Originally Posted by Kestas
Originally Posted by Mr Nice
Couldn't some shady stations be selling 87 octane as premium 93 octane ?
It's been reported on the BMW forums that some stations do this. Some BMW models are sensitive enough to where the computer records the octane of gas used.
I wondered about this when my FXT started running poorly after a fillup on a very warm (for where I live) Saturday.
The FA20DIT has had some issues with surging in hot weather, but it was fine for the 2 hours or so I was driving around in the same weather before I got gas at a (very expensive!) Cumby station I almost never use.
My manual says that down to 87 can be used if necessary with the caveat that it probably won't run well below 91 octane. 93 is preferred per Subaru and a Subaru dealer told me that I had better not come to them complaining about how poorly my car was running if I didn't use SHELL 93!
Originally Posted by Kestas
Originally Posted by Virtus_Probi
I did notice at an out of the way station up in the Whites of NH that the pumps had the numbers "925" hastily slapped over where it had said "93" for the premium.
I would assume an inspector came by and forced them to stop advertising 93 based upon his testing?
I was impressed that the testing apparently was good to 0.5 octane...
I'll bet the station owner argued that 92.5 rounds up to 93. After all, the octane is posted at 93, not 93.0. We use the same argument at work when checking material to specification.
I am sure the owner must have been hot about that one!
I can't imagine why else the numbers would have been changed if an inspector hadn't forced it...I think this was when I still had a "RAV6" that ran fine on 87, so I didn't care.