6 ms·

>skimp 'just a little' on quality This already happened across-the-board for all companies. That's how we migrated from 95 and 100 octane ratings, and ratchet

>skimp 'just a little' on quality This already happened across-the-board for all companies. That's how we migrated from 95 and 100 octane ratings, and ratcheted down to 87 and 93. People gradually adjusted to the lower quality until the cars could go no further, and here we are. Actually, just the opposite happened one day about 20 years ago. There was an oil company that did something nobody had thought of in years, they actually made the gasoline better for a while. With promotional advertising they were legitimately claiming you would feel the difference after a tankful or two. The secret was they were simply supplying more than the minimum 87 & 93 octane ratings. They really pulled a fast one there. For a while. Turns out that actually making the product better can even be accomplished in a deceptive way after all. They're gone now, assimilated by a larger company that would never think of such a thing.

mschuster91 4y ago
> That's how we migrated from 95 and 100 octane ratings, and ratcheted down to 87 and 93. People gradually adjusted to the lower quality until the cars could go no further, and here we are. Crazy. Here in Europe, gas stations have generic 95 and 98 (plus some still carry E5 95 for older cars that don't handle 10% ethanol without issues), premium shit for people with supercars (e.g. Shell V Power, 100 octane) and diesel. Can't remember the last time I saw anything less than 95.
- dagw 4y ago
  Worth noting that the US[1] and Europe don't measure "octane" the same way, so they're not directly comparable. The US way of measuring typically results in a number 4-6 'octanes' lower than an equivalent European fuel. So 87 Octane fuel in the US would probably be rated 91-92 in Europe and 93 Octane fuel could be as high as 98-99 Octane under the European system. [1] and Canada and Mexico
  - fuzzfactor 4y ago
    Here's an overview of the standard laboratory antiknock test engine: https://cfrengines.com/about/ https://cfrengines.com/about/ What they don't say is that different oil companies started operating the engines in different ways to begin with, and it took many years before standardization was possible at ASTM. And ASTM was much more North-America focused than ASTM International is today. By that time there were two main methods of conducting the test in the USA, known as the "Research" method and the "Motor" method. These are different ways of operating the same test engine. These antiknock numbers could be quite a bit different from each other, and different oil companies and automotive companies had developed their preferences. In Europe they had basically started out using the Research method alone and stuck with it for commerce. This value is normally consistently higher than the Motor method. Full standardization in the USA was a bureaucratic compromise so it ended up (R+M)/2, so if anyone was to do any whining it would be equal whining for all. Vendors didn't complain, you need two of the reference engines anyway so you can run both methods at the same time: https://event.corelab.com/uploads/F1F2%20Product%20Brochure%20GEA%2030653.pdf https://event.corelab.com/uploads/F1F2%20Product%20Brochure%...
    - mschuster91 4y ago
      TIL, thanks. The downside of being non-American on an American-dominated platform is you'll continuously get trapped in Americans running their own standards no one else uses or even knows about... sigh
gruez 4y ago
>There was an oil company that did something nobody had thought of in years, they actually made the gasoline better for a while. With promotional advertising they were legitimately claiming you would feel the difference after a tankful or two. Source for this being true? All the media articles I've seen basically say something to the effect of "if your car doesn't call for premium gas, there's no point in getting premium gas".
- maxerickson 4y ago
  It's nonsense. There isn't even a national standard for premium, so 93 isn't the minimum. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_standard_octane_ratings https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_stand... You can go buy ethanal free gasoline in lots of areas (often called recreation fuel here). The gas component has to have a high average octane without the added ethanol.
- fuzzfactor 4y ago
  >Source for this being true? It was a little company called Texaco. This was "System 3" gasoline according to their promotion. I was on the testing committee with their chemists. >"if your car doesn't call for premium gas, there's no point in getting premium gas". You are correct to a certain extent, but this is one of those cases where you really need to see for yourself since your actual mileage may actually vary a lot more than you think. 87 octane is figuratively speaking kind of the "bottom of the barrel". You may find with many cars anyway "if you don't want premium performance, there's no point in getting premium gas". Trucks too.
  - gruez 4y ago
    >You may find with many cars anyway "if you don't want premium performance, there's no point in getting premium gas". What does "premium performance" entail here? Better mileage? Better engine performance (eg. 0-60 speed)? More longevity/less maintenance?
    - mrguyorama 4y ago
elil17 4y ago
Lower octane rating isn't really "lower quality." We invented better engines that run just as well on lower octane fuel and then stopped wasting resources producing high octane fuel. Putting higher octane fuel in your car does absolutely nothing unless you have a specialty engine.
- fuzzfactor 4y ago
  Depends on what you call a specialty engine. Lots of these overall better engines are just highly improved fuel-injected V-8's. Quite run-of-the-mill today. Never a specialty to me, when I was learning to drive the most common choices were between small-block V-8's and big-block V-8's. I think we can all be confident that serious resources did not go unwasted, especially after the returns made it to the shareholders of the oil companies.
  - elil17 4y ago
    That's a specialty engine in new cars. In cars made today, you'd find that on a sports car. Older cars do often require higher octane gas because engine design was just worse back then. Less than 20% of new cars need high-octane fuel, and those that do are luxury/sports cars.
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
    A modern V8 is absolutely fine with lower octane fuel. Massive improvements in fuel atomization, compression chamber shape, ignition timing, valve timing, air routing, cooling, basically literally everything about a combustion engine means that we can run a 5 litre V8 with an 11:1 compression ratio on 87 and make ungodly amounts of power. The reduction in required octane is directly related to the fact that old V8s that had garbage compression ratios and horrible fueling got muzzled by emissions regulations so they couldn't compensate for their mediocre engineering by just dumping extra fuel into the process. All those things listed above that are meant to improve resistance to knock ALSO bring way more efficiency, and the interesting thing about gas engines is that higher efficiency often means the specific output is boosted as well. Higher octane ONLY means a higher resistance to knocking. If your car isn't fighting knocking already, that won't improve anything. We could reduce the octane we require and get somewhat cheaper gas, but it would most likely also reduce the power output of the engine (fine nowadays) and the fuel economy (very not fine for most people).

