I got a 32oz plastic cup & filled it 80% with diesel. Put a lid on & put in a snow pile when it was -10°. Not a cloud or sludge.
Not sure what this all means; these are just my observations from working over 20 years.

 

Cool. Run 93 then.

 

Nah - I may go up to 98 - why stop at 93? Anything else to add? Nice chat.

 

Yes. But if your engine is not tuned for a higher octane fuel you will see no real performance benefits using it.

Let's say you get an extra 1mpg, you may or may not... But let's say you do... But the higher octane costs you an extra 50¢ a gallon, so if you put 18 gallons in it it would cost an extra 9 bucks to go an extra 18 miles... Worth it? Not to me...

I get 16.5 mpg average, I'm lifted on 285s, so 18 extra miles would normally be less than 1.25 gallons, my gas currently costs $2.42 a gallon... I could get the same extra 18 miles with $3 dollars more in regular gas. That's a third of the price for the same added mileage.

 

I think no ethanol fuel makes more of a difference than premium.

 

In all of my lawn & landscaping equipment plus the T4R, nothing gets any ethanol! I am not sure why they even allow that to be sold!
That & bio diesel "blend" when there is no standard for that fuel!
Just silly.

 

I don't think ethanol VS non-ethanol makes a difference in newer vehicles. There's plenty of gas stations in northern Wisconsin that sell non-ethanol, and I've never experienced a difference in performance or fuel economy.

Non-ethanol does seem to be better for small engines and anything that sits a lot. The ethanol seems to create deposits and gum things up.

 

Warm air is less dense, less air resistance
Cold air is more dense, more oxygen so better engine output per unit of fuel

 

Single unit samples are meaningless; if you want to know with certainty, you need to log the miles and fuel and calculate it yourself (don't rely on your dashboard) and run many tanks (20?) before you make any judgements, but even then the results won't necessarily be conclusive. If you want to do this, Fuelly is a good phone app that makes calculating fuel consumption easy.

But back to the simple math, if your fuel is $2.20/g (no idea what it costs in PNW, but that's current for local fuel) and 93 is $2.40/g (for simple math, 10% more), then you need 10% *better* fuel economy to justify the switch on $$ alone. (You may have other reasons for the switch.)

*Of course, if you want to calculate an increase in fuel economy, you have to use gpm, not mpg, or you'll get the math wrong, even though it's close. So basically you'll need to go from around 18 to 20 mpg, depending on fuel costs.

TL;DR, it's a waste of time and money, but if it makes you feel better, take your vitamins as well

 

Maybe the engine makes a few extra hp with colder air, but it's not enough to compensate for the other factors that cause fuel economy to plummet in the cold.

 

I'm no engineer and all of my motoring background is a different sort, but drag effects on fuel economy kick in around 50 mpg and later if I remember correctly, so for many people's local driving it makes little difference.

edit: something something, here's a chart

 

The cold also increases rolling resistance.

But, you're probably correct in that the biggest loss in fuel economy will be seen at higher speeds.

 

Did you see my awesome chart I added? I spent about 2 minutes googling that.

 

It's pretty well known that drag increases exponentially at higher speeds.

I definitely notice that, regardless of weather, the fuel economy really tanks above 70-75 MPH.

What's funny to me is that the green "ECO" light will stay on while cruising up to about 85 MPH. It seems to shut down somewhere between 85-90.

 

Yeah... No.

I was super happy with the 20 mpg average when stock. Then I put on the roof rack and E-rated tires and it dropped to 18 mpg. Oh well, I commute 14 miles to work each way, so not a huge deal. I'll go back to P-rated when I wear these tires out.

Gas around here is stupid expensive. $2.91 for 87 octane with ethanol. The premium I put in was $3.41 a gallon. That's $10 more to fill my tank with premium.

My brother has a 90's Dodge 3/4-ton with the V10 that he's had for nearly 20 years. I think he just barely broke 100k miles in it. He's never ran anything but ethanol-free premium in it and it has been trouble-free all those years. Quite a feat for a Dodge.

I think my Toyota will be just fine with the cheap stuff from now on.

