Does Octane Rating Really Matter?

TGinAZ

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YES, it does! You should certainly follow the manufacturers recommendation, but it pains me when I hear people say higher octane fuel is better. Yes, it's made for a specific purpose, but you're wasting your money if you don't need it - it's not simply "better."

With that thought in mind, a more measured test, although not Ranger-specific, might highlight a few things:

Is Premium Gas Worth it? We Test High Octane on 4 Popular Vehicles

https://www.caranddriver.com/review...onda-cr-v-vs-bmw-m5-ford-f-150-dodge-charger/

Your thoughts?
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Lunchbox88

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YES, it does! You should certainly follow the manufacturers recommendation, but it pains me when I hear people say higher octane fuel is better. Yes, it's made for a specific purpose, but you're wasting your money if you don't need it - it's not simply "better."

With that thought in mind, a more measured test, although not Ranger-specific, might highlight a few things:

Is Premium Gas Worth it? We Test High Octane on 4 Popular Vehicles

https://www.caranddriver.com/review...onda-cr-v-vs-bmw-m5-ford-f-150-dodge-charger/

Your thoughts?
I mean I think they summed it up well in their F-150 section. There are noticeable gains with 93 octane over 87, but it probably doesn't make financial sense to run it if you don't care about the extra performance. Only other note would be you might want to run it if you are towing any heavy loads/steep grades to reduce the chance of knock.

-ARTICLE QUOTE-
"At 128.7 horsepower per liter, the F-150's high-output V-6 engine is more power dense than a Porsche 911 Carrera's twin-turbo flat-six. Naturally then, the Ford hauls ass as effortlessly as it hauls a half-ton of manure. When fed 93 octane, this 5594-pound, self-propelled wheelbarrow will crash 60 mph in 5.3 seconds.

Power at the wheels dropped from 380 to 360 horsepower with the change from 93 to 87 octane. That difference seemed to grow, and we could even feel it from the driver's seat at the test track. Compared with premium fuel, regular feed sapped the F-150's urgency both leaving the line and in the meat of the tach sweep. The rush to 60 mph softened to a still-blistering 5.9 seconds, and the quarter-mile stretched from 14.0 to 14.5 seconds, with trap speed falling 4 mph. Tapped into the Ford's CAN bus, we recorded a peak boost pressure roughly 1.9 psi lower during acceleration runs on regular gas, down more than 10 percent compared with the 18.1-psi peak on premium. The high-octane gas also helped when soft-pedaling the accelerator, elevating 75-mph fuel economy from 17.0 to 17.6 mpg. That won't make a financial case for running 93 octane, but then you didn't buy the expensive engine as a rational choice. You can think of this EcoBoost engine's more aggressive high-octane tune as a sort-of sport mode that can be switched on or off with every fill of its 36.0-gallon tank."
 

DHare

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I think this has been thoroughly flogged to death in another thread.
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