From what I heard that is what Maximas need to use for octane...

Sure it is a lot better and won't produce knock but Man, I am too cheap for that. lol


93 is $3.40 over here!

I know it is more in other places, but ****, I am hating it being $2.99 for reg.

 

 

Thats how we roll man. reg gas=

 

Its only a 7 dollar difference. You'll also get less MPG's with regular

 

So every Maxima will need 93 than? Cause I know there is lots of cars that will take nothing less, Mostly in European cars and nice ones as you know.

 

I can only get 91 here.

 

they money you'll save using reg you'll lose MPG and have to fill up more with less performance....BLEH...

 

i cant achieve 6000rpms on anything less than 93

 

iv read that you actually dont increace mpg by running higher octane. anyone know for sure?

 

I can say for sure that I have NEVER ran 93 ocatane and I think I get preety good mpg about 420 on average depending on highway/city. And this is my second Max.

 

I would suggest to do some reading of previous threads. Donating will allow you to use your search function.

And if you're contemplating on a few cents for the health of your ride, you shouldn't even consider modding your car.

 

premium = better gas mileage and more power for sure. this is not speculation. and if it doesn't you may need a new knock sensor. (or something else is wrong). Just put the damn premium in.

 

Our Maxima's require premium, bottom line! Run anything lower, and eventually you notice a difference in performance from your car, let alone of possible knocking noise from the engine. Down here in PA, we have as high as 94 octane (Sunoco). I only run 93 and never will put in anything less, even if gas prices are high. I don't want to spend more money down the line in replacing parts in my car from running lower octane. Just my $.02.

 

ive been using 93 for the past 4 years. Even with the spike of gas I still put in 93.

 

WOW, just open up your owners manual, it says 91 or higher. I don't know about the whole mileage thing, I only run premium, but I know that the motor is tuned for the higher octane stuff. Also, a lot of people seem to complain about the knock sensor, and most of them seem to feel that 87 is good enough. I haven't had to change the sensor yet.

 

What's a knock sensor?

 

only Mobil 93, anything less would be uncivilized.

 

it's the knockoff of the Xbox 360.

 

NO. Its what causes the red ring of death. It senses when you knock it.

 

It doesn't look red...

 

A couple months ago I was the source of a heated debate on this subject. I always run the lowest price gas in my car, and feel confident that is the right choice. In part, because I don't want the oil companies to see that people are willing to pay anything more than necessary. It's the same reason I will drive out of my way to get gas that is a penny or two cheaper. Call me cheap, I don't care. I'm poor (hence the eleven year old car). And my system has never led to any vehicular problems.

A couple months ago, many of you will remember I performed a fairly calculated comparison (that put me on the receiving end of a lot of ridicule). Granted, I would like to have done it for a longer span of time to get a better experimental group of data, but it was just getting too damn expensive. I was going to paraphrase my results here, but I guess it's almost as easy to pull out the numbers and calculate it again.

For my experimental data, I drove from 126,899 - 127,593 (694) miles on 28.309 gallons of 93 octane premium.

For my original control group, I used fillups immediately prior to this experiment. I will now use a larger data source -- all fuel consumption since the experiment. I have driven from 127,593 - 130677 (3,084) miles on 124.860 gallons of the cheapest 87 octane gasoline I can find.

Experimental group (93 octane): 24.515 mpg
New control group (87 octane): 24.699 mpg

The average price of 87 octane during the experiment (3/31/06 - 4/15/06) was $2.6333/gal
The average price of 93 octane during the same period of time was $2.8233/gal

I spent $80.50 on premium fuel during the experiment, representing 8.621 miles per dollar. At 19 cents per gallon less for regular, and the higher miles per gallon I have measured, it should have taken 28.098 gallons of 87 octane, costing $73.98. For seven hundred miles, the real difference in price was $6.52. I drive about 27,000 miles a year. That would show an annual difference of $253.66 for me to use premium. I have been driving for eleven years and have never had (or known anybody to have) mechanical problems due to low price fuel. Even so, with the $2,790 difference I didn't spend on premium since 1995 (we are talking about difference in price, not absolute price, and though the actual price per gallon has changed radically, the difference between premium and regular has not changed significantly in that time), I should be able to afford the unlikely repair.

The manual recommends premium for maximum performance. Do you lose some performance running lower grade fuel? Some will swear by it. From my 700 miles of high grade fuel, I noticed no difference in the way my car ran whatsoever. I don't doubt there may be some difference on the dyno, but I drive on roads, behind slow people in Buicks. While I don't drive my car wide open, I'm still usually the fastest one pulling away on a green light or merging on the highway. Sure some performance may have been lost, but nothing noticable in daily driving.

Always looking to make my figures as accurate as possible, here is what I will do: I will soon be spending two days driving across the country. I will run one day on low grade fuel and one on high grade fuel to see if my gas mileage increases with high grade when applied more consistently and on a larger scale. I don't claim that lower grade fuel will result in higher gas mileage. The 0.2 miles per gallon gain is almost trivial. But I do claim, without a doubt, that low cost fuel will return higher miles per dollar. Every time.

 

In a car that does not need premium, such as the majority of vehicles on the road, nothing will happen when premium is used except for higher credit card bills and premium fuel burned out the tailpipe.

Again, the only thing premium does is prevent predetonation. Modern cars have knock sensors to deal with predetonation.

The higher MPG's with premium is simply wrong, and it would be nice if people would stop spreading this wrongful information.

