Top Tier: Regular - MidGrade - Premium?

[sajohnson]

sajohnson said:
One way to combat engine overheating is to warm up your engine pre-drive and let it cool down post-drive. The motor oil in your engine takes a few minutes to warm up after you turn on the ignition. Once warm, the motor oil flows through the engine bay and lubricates the internal components, including the turbo's bearings. If you drive before the oil warms up and lubricates the turbo bearings, you can unnecessarily wear down your turbo."

~~~

I agree a warm up is a good idea, but there's no need to let the car idle for extended times to achieve it. The oil specification for our cars is 5W30 in the case of the 2.0L, and 5W20 for the 1.5L. Oil that meets this spec has the viscosity of 5 weight oil when cold, which means it flows readily. That means the turbo bearings are receiving an oil bath within 10-30 seconds of engine start at temperatures you are likely to see in the USA (Alaska excluded). For warm up my advice is to start the engine, put on your seat belt, adjust your mirror, connect your phone and choose the programming of choice. That will provide ample time for oil to circulate to all critical engine parts. Then, take it easy for the first 5-10 minutes (depending on outside temperature) to allow the metal parts of the engine to warm up. After 10 minutes or so you should be good to go.

I disagree about the need to "cool down" the engine in any way. This is a hold over from older turbocharger installations that relied solely on oil to cool the turbine bearings. For those cars, shutting off the engine without allowing the bearings to cool would result in burning--or coking--the oil near them. Oil coking will eventually interfere with bearing operation and eventual turbine failure. This is not a danger with our modern EcoBoost engines.

The turbines in our cars are kept cool using the same coolant that keeps the rest of the engine cool. That means unless you are operating the engine at high power demand for extended time (race conditions) the turbine bearings will never get hot enough to coke the oil. That means there is no need to idle the engine prior to shut down--it's just a waste of gas.

To clarify -- we are in agreement. I did not write the statement above. It is a quote from the questionable article that was linked to. That's why I wrote, "The article about driving a turbocharged vehicle was a bit strange." I should have highlighted that I guess. In fact, I think I'll do that.

There are many factual errors in that article. I just posted a few, rather than going through it and disputing everything.

The NMA (National Motorists Assoc.) was (is?) publishing articles similar to that. IDK if they are AI-generated, or perhaps written by a younger, inexperienced person, but because I a) am a technician (although not automotive), b) have been working on cars for going on 50 years; and c) subscribed to the 'big 3' car magazines for decades -- the articles rubbed me the wrong way. Some of the writing was just awkward, some was misleading, and some was just plain wrong. I contacted the NMA a couple times to point out the errors and suggest that they might want to find other sources. The woman in charge was very nice and intelligent but (by her own admission) knew very little about cars, so she was unaware of the issues with the articles.

It's becoming a big problem. People are pumping out sometimes nonsensical fluff/filler to generate traffic to websites.

Sponsored

 

[TSO_NJ]

To clarify -- we are in agreement. I did not write the statement above. It is a quote from the questionable article that was linked to. That's why I wrote, "The article about driving a turbocharged vehicle was a bit strange." I should have highlighted that I guess. In fact, I think I'll do that.

There are many factual errors in that article. I just posted a few, rather than going through it and disputing everything.

The NMA (National Motorists Assoc.) was (is?) publishing articles similar to that. IDK if they are AI-generated, or perhaps written by a younger, inexperienced person, but because I a) am a technician (although not automotive), b) have been working on cars for going on 50 years; and c) subscribed to the 'big 3' car magazines for decades -- the articles rubbed me the wrong way. Some of the writing was just awkward, some was misleading, and some was just plain wrong. I contacted the NMA a couple times to point out the errors and suggest that they might want to find other sources. The woman in charge was very nice and intelligent but (by her own admission) knew very little about cars, so she was unaware of the issues with the articles.

It's becoming a big problem. People are pumping out sometimes nonsensical fluff/filler to generate traffic to websites.

The "trust me because I said so" has replaced "trust me because I have the personal experience and fist hand knowledge". Authoritative sources matter, but it has been increasingly difficult to identify the genuine versus the impostors.

Hence, the reason I appreciate reading the posts that coincide with the limited experience and knowledge gained from my past automotive maintenance and repair years. Chilton Auto Repair manuals were always within easy reach.

 

[BLUEOVALRACER]

The only photo from the days of compact film. A friend took it since I didn't own a camera at that time. Almost all of my overtime money went into the RR. I could have made a down payment on a new home for the amount of money I spent.

Since you mentioned your old Hot Rod here's mine with a picture of my BS!!

