Monday, September 13, 2010

Premium Gas - What's The Deal?


I know nothing about cars. What's a carburetor? I have no idea. In fact, I just impressed myself that I knew the word carburetor. So, when I bought my car and they told me it takes premium gas, I said, "aye-aye cap!" (literally)


Now, you might be wondering, "Newman, what kind of car are you driving that takes premium gas?!" Answer: The kind of car that requires premium gasoline. I'm not going to say it's a Ferrari, but I'm not going to say it's not a Ferrari (it's not a Ferrari.)


So, after a while, this premium stuff really took a toll on my wallet. I switched to regular. After a while with regular, I got nervous I was hurting my car and opted for a happy medium - plus. The thing is, I've never noticed a difference in any of these gasoline's. There are a million-and-one articles on the benefits and lack-there-of of premium gasoline on the Internet and I have no idea what to believe.


So here are my basic questions:


1. Is premium worth it?


2. Am I hurting my car?


3. True or False, premium gas gives my car the ability to fly for short periods of time?


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I had a car that said premium only - except I didn't see it until 2 years after I bought the car and had been using regular. I think it ran fine.

Unknown said...

I was curious about the same thing (and still am...) I bought a used 2006 Infiniti G35x last december and never bothered to ask what kind of gas it took. The first time I took it to the gas station I was astonished to read on the cap PREMIUM only. So I put in Premium... and then noticed my bank account dwindle... so I decided to put in Premium today, Plus tomorrow and Regular the day after...

When I asked a car expert friend of mine about my gas dilemma he told me that Premium will ultimately give you better gas mileage and you won't hurt your car when trying to accelerate from a dead stop. If you use Regular or Plus (in our case one really isn't better than the next) you could damage the car by accelerating too quickly. So do I continue to pay close to $3 a gallon for Premium, or do I lay off the gas when I'm at a complete stop and ease my way up to 45 mph. I definitely wouldn't mind to hear what everyone else has to say cause I need help too!

Toni Ryan said...

1) Maybe
2) No*
3) True

As for #2... are you hurting your car? I really don't think so. As for whether or not you are hurting its feelings, I do however think yes.

I do think that when a car's been running faithfully on superpremium gas, it runs better. At least it does in my mind. It makes less sounds and gets less broken. Could just be psychological.

I can tell you that the mistake you don't want to make is accidentally putting LEADED gas into your UNLEADED car and vice versa. You might be too young to remember this, but there was a time when you had to clearly make that distinction, and there was never "OH SHOOTS!" moment if you ever got it mixed up.