Hey everyone, I just got my 2011 X MR last week, and am not sure which is the best fuel to use. I've partially fallen for all of Shell's advertising, and their V-Power looks to be really good, but is only 91 octane, but has zero ethanol.

Husky has 94 octane, but has 10% Ethanol. The manual says to use 93 or better, but 91 is ok.

What is the best? I don't care about the price difference, I just want it to run the best, safest, and longest.

Though I do like airmiles from Shell

 

If all you have is 91, I'd first get it retuned for lower octane. The stock tune is meant for 93 and will knock more on 91.

If you have higher octane available, use it. If you can get 93 or 94, don't even waste time with 91. It's not worth it on your motor.

 

Cool. Well, Husky's are all over the place. I can even get 94 in the small town my wife works beside.

Thanks for the help.

 

My advice, use the highest octane you can find. Besides special expensive stuff like race fuel.

Some places that have 94 tend to charge a *lot* more for it which makes it not as useful. If it's not a big difference in price, use 94, if it is, use 93 and you'll be fine.

If you are in an emergency and forced to run 91 or lower, don't boost and you should be fine. Drive like Grandma.

 

i try to only use shell if i can. may just be in my head, but my car seems to run smoother on shell gas. Although they have 93 octane here at shell.

 

What everyone else said, I wish we got 93 on this side of the country were stuck with crappy *** 91, and I'm sure the 91 here is higher then your 93 too lol

 

wow.. you are all spoiled with 93+ octane :[
haha

 

Our Sunoco in Michigan previously had 94 Octane. All stations in my area except one had fair pricing on it too. One near my house of course charged a whopping $1.40/gal more for it, the rest were only 10-20 cents more for 94.

Then one day, without warning or notice (thanks for that Sunoco) it vanished. "Ultra 94" became "Ultra 93" and that was that. Gone. Feel real sorry for the guys tuned for it. They sell race fuel on Woodward which is 105 octane I believe. Never used it.

 

^I do miss 94 octane at Sunoco, that was a nice option and it usually only cost a few cents more. Now Sunoco offers 87-89-91-93 whereas the typical station around here has only 87-89-93.

I have always been a fan of Shell V-Power 93 octane and would recommend this to the OP. It's a shame only 91 is all that's available to you though. The Evo and my previous car always seems "normal" when Shell's product is in the tank. BP, Sunoco and HESS are my alternates and I'll only purchase off-brand fuel in an emergency. Wawa (local convenience store) offers 92 octane...who knows where that's coming from haha. I do prefer stations that offer dedicated lines at each pump station though (each octane has its own nozzle); this results in less of the last user's selection (which is probably lower octane) from ending up in your tank.

 

Anyone else ever notice that you can get a burst of free gas by continually squeezing and releasing the fuel pump trigger almost immediately after selecting the grade?

There's a transition where you can't pump gas, to where you can. The pump is either loose or hard to squeeze. If you have it already squeezed when it transitions from loose to hard, it will do nothing. If it's not squeezed and you squeeze it the *instant* it gives you control and gets firm, you'll get a burst of full strength fuel for about 1 second and it will click. Then the pump thinks you're ready to start fueling, clears to $0.00 and then makes you release and finally squeeze the pump again to start getting your gas.

It's probably 20-80 cents worth at best, but you'll find that almost every gas pump that operates like that usually has this flaw. It's a dumb attempt at prevention to simply ignore fuel if it's depressed while leaving an obvious 100-250 millisecond "gap" where you can still press it and get a burst of fuel. Whoever programmed that system should be shot.

<gas rant>Also pumps can be programmed to not slow down 60-90 cents away from finish. Sucks when it's cold out and you're counting pennies for another 20 seconds in zero degree weather. I found a few places that actually read the manual and programmed theirs to slow down 10 cents before stopping and it's worth going to them when it's cold. </gas rant>

Maybe it's the software developer in me but I find lots of bugs in everyday appliances like this. Anyone else notice? This is *NOT* a single gas station, almost 9/10 gas stations in this state have the flaw.

Obviously you decide if you should do this or not. I find things like this amusing more than some way of gaming the system or stealing. I enjoy secret things like sending elevators to a certain floor without stopping by using a secret key sequence that works across brands.... Go from floor 2 to 17 without a stop. Similar to us with ECUFlash, reverse engineering is fun

 

When I first bought my Evo X and drove it off the lot, it felt certainly different compared to what is now. I was told by one person at the dealership NOT to use E10 and stick with 91 octane (ethanol-free). Last month, I visited the dealership again and asked another person which gas station they use. I drove there and found out that the only compatible octane gas they had was 93 octane (with E10). That certainly cleared up the difference. Now, I'm thinking of switching to 93 octane (with E10). My Evo X is still completely stock and don't plan on making engine modifications until the car is nearly paid off or until the warranty expires. I just hope there won't be problems down the road running E10. Doing Google searches, always gives mixed reviews - some saying it's completely safe... other's saying it's not.

 

I usually fill up at Shell and Petro Canada and run 91 octane. I have a tune for it.

Even when I didn't have the tune... I still ran 91 octane. I think you can run 91 but to get the most out of the car you should use 93 octane (94 in Canada).

 

I vote for 93+, or retune and 91.

 

I have a Love's station close to the house and I have run there 93 with the E10, since it was new, for almost 20k miles and it works great for me daily driving. When I go to the track I run the tank as low as I can (light comes on)and then pump a 2-3 gal of 107?octane (as high as I can go with no lead) in for 1/4 mile runs.

 

I run 91 w/o a tune. That's only because they don't sell any higher in LA.