Regular Gas instead of Premium?
11-19-2018, 07:13 PM
#1
Regular Gas instead of Premium?
Hey all,
Wanted to hear some thoughts on this topic! I have always put premium gas in my turbo-charged VWs for many years without questioning it at all. However, I had a discussion with a friend recently that makes me wonder what the truth is for running regular gas in engines that were designed to run premium. I searched a little bit and found AAA had provided some information on this topic. In one of the earlier articles, they mentioned that:
"Modern engines prevent the damage from happening before it starts,” said Patrick Kelly, a fuels analyst with the American Petroleum Institute. “It wouldn’t impact fuel economy. And it wouldn’t impact the emissions. What it would impact is the performance."
In their most recent study in December 2017, an Audi A3 was included in the test. This seems very interesting to me as I believe the A3 has the same engine as Q7 2.0T but tuned differently.
"On average, the vehicles got 2.7% better fuel economy when running Premium gas. But that's just an average. The results varied from a 7.1% improvement in the big Escalade SUV to a 1% decrease in fuel economy in the small Audi A3."
IMO, it is debatable if lower octane fuel would cause damage or more consumption in these engines. My DD is a Porsche Macan S with 3.0TT. There were a couple times I put regular gas in it and I paid close attention to how the engine behaves. I noticed zero difference (performance, MPG, NVH). Overall, no matter what fuel you're using, the $$ impact gonna be very tiny compared to the cost of a $60k+ car. I'm just curious to see if anyone here use regular gas in their Q7 or other Audi models? Any thought?
https://money.cnn.com/2017/12/12/aut...ium-gas-study/
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/a.../03OCTANE.html
Wanted to hear some thoughts on this topic! I have always put premium gas in my turbo-charged VWs for many years without questioning it at all. However, I had a discussion with a friend recently that makes me wonder what the truth is for running regular gas in engines that were designed to run premium. I searched a little bit and found AAA had provided some information on this topic. In one of the earlier articles, they mentioned that:
"Modern engines prevent the damage from happening before it starts,” said Patrick Kelly, a fuels analyst with the American Petroleum Institute. “It wouldn’t impact fuel economy. And it wouldn’t impact the emissions. What it would impact is the performance."
In their most recent study in December 2017, an Audi A3 was included in the test. This seems very interesting to me as I believe the A3 has the same engine as Q7 2.0T but tuned differently.
"On average, the vehicles got 2.7% better fuel economy when running Premium gas. But that's just an average. The results varied from a 7.1% improvement in the big Escalade SUV to a 1% decrease in fuel economy in the small Audi A3."
IMO, it is debatable if lower octane fuel would cause damage or more consumption in these engines. My DD is a Porsche Macan S with 3.0TT. There were a couple times I put regular gas in it and I paid close attention to how the engine behaves. I noticed zero difference (performance, MPG, NVH). Overall, no matter what fuel you're using, the $$ impact gonna be very tiny compared to the cost of a $60k+ car. I'm just curious to see if anyone here use regular gas in their Q7 or other Audi models? Any thought?
https://money.cnn.com/2017/12/12/aut...ium-gas-study/
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/a.../03OCTANE.html
11-19-2018, 07:45 PM
#4
AudiWorld Super User
For everyday putting around town the performance difference would be negligible, but if you hammer it the engine will undoubtedly pull back some performance on lower octane fuel.
Honestly I always use premium but it is nice to know when only regular is available like after Sandy that the car can still run beautifully on regular.
Honestly I always use premium but it is nice to know when only regular is available like after Sandy that the car can still run beautifully on regular.
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11-20-2018, 04:56 AM
#8
AudiWorld Member
11-20-2018, 05:12 AM
#10
AudiWorld Senior Member
i use 89 on my daily driver 2.0t a4 and really don't notice any difference in mpg. This is the first german car i am doing that on, as i've always used 93.
Tried it once on my Q7 3.0T and didn't really notice a difference. Normal driving, MPG seemed probably the same +- a few %
When i picked up the Q in germany, the tech over there told me Audi recommends 95 (euro formula) but if i didn't use that, it's fine, engine adjusts the timing based on octane grade. Said i would lose about 4hp.
Tried it once on my Q7 3.0T and didn't really notice a difference. Normal driving, MPG seemed probably the same +- a few %
When i picked up the Q in germany, the tech over there told me Audi recommends 95 (euro formula) but if i didn't use that, it's fine, engine adjusts the timing based on octane grade. Said i would lose about 4hp.