I have a LE base. I mainly use shell 87, sometimes 91 on tuesdays when its the same price as 89. Also use luca fuel injector cleaner once a month. Drive 80% highway and been getting 43 mpg on the highway. 37-38 combined.

 

LE+ Shell 87 cuz it's most of the time, cheaper or same price as costco here. most all my driving is city (i'd say 95-97%) with some highway if i decide to use the freeway in lieu of city streets, same distances though.

 

So I want to know what brand of gas you use, octance, and what type of Corolla are you driving?

Whatever is on sale or whatever is available when I need gas. 87 octane. S Plus

The reason I ask this is because fueling my car ever since I bought it using Costco gas octane 87. I averaged at about 26MPG with about 90% city.
I just recently thought of fueling with Shell Octane 87, since I heard it is better and cleaner gas. Now my HUD reads about 29MPG.

For the most part, gas is gas. What makes it different by brand is the additives they use. It's mostly cleaners and what not. I'm sure, using tier 1 gas will help in the long run. http://www.toptiergas.com/retailers.html

Is it really possible to gain 3-4 mpg by switching to a "cleaner" & "better" gas brand? And will a higher octane help my mpg/power? I know the manual says 87 but I know some people who fuel their corolla's with the premium stuff of Octane 91/92.

Using a higher octane will not help mpg/power. If anything, it will decrease it so save your $.

What are you guys/girls thoughts on this?

 

Unless your car specifies higher octane it will not do you any good. Higher octane fuel is not more powerful, it just does not ignite under higher compression or due to valve timing changes where the higher compression or valve timing changes give you more HP, not the fuel itself.

 

87...whatever is close and on the side of the road I'm on.

 

I use Shell 87 have always noticed a little better MPG compared to cheaper fuels so I just prefer to keep the engine cleaner with the better additive packages. Don't use premium gas as it's just a waste of money & it has less energy in it then 87 octane. The other negative it that using higher octane gas in an engine not designed for it will add carbon deposits that will cause trouble later. Save your money & stick to using a quality 87 octane like Shell, Chevron or 76. :thumbsup:

 

Premium gas is a waste of money in cars like a Corolla. The higher the octane the more resistive the fuel is to burn. You use higher octane in performance vehicles with a high compression ratio to prevent pre detonation. Although when I went to visit family in New Mexico I noticed their octane ratings were different. Instead of 87, 89, 93 like it is in Texas, New Mexico's was 86, 88, 91.

 

Where in NM do you have family? I've got friends & family all over the state.

As you climb in elevation the octane needed goes down. All of the western states that are higher in elevation have lower octane ratings. I remember when I lived in Colorado the octane ratings were 85/87/89.

 

2005-2006 Corolla XRS require premium in case you see one at the pump. All other Corolla's are designed to run on 87.

 

This.

 

I use shell 87 and I have been averaging about 21MPG city, 27highway with the big heavy 19 inch rims, sounds and air suspension gear in the trunk. I remember when I was stock with the 17 inch rims I was averaging about 27 city 35 highway.... I have traded MPGs for all the other stuff I have :-/

 

91 octane mobil

Why? Because its more cleaner fuel + I get more mpg.

 

Using higher octane fuel will cause carbon deposits & issues down the road. You will also get worse mpg in controlled testing. Getting only 1 mpg more isn't enough of a difference to be ruled out as being caused by other factors.

My family over there live in Albuquerque. If I remember correctly I think they are almost a mile above sea level.

That is true, Albuquerque is a mile high just like Denver, even higher closer to the mountains in the heights. :thumbsup:

 

I use Esso gas just because of Esso points! But I did notice it gives me better MPG than the gas I used to put in my Corolla.

 

Both Gas Stations claim 87 Octane...but ...

My wife's 97' Corolla does not like the Shell gas that my 94' Camry uses all the time with no problem.

My Camry runs fine on regular Shell. I drive the freeway about 125 miles per week.
I "was" putting the same Shell gas in my wife's car until ......

The other day her car had a major fit when she was driving across town. It had all the symptoms of "water in the gas." So I put a bottle of heet in the tank and when we went somewhere in that same car an hour or so later, it had no problem at all!
Here, she had thought it needed to go to the mechanic for repair.

So, Does anyone know why my Camry runs fine on the same fuel that causes a problem for the Corolla?
Engine type, size, etc .. ?

