Avoid ethanol belnd fuel

Hawkzilla · Tue Jun 22, 2010 5:08 pm

I was putting 91 octane gas in my Kizashi, but wanted to see how the cheaper 89 octane 10% ethanol blend would do. Well I'm at the end of a full tank of this stuff and the results are in... do NOT use this in your Kizashi. I notice a significant drop in city MPG and also in engine response. I will be going back to the premium 91 octane gas from now on.

uforaverwill · Tue Jun 22, 2010 5:30 pm

Hawkzilla wrote:I was putting 91 octane gas in my Kizashi, but wanted to see how the cheaper 89 octane 10% ethanol blend would do. Well I'm at the end of a full tank of this stuff and the results are in... do NOT use this in your Kizashi. I notice a significant drop in city MPG and also in engine response. I will be going back to the premium 91 octane gas from now on.

Wow. You put premium 91 in your Kizzy. I just put regular and I am averaging 28.9 mpg. If I had the money I would use premium but I will stick to just plain regular. Nice to know that premium does help the car get better mpg. Thanks

TheHolyGhost · Tue Jun 22, 2010 5:53 pm

I've been using regular as well. As I said in another post I got about 32-34 MPG on almost all highway on a recent trip.

gaww · Tue Jun 22, 2010 6:24 pm

I initially thought i was getting better mileage and performance with premium, but after a few tankfuls of both. I am back to regular - no impact.

However, I would avoid Ethanol anyway. It is caustic to your fuel system (even tough manufacturers have upgraded their materials to better handle it). This boondoggle is even bigger and more wasteful that the MTBE fiasco a few years back. I ran into it a lot in SC, but not so far in NC.

TheHolyGhost · Wed Jun 23, 2010 12:17 am

Hey Gaww, where are you in NC?

Also, it seems to me that it's a waste of money to put premium in it because the car isn't really tuned to take advantage of it. Unless you were getting detonation with 87 and your timing was getting retarded I can't see it offering much improvement.

Senegal · Wed Jun 23, 2010 2:42 am

i was reading an article once that explained "premium" fuel actually has less units of energy in it, so in a sense you should not get better mpg with premium.

I tried some ethanol blend while I was passing thru Iowa (where else..lol) and I agree, this car doesn't like it at all, mpg was down and engine just wasn't happy revving.

TheHolyGhost · Wed Jun 23, 2010 3:49 am

I can only see ethanol becoming more popular, hopefully they can tune it or something for that, otherwise it could become a bigger problem down the road.

jimmerz · Thu Jul 08, 2010 10:50 pm

The car only requires 87 octane 91 is just a waste of money.

purpleanga · Mon Aug 30, 2010 7:35 am

This car has a compression ratio of 10.0. That's not exactly low but it's also not exactly high to where you'll see significant benefits of 87+ octane. Engine might run a little smoother, power should stay the same, maybe 1 additional HP if you're flooring it. Maybe a few more MPGs. Again, with the specs of this engine, difference between 87 and 91 should be minimal.

Cars with compression ratios of 10.5 and above usually recommended using premium. If you're going to go for premium in this car, 89 would probably be better, and cheaper than 91.

will2k · Mon Aug 30, 2010 3:37 pm

It's weird because here in Australia normal fuel is 91 Octane then there's 95 and 98.

I used 95 for a bit and got good mileage and performance and now im trying the 98. I didn't like the 91 octane here that much but the 95 seemed very good so i'll probably go back to that.