I have ran both with mostly cruise controlled highway driving @70mph. I saw no difference. I get 35mpg on the highway.

 

He is getting 'optimal performance' as applies to fuel economy. As long as the fuel system is able to adjust far enough to properly use an octane, the MPG between octanes will be the same. Higher octane gives better acceleration, not better MPG.

 

Oh gotcha that makes more sense thanks for clearing that up. Well guess I don't need better acceleration when im going 25 mph lol. But on road trips may I can switch to it before the trip with a couple trips so the engine can get acclimated to it.

 

Just as info in case you become interested - I use premium the first 18 months with each of my Maximas (every gen except gen 1), then switch to midgrade. As the manuals state, Nissan sets the Maxima up for 91 octane. Midgrade is 89 octane, which is within TWO octanes of 91. Regular fuel is 87 octane, which requires the fuel system to adjust by FOUR octanes. All my Maximas have done extremely well with midgrade fuel, which seems to give the same performance I get with the premium fuel I use the first 18 months I own each car.

Over the past thirty-some years, I have very rarely used regular in my Maximas (sometimes put in the car by dealers/etc and sometimes put in when that was the only fuel available), and sometimes I was not able to tell much difference, but other times I definitely noticed a difference. I guess it depends on how the fuel system is set up in each individual car, and how flexible it is.

 

The higher the octane level, the harder the fuel is to ignite. You want the air/fuel mixture to ignite only when the spark plug fires (should be around top dead center of piston travel). If it starts igniting before this, then you have detonation. There are knock sensors that detects this. I would really only use premium if our engines had some sort of forced induction. On the other hand, we do have somewhat high compression ratio (10.3:1). But it seems that our engines are not detonating, so I don't see a problem with using 87 octane.

 

Thank you guys so much for this info. It really help hearing both sides of this topic. I think when I come back from from Disneyland in a couple weeks and re-cooperate those funds. I will try messing the the different gas types and see what may benefit my situation more. I just find it hard to justify paying more for premium gas when I am in stop and go traffic on my way and coming home from work. There isn't a real steady speed.

 

You'll be fine with regular. I haven't had to fill mine up yet, but I am in the same boat as you are. I drive to and from the bus stop which is about 1.5 miles from my house. Most of my driving comes from nights and weekends. I don't plan to use premium gas in my vehicle.

 

Yeah I can see why you have not filled up must be nice to take the bus to work lol. But yeah hard to say right now what I will do overtime, but seeing everyone's input gives me insight on different options.

 

You say that now, but I spend roughly 3.5 - 4 hours on a bus/train every day.

 

Ah gotcha yeah I'll stick with my hour gridlock vs staying on buses and trains with people I don't really care to be around.

 

Nothing touches mine but 93 octane Premium Shell gas...best fuel bar none.

 

Ive been staying between Valero and Shell so fer. I may consider Costco and QT next usually pretty clean gas.

 

You are not likely to notice any pre-detonation, because the knock sensor will likely pick it up before you can sense it and retard (delay) the spark to prevent pre-detonation.

This will absolutely affect performance, but the odds of any of us being able to detect it at the levels we are driving is very slight. Much more possible if you were tracking the car.

 

This is not the right car for tracking anyway!

 

Correct, we will not sense that there is detonation. If it's at a point that it would be damaging the engine, I would assume that the SEL will turn on. Hell, if my car can tell if my evap hose has a pin-sized hole, I'm pretty sure it will also let me know that regular gas will hurt it.

 

I actually find the "Premium fuel premium" harder to bite with the lower gas prices. Here in PA it's usually about 50 cents extra over Regular, so I find it harder to bite 50 cents extra when regular is

 

I think here its like $1.85. So it is doable, but just depends on your commute. You can't perform at stop and go 25MPH. But if you have a decent travel speed all the time then maybe it is a good option for you.

 

Prices in MA/NH are around 1.65 for regular/ 2.09 for mid grade/ 2.20 for premium. I purchase the premium because it is still cheap and the car is breaking in. Why not put the best fuel in your car, especially when you spend over $30k.

I am very surprise with the MPGs though. First fill-up I was getting 25mpg, second fillup returned 28 mpgs. I'm sure it will get better once the motor breaks in. This V6 gets better MPGs then my previous 4 cyl. and its quieter too. Currently at 915 miles and this coming Monday will be my second week of ownership. I drive roughly 450 miles a week.

 

I drive 110 miles every day and track my mile compared to the computer. Computer ALWAYS overstates it by at least 2 MPG. If you are going to compare MPG by fuel type do your own calculations.

I reiterate, EVERY TIME overstated so no comments about how it was topped off differently at each fill up.

 

Octane is not directly related to fuel efficiency

 

I only ran Premium on my two Altima's, my 370Z and now my Maxima.

I had a Hyundai accent and I run it on Regular for over 6 years, after about 5 years it started to ping really bad. I thought it was just getting old, I did change the oil every 3000 miles. I heard that using Premium helped reduce ping so I started using Premium in the Hyundai and the next day after fill up all the pinging went away. I know Hyundai is not Nissan but wanted to share my experience with Regular vs Premium gas.

I only use Premium in my cars form now on.

 

90 percent regular (wife will mix now n then), gotta love the computer controlled cars of today, leave the premium behind, wont make a stick of difference

 

100% Regular and the car performs very well!

 

I always calculate the MPG the old fashioned way, by hand. I will say my computer overstates by 1 MPG which is not bad so my stated computer mpg is 33 MPG at cruise but really "only" 32 MPG.

 

Just finished my first tank of regular. Didn't notice a difference. Is pinging something that would be audible?

