Gas-Saving Moment of the Day: Mix Your Octanes

Today's gas-saving moment comes courtesy of Cars.com senior editor Joe Wiesenfelder, who has an interesting idea about octane ratings. We mentioned before that unless your car "requires" a higher octane, you can go with the cheap stuff. Even if it's required, though, you can consider splitting your octanes.

According to Wiesenfelder, "Yes, most cars can run on regular, but some cars require premium and some drivers insist on using the recommended octane.

"To that end, I’ll use Chicago as an example. We get a choice of 87, 89 and 93 octane, but the overwhelming majority of cars that call for premium want 91 octane. That means there are people out there who pay extra for 93. There is zero benefit to running any car on higher octane than it’s spec’d for.

"It was probably too much of a pain before, but with pennies being squeezed, it might be worth people’s while to fill half with 89 octane and half with 93. The result is a tankful of 91 for less money."

How much less money? Not a fortune certainly, but when evaluating how to best pinch your pennies, it's good to check out every last nook and cranny for savings.

Related:
More Gas-Saving Moments of the Day (KickingTires)

Comments

I've considered this fuel mixing in the past. A super-added-bonus complication I found was the pump itself. The pump that I tried it on wouldn't let me switch octanes on the fly. Therefore if I was going to give it a little bit of 89 and a little bit of 93 I'd have to swipe my debit card and enter my PIN again twice on every fill up. It didn't seem to be worth the effort.

NOTE: I only tried it once on one pump and it was enough to discourage me from bothering to try it again. Perhaps this was a one-pump phenomenon and others let you simply choose another grade within the same transaction.

Haaa, all I want to know is where in Chicago did you find premium for 2.69 a gallon. I am guessing that picture is a few years old.

west philly,

i think you're correct that the pump station won't let u fill up with one pump, hang it up, and continue with another pump. i tried that a few times at several gas stations over the past few years. none let you do that. i think that is a protective mechanism.

suppose there is a line for gas. you're done pumping, hang up, drive away fast, and someone else is already at the pump. if the pump station didn't end your transaction on the first pump-hang-up, you would have a lot of unhappy credit card customers complaining to the gas station and their credit cards that they were paying for someone else's gas!

i'm not an expert, but i don't think putting in 1/2 a tank of 93 octane and 1/2 a tank of 89 really results in a tank of 91.

tbh, i think that could hurt an engine that requires pure, real 91.

My wife tried this with disastorous results. There again petrol and diesel dont really work. At the time diesel was cheaper than petrol and you know what women are like when they think they see a bargain!

The problem isn't too high of an AKI of the premium in Chicago, it is too low in California, 91.

The US should adopt European standards, nationwide.
86, 90, 93.