There are conspiracy buffs that think the premium fuel is just one big ruse and there are no real premium fuel benefits by using it. However, many mainstream studies have shown that premium gas is indeed more efficient. But, is premium fuel really necessary for your everyday car? Or, is premium fuel only a necessity for top of the range cars and IndyCar prototypes? These are the questions that most of us gearheads want to know. Luckily for us, we have an awesome elaboration here made by the You Tube channel – Engineering Explained! To be more precise, Engineering Explained is elaborating a study that was published on “SNA International”.
The study was conducted in a way that 5 vehicles were put to the test. There is a car from US, Europe and three from Asia. Some of the cars are port injected and naturally aspirated while others are direct injection with turbocharged engine. All of these vehicles come with a preference from the manufacturer to be driven with premium fuel. For testing purposes, each of them was driven both with premium and regular fuel.
When the testing was done, the results were largely in favor of premium fuel. However, the scale of premium fuel benefits depended on the car. The first test was acceleration. The European car gained nearly 4% increase in acceleration performance by using the premium fuel! With the American car, however, no significant boost in acceleration performance happened. When it comes to the three Asian cars, here we can see a diversity. The 4.0L car had a slight improvement, the 2.4L Asian had a major improvement and with the 2.5L no acceleration improvement whatsoever. Up next is the test which is supposed to show whether premium fuel can lower exhaust gas temperatures.
By using premium fuel, the European car showed significant difference. It managed to lower the gas exhaust temp by 16 degrees! Both the American and the 4.0L Asian showed no difference. However, both the 2.4L Asian and 2.5L showed remarkable improvements when it comes to lowering the exhaust gas temperature! What do you think about the premium fuel benefits?
At last, follow this link to read 10 fuel saving tips!