Maybe this guy describes the situation better than I have:

"unless you need a higher octane level of gas, increasing the octane level of the gas does absolutely nothing to increase performance, and may do quite the opposite... a fuels octane level is simply a value given to the ability of the fuel to prevent predetonation... that's all that it means.

A given engine combination, determines what minimum octane level of gas is needed, to prevent predetonation (perceived as engine ping). as a general example, higher compression engines, will predetonate sooner, so they require a higher octane level of fuel to help prevent that... a 10:1 street motor (with no anti-knock sensors driving computerized fuel injection), will require somewhere around a minimum of 91 octane to prevent predetonation... using a higher octane does nothing as far as performance is concerned.

now if you build an engine such as a race motor, that runs a higher compression motor, 12:1, 14:1 or higher, you will require a higher level of octane in your fuel, but only as much as needed to prevent predetonation... if your current engine has no problems with predetonation, then increasing its octane level will yield you a zero performance increase, and though i forget the reasons why, may even lower the performance of the engine (i think it relates to the types and amounts of additives used in the higher octane gasoline from a particular refinery... as more than 50% of the ingredients in gasoline are actually additives)... "

 

OooOOOo a new thread topic

 

Oh boy

 

everyone in this thread is cheap.

 

You "CAN" use the lower octane gas in these cars. I have 137k miles and I have not changed my knock sensor. I've tried premium, mid grade and el cheapo with no real noticeable results. My car is still super quiet and pulls hard when I occasionally punch it. Use the cheap gas, you won't hurt your car.

 

NEVAR!1!

 

Of course! Those stupid Nissan Engineers have no clue wtf they are talking about.


everyone in this thread should spend 20 bucks to use the search function and look up threads similar to this.

If you're too cheap to ensure the health of your car, you shouldn't be modding a damn thing.

 

It's bizarre that people aren't sticking to the topic, and making subjective determinations whether someone is cheap, generous, kind, mean, etc. Has nothing to do with the topic.

My friend from grad school is cheap--he doesn't tip bellhops, waiters/waitresses more than 15%, yet he bought a 3-bed condo for 800k in SoCal. He uses regular unleaded in his 2k5 330 perf pack.

The fact that he is cheap has nothing to do with how much he spent on his condo, or the fact that he uses regular in his E46 perf pack 330. The motor compensates for the regular fuel.

There's nothing different about a 2k6 Avalon and a 4th gen Maxima, but the times have changed. It's no longer fashionable to tell the customer he must use premium. Try to find out if a 2k6 Avalon needs premium or not--good luck. Toyota buries the info. Yes, it does benefit from premium. No, the motor doesn't get worse mileage with regular nor does it need the knock sensor replaced every 20k as you stated before you edited your response.

 

1.) Before I edited my response, I noticed that his sig listed "knock sensor" as one of his "mods." I figured he had already replaced it, suggesting my comment. I never said it had to be replaced every 20k.

2.) It's funny how people will spend hundreds of dollars to mod their car but choose to take the cheaper side when pertains to the OVERALL LIFE (I never said performance) of their car.

3.) This topic has been beaten to death and I'm not about to go into statistical detail that would probably end up in one place: nowhere. I've searched on this topic and have seen both sides of the story. Conclusion? Spend the extra few dollars to ensure the overall health of your car.

4.) When I said people in this thread were cheap, I was being sarcastic. I'm not sure how your story about your friend's condo really had to do much nor did it set a clear example. My point is that the same people who spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars to asthetically mod their cars but yet want to save a few cents at the pump because of debates like these.

 

if you cant afford to drive the car get a sentra... and not a spec V.... that is like buying a corvette or a 350Z and then say that tires are too much money..

 

This is pretty close to my point. It has nothing to do with a friend's inability to give a decent tip to a waitress or how his penny pinching methods got him a nice condo. It's just pure common sense. Spend a few more bucks at the pump to help avoid any suspected problems evolving this issue.



That's superb and all, but why spend all that money for a 2k5 330 and go cheap on what makes it run? 3-bed condo in cali sounds nice. Does he cut corners and have no furniture in it? It just doesn't make any sense.

 

- 20 I.Q. points just for reading this crap..

 

Every gas thread always has the same problem. It's always the "trying to save a few bucks on gas" vs. "I'm putting premium in my car per the manual." The pain never ends.

 

U have to pay to play....It is worth it in the long run

 

Do what you want, just please stop posting about it because these threads are like herpes. You think you finally beat it and then you look in the mirror and you have another outbreak.

 

Premium for me

 

Who here has talked about mods? Not the original poster. Not me. And I challenge you to find someone who has sacrificed the OVERALL LIFE of their car to lower octane gas. Nissan would be out of business if gasoline grade affected overall life of thier car. People perhaps sacrifice MAXIMUM performance (much more than a driver would ever notice on a day-to-day basis), but that's it. 100 years of vehicular evolution in the technology age protects the consumer from the demons within the lower priced fuel grades.

When I discuss my preferences for lower priced fuel, not only do I quote my real life experiences, but I share the raw data with everyone here. I encourage anyone who has any form of empirical data confirming that high octane fuel will be better for the average driver over the long run to please share it.

 

Some people on here are not average drivers.

 

Honestly if the 7-10 dollars a tank is going to break the bank I would suggest selling the car and getting a small 4 banger, or maybe even a bike-cycle. Get a honda insight or something and not have to worry about gas prices