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The modern CR-V, with half the displacement but rated at just 10 fewer ponies, makes the same argument: don't waste your money on premium.
Switching from 87 octane to 93 yielded a 7-hp gain on the dynamometer, but that advantage was lost in the noise at the track. There, the CR-V's zero-tomph and quarter-mile times both tracked a tenth of a second slower on the expensive stuff.
While fuel economy at 75 mph ticked up from Honda built its reputation on a line of unassuming, egalitarian motorcycles in the '60s. Nearly 60 years later, the company's identity is still predicated on the same sensible and modest ethic, right down to the fuel that you put in the tank. BMW explicitly warns about engine damage from doing so, and while that seemed unlikely in such mild temperatures, using the cheap stuff would have been wildly out of touch with what an owner would do at least until this M5 reaches its fourth owner sometime in BMW requires octane fuel at a minimum, with 93 recommended, so we did just that, switching between the common forms of premium gas depending on which state you're in.
Are Californians, with their watered-down premium, leaving something on the table? We wanted to know. The dyno results shocked us. Not because of the hp difference between 91 and 93 octane. No, that delta was in line with expectations. Our jaws were left hanging by just how much power and torque we measured. While BMW claims horsepower at the crank, the dyno reports it makes that much at the wheels after driveline losses on octane premium.
And both fuels produced significantly more torque than BMW's advertised lb-ft. The higher-octane fuel trimmed a single tenth of a second across all of the M5's acceleration times. That results in a time-bending 2. The BMW also claimed the largest fuel-economy margin in the test, but the 0. The M5 Competition stands as proof that the octane rating does make a difference, although in the case of these two premium fuels, if you're forced to use 91 octane, you're hardly missing out.
At Naturally then, the Ford hauls ass as effortlessly as it hauls a half-ton of manure. When fed 93 octane, this pound, self-propelled wheelbarrow will crash 60 mph in 5. Power at the wheels dropped from to horsepower with the change from 93 to 87 octane. That difference seemed to grow, and we could even feel it from the driver's seat at the test track.
Compared with premium fuel, regular feed sapped the F's urgency both leaving the line and in the meat of the tach sweep. The rush to 60 mph softened to a still-blistering 5. Tapped into the Ford's CAN bus, we recorded a peak boost pressure roughly 1. The high-octane gas also helped when soft-pedaling the accelerator, elevating mph fuel economy from Occasionally, you can come across gas stations that offer more than just the traditional three blends of gasoline.
This is especially common in Iowa, which, due to local political interest in gasoline blended with ethanol, is a haven for supplemental grades of fuel. While some of the fuel at these gas stations may seem compelling from a price perspective, we recommend sticking with the gasoline type you generally use.
Ethanol can raise the octane rating of gasoline, but it is also corrosive to the fuel system, and returns reduced fuel economy. Under no circumstances should you use an ethanol-blended fuel with more than percent alcohol content unless you are percent certain your vehicle is factory-designed to operate on such fuel.
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