Have you ever heard one of your friends say: “i only use 90 gas in my car” have you ever ask yourself: why? whats wrong with 87 gasoline? and why only the taxi men buy 87 gasoline? to get the answers to these questions, first we must ask ourselves: whats the difference between the two?
Differences
The number 87 and 90 are usually use when referring to the octane ratings of the fuel, however; the Octance rating is not a measure of the energy capacity of the fuel which is often times where the confusion comes in. Octane is an hydrocarbon. Gasoline is not compose solely of octane, it is however compose of many hydrocarbons and octane is just one of them. So what does 87 and 90 mean? well chemist need a way to predict the combustability of fuel,how likely it is to detonate, hence in a controlled environment gasoline is compared to a pure mixture of ISO octane and heptane (isomers of octane and heptane)
Gasoline that have the same detonation point as 90% iso octane and 10% heptane is given the ratings 90. This is important to know because this means that 87 gasoline is more likely to detonate at a lower compression ratio when compared to 90 gasoline. Early combustion can cause engine knocking and lower performance
Engines are however design to work perfectly on 87 gasoline as all engines are equipped with a knock sensor this tells the ECU (electronic control unit) whenever there is knocking in the engine and the ECU in turn regulates the spark ignition and the fuel injection to the engine.
Higher octane fuel are however necessary for vehicle with higher compression ratios. Vehicles with turbo chargers and superchargers have higher compression ratios and as such its absolutely important that fuel combustion takes place at the correct time.
conclusion
So no your ordinary Toyota corolla does not need premium gas to run efficiently and no: you will not get more miles when using 90 over 87. Whats more important to take note of is: detergent additives which are added to fuels, these helps clean you engine and remove any deposit from burnt fuel. These additives are added to both 87 and 90 so here again both are just as good. so to concluded unless you drive a fancy sport car like WRX then you probably dont need premium gasoline and you are really just burning up your money hard earn money,literally.
until next time drive well!