mschuster91 4y ago

> That's how we migrated from 95 and 100 octane ratings, and ratcheted down to 87 and 93. People gradually adjusted to the lower quality until the cars could go no further, and here we are. Crazy. Here in Europe, gas stations have generic 95 and 98 (plus some still carry E5 95 for older cars that don't handle 10% ethanol without issues), premium shit for people with supercars (e.g. Shell V Power, 100 octane) and diesel. Can't remember the last time I saw anything less than 95.

dagw 4y ago
Worth noting that the US[1] and Europe don't measure "octane" the same way, so they're not directly comparable. The US way of measuring typically results in a number 4-6 'octanes' lower than an equivalent European fuel. So 87 Octane fuel in the US would probably be rated 91-92 in Europe and 93 Octane fuel could be as high as 98-99 Octane under the European system. [1] and Canada and Mexico
- fuzzfactor 4y ago
  Here's an overview of the standard laboratory antiknock test engine: https://cfrengines.com/about/ https://cfrengines.com/about/ What they don't say is that different oil companies started operating the engines in different ways to begin with, and it took many years before standardization was possible at ASTM. And ASTM was much more North-America focused than ASTM International is today. By that time there were two main methods of conducting the test in the USA, known as the "Research" method and the "Motor" method. These are different ways of operating the same test engine. These antiknock numbers could be quite a bit different from each other, and different oil companies and automotive companies had developed their preferences. In Europe they had basically started out using the Research method alone and stuck with it for commerce. This value is normally consistently higher than the Motor method. Full standardization in the USA was a bureaucratic compromise so it ended up (R+M)/2, so if anyone was to do any whining it would be equal whining for all. Vendors didn't complain, you need two of the reference engines anyway so you can run both methods at the same time: https://event.corelab.com/uploads/F1F2%20Product%20Brochure%20GEA%2030653.pdf https://event.corelab.com/uploads/F1F2%20Product%20Brochure%...
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    TIL, thanks. The downside of being non-American on an American-dominated platform is you'll continuously get trapped in Americans running their own standards no one else uses or even knows about... sigh

gruez 4y ago

>There was an oil company that did something nobody had thought of in years, they actually made the gasoline better for a while. With promotional advertising they were legitimately claiming you would feel the difference after a tankful or two. Source for this being true? All the media articles I've seen basically say something to the effect of "if your car doesn't call for premium gas, there's no point in getting premium gas".

maxerickson 4y ago
It's nonsense. There isn't even a national standard for premium, so 93 isn't the minimum. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_standard_octane_ratings https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_stand... You can go buy ethanal free gasoline in lots of areas (often called recreation fuel here). The gas component has to have a high average octane without the added ethanol.
fuzzfactor 4y ago
>Source for this being true? It was a little company called Texaco. This was "System 3" gasoline according to their promotion. I was on the testing committee with their chemists. >"if your car doesn't call for premium gas, there's no point in getting premium gas". You are correct to a certain extent, but this is one of those cases where you really need to see for yourself since your actual mileage may actually vary a lot more than you think. 87 octane is figuratively speaking kind of the "bottom of the barrel". You may find with many cars anyway "if you don't want premium performance, there's no point in getting premium gas". Trucks too.
- gruez 4y ago
  >You may find with many cars anyway "if you don't want premium performance, there's no point in getting premium gas". What does "premium performance" entail here? Better mileage? Better engine performance (eg. 0-60 speed)? More longevity/less maintenance?
  - mrguyorama 4y ago

elil17 4y ago

Lower octane rating isn't really "lower quality." We invented better engines that run just as well on lower octane fuel and then stopped wasting resources producing high octane fuel. Putting higher octane fuel in your car does absolutely nothing unless you have a specialty engine.

fuzzfactor 4y ago
Depends on what you call a specialty engine. Lots of these overall better engines are just highly improved fuel-injected V-8's. Quite run-of-the-mill today. Never a specialty to me, when I was learning to drive the most common choices were between small-block V-8's and big-block V-8's. I think we can all be confident that serious resources did not go unwasted, especially after the returns made it to the shareholders of the oil companies.
- elil17 4y ago
  That's a specialty engine in new cars. In cars made today, you'd find that on a sports car. Older cars do often require higher octane gas because engine design was just worse back then. Less than 20% of new cars need high-octane fuel, and those that do are luxury/sports cars.
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  A modern V8 is absolutely fine with lower octane fuel. Massive improvements in fuel atomization, compression chamber shape, ignition timing, valve timing, air routing, cooling, basically literally everything about a combustion engine means that we can run a 5 litre V8 with an 11:1 compression ratio on 87 and make ungodly amounts of power. The reduction in required octane is directly related to the fact that old V8s that had garbage compression ratios and horrible fueling got muzzled by emissions regulations so they couldn't compensate for their mediocre engineering by just dumping extra fuel into the process. All those things listed above that are meant to improve resistance to knock ALSO bring way more efficiency, and the interesting thing about gas engines is that higher efficiency often means the specific output is boosted as well. Higher octane ONLY means a higher resistance to knocking. If your car isn't fighting knocking already, that won't improve anything. We could reduce the octane we require and get somewhat cheaper gas, but it would most likely also reduce the power output of the engine (fine nowadays) and the fuel economy (very not fine for most people).