I must be the only one who lives in a high elevation area, because I usually use 85 gas and my maxima has run fine.

 

I've pretty much only used Shell V-Power since I bought the max. When I use to have a '90 SE, I used 87 without any problem.

 

94, 80% of the time 91 the other 20%

these old maximas love the high grade stuff :P

 

always 93!!!

 

Sunoco 91 and sometimes 93 when I'm in Jersey.

 

She needs premium dude, PREMIUM!

 

i use 91

 

I understand that the manual says to use Premium for MAXIMUM performance. That implies that the car should run fine on regular. BUT......

i've used nothing but premium in all 5 of my Maximas and no matter what scientific or clinical tests say, I always will. I used regular by accident ONCE by mistake and I noticed a difference in both performance and fuel consumption!!!! My personal experience trumps whatever anyone else has to say.

And as far as cost go, I don't mind spending an extra $4 per fillup since I only fill up 3 times a month. Back when premium was $1.20 I was still paying $4 more per fillup.

 

..................... and its because of people like you and your refusal/inability to try and understand the technical explanation for your experience that useless threads like this continue to grow.

 

Nlt624 - Your 'noticings' were incorrect. Determining exact gas mileage requires far more than dividing the miles by the gallons used, and can only be done under controlled laboratory conditions. About forty other factors listed throughout this thread are involved.

The important FACT (covered at least a dozen times in this thread):

OCTANE HAS NO CONNECTION TO MPG.

I repeat:

OCTANE HAS NO CONNECTION TO MPG.

Once more for emphasis:

OCTANE HAD NO CONNECTION TO MPG.

As ALL Maxima Owners Manuals make very clear:

THE MAXIMA IS DESIGNED TO OPERATE ON REGULAR GAS.

The recommendation for premium is ONLY TO OBTAIN MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE IN EXTREME CONDITIONS, such as a timed quarter-mile. Despite undying urban legends to the contrary, the use of premium gasoline makes no noticable difference in almost all driving conditions.

And the myth of $4 a gallon more for premium? Just that; a myth. Premium at the three nearest gas stations to me (Chevron, BP and Texaco) costs 32 cents a gallon more for premium than for regular. I usually take on around 17 gallons when I fill up. That means I save between $5.50 and $6 per tank each fillup. And still get excellent performance; The same performance I got when I used premium.

We believe what we want to believe, and tend to interpret 'test results' in a way that supports what we already thought. That is voodoo, not science.

 

what about the advertised cleaning agents added to 93?

 

chevron .... I almost had to push my car into a station because I didnt want to put in SHELL.

 

What about them?

In the end, this thread's purpose seems to be for everybody to say what his/her personal experience/conviction is wrt fuel efficiency on his/her vehicle while totally ignoring the real world facts and parameters influencing their decisions.

Since fuel economy seems to be a major talking point in this thread perhaps we can do the following:

Currently, ANY alcohol added to a base fuel decreases the total energy content of the fuel - ie - using the fuel with alcohol added, will inevitably result in decreased mileage per gallon under the exact same driving condition because you need to feed the motor more of the precious juice to get the same energy/power/performance out of the thing ................. net result is fuel containing alcohol makes all cars produce less power than fuel without alcohol - ie - lower mpg.

"Cleaning agents" or any other additive to the base fuel, will, depending on its specific energy content/density compared to the base fuel, either increase or decrease the overall energy content of the fuel depending on the product used as additive/agent ......................... so unless you know what the cleaning agents are that are added to the base fuel, there is no way to
make a sensible statement on its effect on either fuel efficiency (mpg) or octane rating of the resulting fuel produced by its addition.


............................ and with all of the above, we are not yet even talking about the ability of the actual fuel/spark management system to properly cater for these "additives"/"agents" to extract the absolute maximum energy out of every drop of fuel used no matter what you feed it

 

I only use 93. My girl put 89 in the car and it drove like you know what.

 

ive got a 2002 SE 6 spd, mostly use 87, some time put in premium. not a huge noticeable difference. and i hope im not messing up my engine switching up sometimes.....

 

91-chevron 93-BP, EXXON,Shell........ only reason i use 91 at chevron is because thats as high as it goes lol

 

I use mid-grade 89 octane exclusively. I have never used 87 before, but I also have found no reason to indicate 93 would be better. No knocking, pinging, etc. I guess I just see it as splitting the difference between the worst and best.

 

i regularly use 93. the lowest i'll go is 91. i've heard there are afew stations that sell 'race' gas here in Omaha, but i havn't found them yet..

 

i worked in petroleum research for a lil over a year...and although i cant release direct info..i can say i have a tetco tag if anyone knows what that is...

 

Erm ...................... congratulations?

