Fuel Choice in Colorado

chaseAbronco

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Should I still go premium or perhaps consider mid-grade in the front range? What if I frequent higher elevations 8,000-10,000 for weekends? Going for the 2.0L EcoBoost.

Assuming stick with premium if I take a road trip to lower elevations... Any advice would be appreciated.
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weekndr

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Stick with the minimum octane level recommended by Ford.
87 is recommended for my F150 Ecoboost.
TBD on the recommended octane for the Bronco Sport.
 

rninja

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I've been using 91 since it's between that or 85 at the Costco gas stations here. Pretty consistent 26.7 gas mileage, but I'm also still within the first 1500 miles break in period and babying it.
 

Meanderthal

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I go to Maverik stations to get ethanol free. The computer will adjust to the fuel. Under extreme loads, the computer might pull timing (reduce performance slightly) to keep the engine happy when running a lower octane gas. Premium is probably overkill. Mid-grade should be good for just about anything. For normal commuting, low-grade will be great.
 

Mark S.

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I go to Maverik stations to get ethanol free. The computer will adjust to the fuel. Under extreme loads, the computer might pull timing (reduce performance slightly) to keep the engine happy when running a lower octane gas. Premium is probably overkill. Mid-grade should be good for just about anything. For normal commuting, low-grade will be great.
The computer doesn't care whether it's ethanol free or not, it just cares about octane. I don't know what Maverick stations in CO offer as "regular," but I know some stations at higher altitudes offer 85 octane for regular. That's a big no-no with Ford's EcoBoost engines. Make sure whatever you use is at least 87 octane, whether it has ethanol or not.
 

Meanderthal

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The computer doesn't care whether it's ethanol free or not, it just cares about octane. I don't know what Maverick stations in CO offer as "regular," but I know some stations at higher altitudes offer 85 octane for regular. That's a big no-no with Ford's EcoBoost engines. Make sure whatever you use is at least 87 octane, whether it has ethanol or not.
Sorry, I knew that wasn’t very clear. The ethanol is different from the octane. Ethanol free is better in stability and not as corrosive and I think there are other reasons for using it.

Still stands that the computer will adjust to the octane level. Essentially, I would lean toward using lower octane fuel for daily driving. If you are pushing it harder (requiring high horsepower or torque) then you should use higher octane fuel. It will be interesting to do some experiments and hopefully record some data with different octane fuels.
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