I asked some people around, and a lot say they use 93 octane gas for their max's. I have a 95 and my buddy has a 99. He insists on using 93 octane, and the manual calls for 91 apparently. They also say that if you have to you can use 87. But to get the best performance use 91 or 93. Is it really necessary since VQ30DE is not a high compression engine?

 

he is right use the high octane cuz of the high compression if u use anything else it will not give u optimal performance

 

87 or even 89 is fine, but our VQ's benefit more w/ 93

 

yep hes right

 

dont be cheap. fill up with premium. preserves your knock sensor life, and gives you overall better performance. sure, use 87 if youve only got 2 bucks in your pocket, and an empty tank, but dont make it a habit.

 

the manual says use 91+

I have never even seen a gas station with higher than 91 octane, anyone wanna fill me in on what gas stations carry it?

 

around my way, we get 93 octane. there's a citgo that carries 1XX octane race fuel around here too. all the gas stations here have 93 as their premium, 89 as mid grade, and 87 as regular.

 

Ms.Maxima, since California is gay on emissions, we are not allowed to have more than 91 octane since we pollute soo much. TX has 93 octane, but they are not as strict as california. you will never find 93 octane anywhere in cali.

 

Ohhhh ok thank you. I woulda never known. Someone told me the other day there's a gas station here in Huntington Beach that sells 115 racing fuel..

 

yeah, racing fuel you will be able to find on certain gas stations but very expensive.
not worth buying just for regular driving. only for racing purposes. but it wont make a difference if we put it on a n/a car like ours, since we are not boosted, it wont make a difference. when i had my Supercharger, with race gas, it made a HUGE difference.

 

Ohhh ok. I wasn't planning on using it, just thought i'd throw in some usless nonsense, but thank you for the info

 

alot of other states allow 93 gas like Va, when i was in cali over the summer ionly saw 91 as the highest octane which sucks for you guys

 

No problem, anytime.

 

. Is it really necessary since VQ30DE is not a high compression engine?[/QUOTE]
Who told you the MAx is not high compression!!??

 

i always put in the most expensive gas... i love my maxima

 

i go with 89 unless 93 is on sale.

to the person who said do your knock sensor a favor and preserve its life, you're confusing effect and cause vs cause and effect. the knock sensor is always sensing, how would using a different gas preserve its life? its job is to sense knock so its always 'on' so using a differnet gas wont prolong anything, the knock sensor is just poorly manufactured so OEM gives out. i don't think thers a correlation with knocking and the life of the sensor

 

i have seen 103-104 i can't remmeber but i heard it was like 10 bucs a gallonw

 

i think they sell 97 at petrol canada down the street

 

i had read somewhere in another octane thread that using higher octane doesnt produce advanced timing, therefore saving some life on your KS.

 

there a reason why the manual say to use 91
even though some of the mechanics at the dealership are moron im sure the people at nissan know what they are talking about when it come to this, they made the car.
how much money do you really save when you put in 87 instead of 91?
a couple of bucks? is it really worth it for the long run to go cheap now?

 

use 91+ only

 

unless you want some nasty sounding "octane ping", run premium. I only run 93+ unless i am on a road trip. Then i run 91.

 

In San Jose, CA. There is a 76 gas station that sells. 87,89,91 and 101 octane gas. This is the only 76 gas station or actually any gas station that sells 101 octane. Except the race tracks that have up to to 118 octane. BTW, the price is $4.35 a gallon for 101 octane.

 

The sunoco's out here in cincy have 94 octane as their premium.

 

Yup . I run premium every time, 91+ is recommended for maximum performance (says the owners manual). Here in NJ most gas stations have 93 premium, sunoco carries Ultra 94, and some of the ghetto gas stations carry 92 octane.

 

In PA we have 93 also as our high test. I only fill with that. Some stations have 91 also, but the one I go to only has 87, 89 and 93...so I fill her with 93. We're lucky I guess because it still sells for under 2 buck/gallon.

 

Not high compression? What does he consider high compression? I am pretty sure (and this is off the top of my head, so don't quote me on this) that the VQ is 10.5:1 - if that isn't high compression, then I don't know what is.

High Compression = High Octane

It says right on the gas door "User High Octane for Better Performance" (or something to that effect).

There used to be a setting on older carbs for the Octane.