 

I did a test years ago with my 4.0 Tacoma and consistently notice that the higher the octane the better the mpg's (small but definitely there). However as others have stated that the extra price for 89 or 91 octane negates the better mileage by far. So the best bag for your buck is 87 octane. The same also holds true for ethanol because in NY state I can only get ethanol free in 91 octane but I did find an average increase of 1 mpg with ethanol free. So again it negates the added price...but to say ethanol has zero effect on mpg is wrong IMHO. The greatest jump in mpg's hands down came from the ethanol free gas.

 

What's weird to me is that I notice no difference from e10 to e15. Not all gas stations have e15, so I only run it occasionally.

 

Around Chicago no choice but ethanol mix, damn lobbiest. I can drive further out but would need 2 gallons just to drive to and from. Plus it's a private airport and not easy to get in and out.

 

I run effing race gas 158 octane. Why not? I am broke though

 

Ethanol has fewer BTUs per given volume than gasoline (it takes 1.5 gallons of ethanol to equal 1 gallon of gasoline [in the US]).
That may or may not mean what you think it should - tuners prefer ethanol.
See the following for differing opinions
http://www.hho4free.com/gasoline_vs_ethanol.html
https://afdc.energy.gov/fuels/fuel_comparison_chart.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_gallon_equivalent
http://www.ethanolproducer.com/articles/13684/blog-ethanol-advantages-outweigh-btu#

Personally, I prefer summer gas (non-oxegenated/non-MTBE) and non-ethanol "enahanced" fuel in all of my internal combustion engines. My lawn mower, generator, and my snow blower carburetors have no issues sitting over the off-season as opposed to the least expensive fuel I used to use years ago that required frequent cleaning of the needle valves because of clogs.

 

Tuners probably prefer ethanol cuz most all gas stations have gas with that shit in it so they need to make their tune compatible with that fuel. Ethanol sucks!

 

I think you're misunderstanding what @xyzzy meant.

Tuners can make more power on ethanol than regular gas.

A friend of mine has an LS swapped GMC Sonoma and recently gained significant power by switching to E85 and getting the truck tuned.

If I'm not mistaken, fuel economy goes into the crapper on E85.

 

Ahh, now I understand...ethanol still sucks!

 

Agreed! At least for a daily driven vehicle.

I'll gladly have a few less horsepower to extend my range. This is yet another reason why I am glad I went back to a 4runner. It gets better mileage than my Taco did, and has a larger tank. This will come in handy in a few months when I'm trying to drive 1400 miles without making unnecessary stops.

 

Yes, E85* with a remap of the ECU can make higher performance gains compared to gasoline - with forced induction (turbo/supercharger) setups.
Naturally aspirated engines do not tune much (close to zero) from a performance standpoint with ECU remapping regardless of the fuel used.

A couple of years ago, I went on a long road trip (8-10 tanks of gas) with a friend who drove a flex-fuel truck and over the course of that trip, E85 was quite a bit cheaper than unleaded gas, but when comparing between them, the difference in MPG put them neck and neck between cost and miles driven. It was cheaper to fill up with E85 but MPGs were significantly lower.

I still prefer to avoid gas with any ethanol or MTBE added. MTBE contains methanol and Toyota recommends against using any gas containing methanol (pg 475 2019 owners manual).
BTW, Toyota *strongly* recommends Top-Tier gas, https://www.toptiergas.com (pg 475 2019 owners manual).

*E85 (85% ethanol) is not a fuel you should use in your 4Runner, the 2019 owners manual tells you not to use any fuel that *could* contain more than 15% ethanol (pg 475).

 

This might be true for an un-modified engine. That's not the case I'm talking about, though.

My buddy's ls2 is making close to 600 n/a horsepower with aftermarket cam, AI heads, long tube headers, FAST intake manifold, etc.

Nobody here suggested using E85 in a 4runner.

 

You are correct sir, I believe we are in agreement here.
The disclaimer about E85 was for those people who don't fully read and might take something they read on the interwebz as relevant.
My original comment was aimed at only flashing the ECU and making no other changes.

 

Gotcha. Yes, agreed on all points.