 

yea i know..kinda gay way of trying to hint my opinion....oh well....i thought chevron, or gasoline with techron, passed test better and more consistently than any other gasoline...just my .02

 

..............congratulations again?

 

Chevron Premium, always.

 

shell v power for the win!

 

Cali only has up to 91.. sigh

 

Hey guys,

I bought a used 96 Maxima off a dealer (not official Nissan dealer) just 2 weeks ago. I drove just 54 km after the full fuel up and the fuel indicator is already at half point! I knew not to expect civic-like mileage but this is probably worst than 18 wheelers. I should point out though, that I did put 87 grade fuel (I didn't know about 91 and up; but now i do) and the brake pads are beginning to make some noise. Nonetheless, those two things by themselves are not likely to degrade fuel efficiency that badly, right?

 

there's always race gas.

 

IB4TL

 

i use shells v-power every time.

 

Maybe you have a frozen caliper and your car is working against your brakes, making your gas mileage suck extremely bad?

 

I agree with you wholeheartedly, and you hit the nail on the head. There are those who wish to introduce subjective observations to somehow justify their actions. I pump super into a vehicle which doesn't require it. But my car gets better mileage. My KS doesn't get damaged. My car is smoother. My car is cleaner. Girls like me better. whatever they choose to believe.

I have used regular in my 98 Maxima for over 10 years. there is no KS replacement, no mpg suffering, none of the myths have seem to affected my vehicle.

In my other vehicle, the owner's manual states premium is highly recommended, and 89 is the minimum and required. So in that car, I bite the bullet and put super in. Where I live, super is 93, so even that is too much. But I made a decision that it's worth it over 89. Usually, my stations are 10 cents more for mid, 20 cents more for super. Imagine that, even at $4 gal, still 20 cents. Relatively speaking, super has gotten cheaper as regular has gone up. But for the Maxima? I don't want to spend an additional $3.70 a tank, for something it doesn't need.

 

Still running 110 in my 97.

 

When I first got it and before finding the forum I put 87 (Arkansas). After Maxima.org only Premium (Arkanasas and Utah) which is 91. Tried some 101 racing for one week and it was toooooo expensive. Still using 91 and every ones in a while Techron or Lucas, and planning on some Red Line SI-1 here soon.

 

91 chevron for me

 

87

 

I just got the 09 Maxima so I have to put in the premium, it was $65 to fill up the other day, but it's worth the sacrifice for such an amazing car.

 

89 here

 

Hi Folks - 1st post here (since I can't start a new one yet). I just got an 08 SL, and I filled her up with 93 (but I am not married to it).

I had an 03 TL-S that I used regular in for years until I put in a tank of premium one day. I could definitely feel an improvement in performance. One point here consistantly over stated is the results of tests showing no improvement for cars not meant to have premium nor any gas milage improvement. This is true for a cobalt or a tarus. The maxima however, is a higher compression engine, and it is tuned to run on higher octane fuel (my manual says 91 is recommended, but 87 is OK if all available). The engine is forced to adjust to burn regular - not the other way around. Here is my thought:

If you do get higher performance from using premium in a Max (which everyone here seems to agree upon), are you not doing more "work" (as in physics) per gallon of gas used? Will you not have a cumulative total of more work done at the end of the tank per gallon used if you are getting more work per gallon (even if it is only a tenth on a quarter mile as stated)? If not - where is the additional performance gain lost when it comes to MPG at the end of a tank?

 

i use always PREMIUM.only form BP,SUNOCO,OR SHELL.
my max has 212.000,n its giving me 390 with $60.
i think thats good enough...

 

It's been a while since I took physics (11th grade AP), but I remember work being a force over distance. That's like if I'm 6'4" and have long arms, and you're 5'10" and have short arms, when we bench the same weight, I'm doing more work than you are. Or if you hold 225 lbs. over your head, and I lift a flea 1 cm, I'm doing more work. I believe you totally misunderstand the notion of octane and predetonation. When you use super, your fuel will not detonate at the same compression. You can put super into a new 4 cyl. Accord, and you'll just be burning it out the tailpipe. It doesn't have a compression ratio that can benefit from super.

Can a Maxima benefit from super? Yes. Is it worth the money? To me? No. What is that money? It's $3.70 per tank, 18.5 gal times 20 cents per gallon. Will I get lower mpg? No, that's not what octane is all about. Will my knock sensor go bad? No, my car has been using regular for over 10 years, it doesn't need a new knock sensor. Would I have gotten more women over the years if I used super? Probably, but again, it's never been worth the extra $3.70 per tank, which, by the way was a lot when super was 1.29/gal., but not much now that super is around 3.89 (holy cow dropped below $4). Don't get me wrong, I do use super in my other car, as 89 is required and super is recommended. The fact that it's twin turbo, I do let the super argument slide with that car. But with a Maxima? I simply don't think it needs super.