 

If your windows are closed and your AC fan and audio is off, you would be able to hear pinging if it as occurring. Pinging is usually found in two situations - sometimes during hard acceleration, but more frequently while climbing a gradual hill where the tranny has not yet increased the RPMs. The CVT adjusts to this situation fairly quickly, so we should not hear much pinging, if any.

In the old days, if we ran regular in a manual Maxima and did not downshift fast enough when climbing a long hill, regular fuel could cause a little pinging for many drivers. But modern technology covers a lot of our transgressions, so we can usually get away with regular these days.

I love my Maxima, so use only premium the first 18 months, then midgrade (89 octane) from then on. I never use regular. That is just one of my long-time habits.

 

what is the hp difference between reg an d premium ? anyone know

 

i tend to go 91-91-89-91-91-89

because 89, sometimes, is 30c cheaper haha

i rarely open the throttle half to 3/4, so hp difference becomes unnoticeable...
but that's just me.. dyno and extensive testing may answer that question.

 

I am getting in mixed city driving 26-27mpg on regular gas, last tank I used mid-grade and now averaging 28-29mpg doing same mix driving. Love it, my 2015 v6 camaro only gave me 19mpg and ran the whole tank in a week. With the maxima, I am getting better mileage and the full tank lasts me 2 weeks.

Ian B

 

+ 1 on switching to regular. I ran premium for the first year of ownership, but had a brain fart one night and accidentally put regular in. guess what! nothing happened! it ran fine. As far as hearing it knock and ping, I think the sensors in the engine will detect a problem before you hear it.

 

I put regular in a couple of times but that was all, didn't notice a difference. have since decided nothing is too good for my Max! Premium ever since.

 

Im still sticking to the system I began with my two 1985 Maximas - Premium for the first 18 months, then midgrade from that point on. I have never been able to measure any difference in fuel efficiency between these two octanes, but a sophisticated electronic system could probably measure a slight advantage in HP with premium.

 

Actually, if you do the math, it's not that much money.
First of all, the difference in cost per tank is minimal. For the sake of math, let's say you fill up with 15 gallons every time. That means the actual out of pocket cost for premium fuel is $9 a tank.
I did an experiment with my since departed 13 over the course of a month (I put a lot of miles on my cars) and saw a decrease in MPG of around 15%. The car ran fine with no knocks or noticeable power loss. In real world numbers, I went from averaging 20 mpg to averaging 17 mpg.
Using the 15 gallon number, that's 300 miles vs. 255 miles, or a loss of 45 miles per tank. At 17 MPG, that's 2.6 gallons MORE gasoline to cover the same distance.
Let's use your spread and what gas costs as I write this at the Speedway by me to do some quick math (assuming the 15 gallon fillup and actual, current pricing). Regular is $1.91 ($28.65 for 15 gallons) and premium is $2.51 ($37.65 for 15 gallons).
Now we apply the real world numbers I obtained using my 13.
Cost to travel 300 miles using premium $37.65 (15 gallons at 20 mpg). Cost to travel 300 miles using regular $33.62 (17.6 gallons at 17 mpg).
So your actual cost difference is $4.03.
Which begs the question: Is $4.03 a tank worth it for maximum performance out of the car or not?
That's up to you.
You certainly can argue either way.
For my money, $4 a tank is worth it for top performance. I ran around 24 tanks a year, which means I spent less than an additional $100.
Meh. Money isn't that tight for me that $100 a year makes a difference.
I suppose the best way to test it out for YOU is to run premium for 1000 miles and track MPG and compare that to 1000 miles on regular and see how the numbers shake out.

 

I appreciate your very thoughtful post here. What I can tell you is that I don't see any loss of MPG running straight regular. I get 32 to 34 on the highway which is incredible considering the size of this car! I cruise @ 70 most of the time but I don't "cowboy" accelerate. If premium brought me more mpg I might consider it for a long trip but I doubt I could do much better than what it's doing now. In my area, there is quite a spread for premium ranging from .50 to .60 cents a gallon over regular. I believe regular is quite adequate and does not affect the car warrantee according to my dealer.

 

All of that is awesome. It won't mess with the warranty.
For some reason, my 13 was affected, so I just stuck with the premium.
That's pretty awesome fuel economy!
Do you like the car? I'll be in the market in February.

 

I was realty impressed with our last 2010 Maxima which was loaded to the hilt with extras like even rear seat armrest controls for the radio and the A/C and heat. Though our 2016 Platinum is a bit de contented from the 2010, I can attest to the improved transmission feel that mimics a 7 speed. Much less "motorboating" ! Though the V6 on the 2016 is rated @ 300 HP it feels much stronger than the earlier 2010's 290 HP. Finally, I do love the design which speaks for itself in the sea of look alike cars of today. This car is a great road cruiser. It do wish they had added the vertical height adjustment for the passenger seat. Something even the Ford Fusion Titanium has for less money. Overall, Nissan took a chance and got it right.

 

When they recommend premium are they recommending 91 or 93?

 

91+ since not all states have 93.

 

Ah hell, go find some 120 octane avgas.

 

If you look at how the cars are designed and how the engines are made to perform yes regular is fine. I just bought a 2017 Platinum and got it with a full tank from the dealer. They are going to fill regular because who cares its gas to them and its about money. You will burn that off within 2 weeks or a week depending on your driving. But I have a 96 GLE my baby and she has 368k on her original engine and trans (knock o wood) never been pulled and I only run full synthetic oils in everything. did the valve cover gaskets and the mech a friend of mine could not believe that a car with over 300k did not have any deposits on the valves, he asked me if I had them cleaned. Oil and good fuel is my belief and like other here say its a choice. I also have a 05 Pathfinder LE with 246k miles and that only uses Premium. So does the new 2016 SL Pathfinder my wife drives. Nissan engines were built around better gas in my opinion. Anyway good luck with whatever you use and how you use it.