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Re: Is 89 octane really OK? Get real list.
Hairy green toads from Mars made R. Shayne Pavlic' say:
> There are a few things that I question in every owners manual. Octane
> rating of the fuel you use is not one of them.
>
> I have read list owners give all the reason to and not to use it. Well, it
> has been a proven fact that a car will last longer and run better overtime
> with the highest octane available. Olders cars also need more octane.
> Also, most gas companies add more cleaning agents to higher octane fuel,
> thus a cleaner fuel system over time.
I can maybe buy that last one, but I do use Techron once/year or so.
My '89 100Q with 160K+ on it has been running on regular since
day 1, and still runs fine (at least, now that it has the new
fuel pump it does :-) I do know that I can get more power out
of it with premium, but rarely need that.
My wife's 20V on the other hand will knock like mad without 92
octane fuel.
> If I were an Audi engineer I would be insulted to think that according to
> some posts, conversions may have been screwed up from the "German" octane
> translations to to the "American" conversions. Come on people, this is a
> Scientific/Math formula. Octane conversions don't get screwed up.
> Especially not by a German engineer. These guys are not only scientist, but
> most of the them are fluent in several languages, English being one of them.
> Becides, I bet that the books are written by Americans.
The only reason I theorize this is that the two places in my car
that specify octane requirements contradict each other. The flap
says 87 usable, 91 preferable. The manual says never less than 91.
That difference of 4 is the same as the difference between the
european and american octane scales.
> There also was a post about weening a car off of the high octane, come on it
> is not a dog. You don't ween a car off of octane.
I did that so if it did decide to knock I wouldn't have a full tank of
useless gas. I brought the octane down slowly to see how performance
would change if at all.
> I guarantee one thing, you may not notice poor results on the first several
> tanks of low octane fuel, but if you have the same car both taken care of
> except one was run on low octane fuel and the other not,at 100k miles, the
> one that ran the premium juice will run much better.
We'll see.
> Unless an alternative solution has been proven better (like flatbedding a Q
> versus towing) then listed in the owners manual, DO WHAT IT SAYS. Afterall,
> the stuff is printed in there to be read and followed.
You've never read my manual. The new ones are more and more content-free.
Anything, including spark plugs, oil changes, etc. are warned to be
"left to your authorized Audi dealer." HAH!
--
Andrew L. Duane (JOT-7) duane@zk3.dec.com
Digital Equipment Corporation (603)-884-1294
110 Spit Brook Road
M/S ZKO3-3/U14
Nashua, NH 03062-2698
Only my cat shares my opinions, and she's too psychotic to express it