Nice little thought provoking article supporting the use of regular gas even when premium is called for by the auto manufacturer.
http://www.cartalk.com/content/featu...ths.html#myth3

Good information, but keep in mind:

"We don't believe that any modern engine that claims to require premium will be damaged by using regular unleaded judiciously."

Judiciously is the key word in that last point. Could I run my heavily modded SSEi on 87 octane? Sure.
Would it make it past 50% throttle without predetination? Not likely.

What'* the fun in driving a supercharged car that craps as soon as it starts making boost?

I'm calling they really don't know what their talking about BS. Occasional pinging is OK???

And running regular to have your engine pull timing so it doesn't ping is OK???

Engine knock or "ping" (term they seem to like to refer to it as) (downplay?) is not OK. And neither is occasional knocking when an engine needs torque and results in a knock. Knocking causes engine wear. Period. And extended knocking can cause a hole in your piston. People who have supercharged n/a engines without supporting mods know this all to clearly.

Running regular gas in a premium engine with antiknock sensors and the resultant pulled timing isnt saving you any money. It reduces performance and usually gives you MPG much less than the premium needed. We have done this with the GXP in several threads over the years and the "saving'* doesn't play out running regular over premium. And that has been pretty much 100%. Also when an antiknock sensor "hears" knock, the engine is already having damaging effects.

From the article:
If you take our advice and drive judiciously — without lead-footing or overloading your car — and you don't hear pinging, you can use regular fuel. Of course, you'll lose that warm feeling of giving oil companies an average of 20-30 cents more per gallon of gas. And, you will lose performance that under most driving situations won't be noticeable.

Who'* drives "judiciously" enough not to hear knocking in a high compression engine?
And again, any knock is not a good thing.

Engines come in all varieties. Starting with regular if the engine doesn't knock when accelerating or going up a hill, fine. If it does move up a grade till it doesn't.

Also do a MPG study of your car, with my GXP it gets it'* best MPG with Premium. With the Prius it'* Mid Grade. Regular delivers less mileage, but Premium doesn't add to it......My truck don't care, but it does seem to like tax free kerosene over diesel when I'm,"offroad using" it.

There was a lot of opinion in that article and very little FACT.

FACT - I get knock retard when I run regular unleaded in my engine.

I did get a BIG chuckle from this excerpt of the article, " .....pulling heavy weight, hard acceleration or driving in hot weather. Any combination of these factors can affect load. So, if you live out in the desert Southwest, it'* 115 degrees out and you're hauling your mother-in law up, you're going to need premium"

Keep in mind, just because we have knock sensors and it pulls timing does not mean it'* all good. The knock is there, that'* what the sensor hears. The damaging knock has already occurred. I've seen several chipped pistons. A normal daily driver with a NA engine will do fine on 87. Trucks pulling heavy loads, high performance engines, no, higher octane gas only.