And yes i run 93 Octane in the Mustang!!

 

[TSO_NJ]

Since you mentioned your old Hot Rod here's mine with a picture of my BS!!

And yes i run 93 Octane in the Mustang!!

My brother had the same one. Extremely fast! MPH/ET?

 

[coopny]

When I got my 2015 Ford Fusion Titanium with the older 2.0L EB in November 2014, I generally fueled at Costco, where the price differential between 87 and 93 octane was 25 cents, so I usually sprung for the premium. Mildly peppier, got about 1.5 additional mpg. I think that was roughly breakeven for the additional cost.

Fast forward to 2023 and most stations are charging $1 more for 93 octane in the Northeast, Costco is charging 60 cents extra. Unless I'm planning to be towing (no plans at present but I got the factory installed trailer hitch with sway control in my BS BL), I can't see putting 93 in as justifiable...

Additionally, TOP TIER is already 5x EPA minimums and automaker certified, and that has to be in all grades of gas, so I don't see the benefit case of upping to the premium blend for even more detergents than what major automakers say is good for engine health. If one is concerned about deposits, unless you drive very infrequently it'd be cheaper to just buy a small bottle of cleaner from an auto parts store once a month or so...

 

[TSO_NJ]

When I got my 2015 Ford Fusion Titanium with the older 2.0L EB in November 2014, I generally fueled at Costco, where the price differential between 87 and 93 octane was 25 cents, so I usually sprung for the premium. Mildly peppier, got about 1.5 additional mpg. I think that was roughly breakeven for the additional cost.

Fast forward to 2023 and most stations are charging $1 more for 93 octane in the Northeast, Costco is charging 60 cents extra. Unless I'm planning to be towing (no plans at present but I got the factory installed trailer hitch with sway control in my BS BL), I can't see putting 93 in as justifiable...

Additionally, TOP TIER is already 5x EPA minimums and automaker certified, and that has to be in all grades of gas, so I don't see the benefit case of upping to the premium blend for even more detergents than what major automakers say is good for engine health. If one is concerned about deposits, unless you drive very infrequently it'd be cheaper to just buy a small bottle of cleaner from an auto parts store once a month or so...

Maybe I miscalculated, but here are my latest findings using Costco Premium at 50 cents per gallon more than Regular:

So, I'm able to go an additional 60 miles at a cost of $6 more, or 10 cents per mile, using 93 Octane?

 

[coopny]

Maybe I miscalculated, but here are my latest findings using Costco Premium at 50 cents per gallon more than Regular:

So, I'm able to go an additional 60 miles at a cost of $6 more, or 10 cents per mile, using 93 Octane?

372 miles on your fill / $40.08 fill = 9.28 cents per mile on 93.
312 miles on your fill / $34.08 fill = 9.15 cents per mile on regular.
There's some variability in there as I don't have the fill dates and it may have been influenced by gas prices generally falling after the regular fill leading up to the 93 fill.

For you, across the fill, it looks like a rounding error basically, it's a difference of a tenth of a cent per mile. At that price difference I would fill with supreme, if that MPG difference of 5 MPG holds, but only if you noticed some sort of performance difference. Costco certifies their additive pack meets top tier in all grades. They don't certify that additives are greater in the 93 octane, just that it's higher octane.

There's probably two other factors here:
A) I have less than 9k miles on the odometer; in my experience, the 2.0L EB didn't fully break in (for fuel economy) until 15k miles.

B) The 2.0L EB is less fuel efficient than the 1.5L EB; I would expect the difference between 87 and 93 to be less from an MPG perspective as well.

 

[TSO_NJ]

372 miles on your fill / $40.08 fill = 9.28 cents per mile on 93.
312 miles on your fill / $34.08 fill = 9.15 cents per mile on regular.
There's some variability in there as I don't have the fill dates and it may have been influenced by gas prices generally falling after the regular fill leading up to the 93 fill.

For you, across the fill, it looks like a rounding error basically, it's a difference of a tenth of a cent per mile. At that price difference I would fill with supreme, if that MPG difference of 5 MPG holds, but only if you noticed some sort of performance difference. Costco certifies their additive pack meets top tier in all grades. They don't certify that additives are greater in the 93 octane, just that it's higher octane.

There's probably two other factors here:
A) I have less than 9k miles on the odometer; in my experience, the 2.0L EB didn't fully break in (for fuel economy) until 15k miles.

B) The 2.0L EB is less fuel efficient than the 1.5L EB; I would expect the difference between 87 and 93 to be less from an MPG perspective as well.

I appreciate the input.

