Re: Thanks, all

["Linus D. Toy" <linust@mindspring.com>]

At 12:04 AM 12/11/96 GMT, Phil Payne wrote:
>Cheerfully, as far as I can.  Catalysators are a fairly new phenomenon
>here in Europe.  Leaded ("4 star") petrol is still freely available at
>every filling station.  My own "MB" quattro - model year 1988 - is
>designed to use leaded petrol.  I think the legal requirement to run
>on unleaded fuel came in during 1990 in Europe - that is what the 20V
>was developed for.

OK.  My reading is that a catalyst requires unleaded fuel (or risk
destroying the cat) while a later (mid-70s on) non-catalyst car can use
either unleaded or leaded.  Some of the older cars had non-hardened valve
seats that required leaded fuel to lubricate/cushion the valve;  most of
these cars see very little use today (typically collector cars getting
expensive fuel additives) or are off to the scrap yard by now.  I guess my
question is, is there a requirement for early ur-q cars to run leaded fuel
or will unleaded fuel (with sufficient octane rating to prevent
pre-ignition) work

--linus
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