Premium fuel?

[outdoorphotog]

91 top tier only here...

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[Mustangman02232]

I spend the extra $2 to fill up with premium,

 

[Floyd]

When I first got my Ranger, I tried premium and compared it to 87 octane E10 and regular unleaded without ethanol.
My experience is only anecdotal and my trailer is on;y a couple of thousand pounds, but I found no significant difference, towing, hauling, or just daily driving.
My truck gets 87 octane E10 exclusively (Almost )

 

[JaysOnTheEDGE]

Run the 91+ octane and after you finish the break-in don't be afraid to beat on it a little. The truck will run amazing if you push it every once in a while.

 

[pull string get cookies]

When I first got my Ranger, I tried premium and compared it to 87 octane E10 and regular unleaded without ethanol.
My experience is only anecdotal and my trailer is on;y a couple of thousand pounds, but I found no significant difference, towing, hauling, or just daily driving.
My truck gets 87 octane E10 exclusively (Almost )

Interested to hear how many tanks/miles you allowed for each grade of fuel for your comparison.

 

[Floyd]

Interested to hear how many tanks/miles you allowed for each grade of fuel for your comparison.

Interested to hear how many tanks/miles you allowed for each grade of fuel for your comparison.

Anecdotal, not scientific, but each incident started with filling a near empty tank with the intended fuel , In each case, probably no more than a couple of tanks before switching back to 87 octane E10.
I must go outside IllAnnoy to find non ethanol.
Also it must be noted that my trailer is is nowhere near the weight limit and is very aero...

 

[pull string get cookies]

Anecdotal, not scientific, but each incident started with filling a near empty tank with the intended fuel , In each case, probably no more than a couple of tanks before switching back to 87 octane E10.
I must go outside IllAnnoy to find non ethanol.
Also it must be noted that my trailer is is nowhere near the weight limit and is very aero...

Thanks for your response. Nice camper btw!

 

[T Bone]

Anecdotal, not scientific, but each incident started with filling a near empty tank with the intended fuel , In each case, probably no more than a couple of tanks before switching back to 87 octane E10.
I must go outside IllAnnoy to find non ethanol.
Also it must be noted that my trailer is is nowhere near the weight limit and is very aero...

i am totally digging that little camper!

 

[slowmachine]

I went on a long drive today, and managed to get the tank level down just below half. I kept the radio off so I could hear the engine as much as possible. Based on today’s drive, I feel comfortable running this tank until the warning light comes on before refilling with 93 octane. If there is a meaningful difference I’ll know immediately on the next tank. FWIW, premium fuel is about 50 cents/gallon higher than regular where we live. At 25 MPG and 15,000 miles, that amounts to a yearly difference of $300. That’s not enough money for me to choose regular for the lower cost alone.

 

[joeb427]

I went on a long drive today, and managed to get the tank level down just below half. I kept the radio off so I could hear the engine as much as possible. Based on today’s drive, I feel comfortable running this tank until the warning light comes on before refilling with 93 octane. If there is a meaningful difference I’ll know immediately on the next tank. FWIW, premium fuel is about 50 cents/gallon higher than regular where we live. At 25 MPG and 15,000 miles, that amounts to a yearly difference of $300. That’s not enough money for me to choose regular for the lower cost alone.

I believe it will take more than one tank to feel a difference.

 

[slowmachine]

I believe it will take more than one tank to feel a difference.

My truck is brand new and on its first tank of gas. Do you really think that 7/8 tank of 93 octane won’t make an immediate difference? If so, why?

 

[FX4Offroad]

My truck is brand new and on its first tank of gas. Do you really think that 7/8 tank of 93 octane won’t make an immediate difference? If so, why?

It will take a few tanks. Be patient.

Of course, if you only had one tank of 87, you really have nothing to compare it to.

Be patient.

 

[FX4Offroad]

Let me provide more detail on my experiences.

I ran 87 since I bought the truck in late August, 2019. It ran great but I did have issues with heavy turbo lag in Drive mode. The lag is horrible...I mean REAL BAD. I want to punch it and it hangs for up to 3 seconds before it kicked in. Now, if you don't think that's bad, imangine punching the pedal and count 3 seconds. That's unacceptable.

Another thing I didn't like was running in city, slow, stop and go driving. The truck seems to hesitate, skip and just doesn't seem to have sufficient power at slower speeds...in Drive mode running 87 octane.

So I did some reading and started using Sport mode. That almost resolved the turbo lag. Remember, still running 87 octane.

Problem with Sport mode is that it runs at a much higher RPM and seems to hang in the gears longer. MPGs tanked however, that was probably because Sport mode was much more peppy and fun to drive and added a few pounds to my right foot.

Now, all that said, I eventually decided to listen to some of those on this forum and decided to try premium fuel. 91 octane. I had about 10,000 mi on the truck by this time and ran premium for about 6 tanks. It took 2 to 3 tanks to really feel a difference. I continued to run premium for another few tanks but I'm cheap so decided to go back to 87 octane. Bad decision

I will be going back to premium from this point forward. I now have about 15,000 miles on my truck and miss the better overall driving experience especially at slower speeds.

When I ran premium, in Drive mode, it ran great at slow speeds, turbo lag was much more reasonable however it was still present. I will just have to suck it up and run premium.

The truck really runs much better on premium fuel in Drive mode.

Oh, I should mention that running premium fuel in Sport mode is ridiculous. It's almost hard to control at times because of the extra power it has.

Lastly, premium didn't net me any better MPGs that I noticed but to be honest, I wasn't tracking that.

My two cents.

 

[slowmachine]

The typical engine control mechanism to compensate for octane deficiency is to retard ignition timing. The sampling frequency is several times per ignition event. The ECU will alternately advance and retard timing to find a ”sweet spot” where no damaging pre-ignition of the fuel charge (knocking) occurs. With some engines, like the Miata that I mentioned earlier, you can hear it beginning to knock under acceleration, then correct itself. Increasing octane allows for more advanced ignition timing, creating more power. In the case of the Miata (1996, in my case) the increased octane and power also increased the MPG to the point where the cost per mile was just about identical between regular and premium fuels. More power = more fun, so I used only premium after figuring this out. Not every engine will respond this way, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this engine will behave the same way. I think that I am hearing and feelIng the same knocking under light accelleration, though the Ranger cabin insulation is light years better than that fantastic Miata, and I’m looking forward to the same smile-inducing performance boost.

 

[Floyd]

The Ranger has the most sophisticated fuel management system ever devised.
I don't believe it would take more than one tank each to see the difference from one tank to another.
I also do believe that load, driving habits and conditions could definitely show a difference as well.
When you get close to performance or load limits, the differences should start to emerge and show the advantages of higher octane.
If you change the Factory tune which is optimized for 87 octane you would see a marked difference as well.
I drive fairly conservatively with occasional enthusiastic moments at WOT, on a stock tune... thus negligible difference.

Note: my truck is a SuperCab 2WD so it is carrying around less weight than most Rangers as well, and I live at 500 feet above sea level in flat corn country, although I do travel extensively.

So many variables produce so many results!
Overall, this truck is squarely in the "sweet spot" of my needs and just barely off center of my desires.

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