BTW: I was just curious about the 93 Octane when I went to fill the tank again on the 29th (last Friday), but I'll be going back to 87 Octane tomorrow. I want to keep the fuel cost as low as possible (accumulative effect).

 

[BLUEOVALRACER]

My brother had the same one. Extremely fast! MPH/ET?

With a different smaller carb than in the picture i posted 11.27@122 mph N/A but the larger carb in the picture made a pretty good increase in power[seat of the pants mine,cousin and friends agree with me] over the smaller carb!!

 

[Mark S.]

So, I'm able to go an additional 60 miles at a cost of $6 more, or 10 cents per mile, using 93 Octane?

First, be sure you are hand computing, not using the dash display. Second, you can't compare fuel economy using only a single tank of gas; there is far too much variability to get an accurate computation on such a small sample.

Ford recommends tracking miles traveled vs fuel used over at least three tanks to get an accurate measurement. I would add that you try to also control for the type of driving and weather conditions. Comparing three tanks of regular everyday driving (mix of city/highway) to three tanks of pure highway driving is not a fair comparison. Similarly, three tanks of highway driving with a tailwind will yield significantly different fuel economy than three tanks with a headwind.

Unless you are comparing fuel with and without Ethanol, there is no significant difference in the amount of energy between regular and premium, which is the only way you can achieve the kind of efficiency gain you saw. The difference you measured is nearing 20%. If it were possible to get 20% better fuel economy by simply switching to premium it would've been mandated by our benevolent overlords in the EPA long ago.

 

[TSO_NJ]

First, be sure you are hand computing, not using the dash display. Second, you can't compare fuel economy using only a single tank of gas; there is far too much variability to get an accurate computation on such a small sample.

Ford recommends tracking miles traveled vs fuel used over at least three tanks to get an accurate measurement. I would add that you try to also control for the type of driving and weather conditions. Comparing three tanks of regular everyday driving (mix of city/highway) to three tanks of pure highway driving is not a fair comparison. Similarly, three tanks of highway driving with a tailwind will yield significantly different fuel economy than three tanks with a headwind.

Unless you are comparing fuel with and without Ethanol, there is no significant difference in the amount of energy between regular and premium, which is the only way you can achieve the kind of efficiency gain you saw. The difference you measured is nearing 20%. If it were possible to get 20% better fuel economy by simply switching to premium it would've been mandated by our benevolent overlords in the EPA long ago.

Yep, you're correct. The absence of a validated scientific method, to correctly determine the results, will lead to final outcome inaccuracies.

I wanted to do a "what if" just out of curiosity since it was the last time I'm purchasing premium.

No long term benefits realized for the substantial increase in fuel costs by always using the premium grade.

 

[NMhunter]

My problem here in Albuquerque is Regular is 86 octane. It kills me to spend that extra money for premium. Costco has premiun at 91 octane, but it is about $0.40/gal. more. If you're driving sensibly and not going to lower altitudes, you probably won't damage your engine by using 86 octane. Probably. I definitely put in premium when I'm towing my trailer.

 

[sajohnson]

My problem here in Albuquerque is Regular is 86 octane. It kills me to spend that extra money for premium. Costco has premiun at 91 octane, but it is about $0.40/gal. more. If you're driving sensibly and not going to lower altitudes, you probably won't damage your engine by using 86 octane. Probably. I definitely put in premium when I'm towing my trailer.

Your approach sounds fine.

You may know this, but for those that don't, Costco gas is "Top Tier."

We drive so little that we only use about 100 gallons per year. So the additional cost of premium (93 here) is not an issue. If we were driving like we used to (~25,000 miles per year) I'd have to consider using regular (87) or midgrade (89).

I agree with you that, " If you're driving sensibly and not going to lower altitudes, you probably won't damage your engine by using 86 octane." 87 octane is approved by Ford for all conditions -- max GVW, max trailer weight (max GCW) and frontal area, 115 degrees, and climbing Route 38 over Bobcat Pass on your way up to Eagle Nest.

That being the case, if the BS is driven normally and not put under a heavy load, I'd think 86 octane is OK.

That said, depending upon how many miles you put on it, an extra 40 cents per gallon may not add up to much.

Last thought -- this would be kind of a PITA, but you could mix 86 and 91 octane.

 

[davidg4781]

I use Top Tier (Valero) and 87 regular gas. I tried the Premium 93 (mid is 89 I believe) and I could feel a difference but wasn't worth it to me.

Now, if I plan to do some off roading or something, I might put in 93 to see how that feels. I haven't been able to get away to try that yet.

Sponsored