Her Corolla hardly ever gets freeway use.

 

My wife's 97' Corolla does not like the Shell gas that my 94' Camry uses all the time with no problem.

My Camry runs fine on regular Shell. I drive the freeway about 125 miles per week.
I "was" putting the same Shell gas in my wife's car until ......

The other day her car had a major fit when she was driving across town. It had all the symptoms of "water in the gas." So I put a bottle of heet in the tank and when we went somewhere in that same car an hour or so later, it had no problem at all!
Here, she had thought it needed to go to the mechanic for repair.

So, Does anyone know why my Camry runs fine on the same fuel that causes a problem for the Corolla?
Engine type, size, etc .. ?

Her Corolla hardly ever gets freeway use.

As others have said run it on the highway once a month for 10miles so everything gets up to operating temp to burn the carbon out and ensure the catalytic converter gets up to temp as well. I typically add a fuel system cleaner every other oil change.

Also with the weather changing if the stations tanks are not well insulated there could be condensation collecting. Timing of fill ups could be why your Camry ran fine and the Corolla didn't pumping the same gas.

 

Could have just been a bad batch, or the in-ground tank was REALLY low when you filled up and was sucking up all the crud from the bottom of the in-ground tank.

My Focus was temperamental with cheap gas (would idle like shit and throw the Check Gas Cap light), but the major brands (Shell, Chevron, Arco, 7-11), it did fine with.

 

Thanks for the reply. When she realized that it was the gas she tells me (I'd forgotten) that when she gets gas at the Chevron station the car runs normal.
When it had this problem the other day it was "chugging" missing really bad, no power, etc..
Now, after I posted she tells me it's pinging again. Could it be that she should take it on the freeway more often??

 

If she does a lot of city driving and drives slowly, I'd throw a tank of 91 in it with a bottle of fuel injector cleaner, take it on the freeway, and get the engine to redline, drive rough with it for about 10 minutes. That will get the heads nice and hot and get the engine to cough up all the carbon build-up on the heads and pistons.

 

Thanks. This sounds like a good idea to me.

 

I use jet fuel...

 

I hope not ... it burns like diesel fuel, LOL! Pre-ignition would be an understatement.

 

Its a Corolla guys they can take the low octane, that is the beauty of it.
My Turbo VW GTI will misfire with 83 octane gas. It uses 93octane only.
The corolla has finally saved me a few $$$ at the pump.

 

91 adds to deposits when driving slowly, BUT, it burns hotter when driving aggressively, so it will do a better job of cleaning out the combustion chamber than 87 will.

I usually throw in a tank of 91 with fuel injector cleaner every 15,000 miles to keep the fuel system in check. The way I drive though ... my combustion chamber is probably spotless >

 

This is wrong in so many ways. The 87 octane actually has more energy in it then higher octane. Higher octane is designed to prevent knocking & pre-detonation for forced induction engines. The Corolla is designed to run best on 87 octane & will leave carbon buildup over time no matter how you drive. The information you have learned is flawed. You are just wasting your money & it could lead to issues down the road.

I put E0 gas in. In my province the only way you can get that is with premium gas, but you have to watch where you get your gas, some put ethanol in their premium. In Ontario to get EO you can get premium from Esso, McEwan, Ultramar, Canadian Tire, Shell and Mac's. These gas stations put 10% ethanol in their Regular, 5% in their mid grade and 0% in their premium.

That is odd since ethanol is used as an octane booster so I would think it would be the opposite with the premium having the ethanol. :dunno:

 

I put E0 gas in. In my province the only way you can get that is with premium gas, but you have to watch where you get your gas, some put ethanol in their premium. In Ontario to get EO you can get premium from Esso, McEwan, Ultramar, Canadian Tire, Shell and Mac's. These gas stations put 10% ethanol in their Regular, 5% in their mid grade and 0% in their premium.

 

Is it bad to fill up with 91 almost all the time? I constantly drive in the highway. Street driving or highway driving I have a heavy foot too does that help burn the 91 easier or should I just use lower?

 

Not going to hurt it but our cars are tuned to run 87 so you might want to give that a try and see if you get the same or better power and efficiency. You may just be spending extra money for no gain other than the oil companies.

People get the misconception that higher octane means more power when 87 actually has more power potential than 93.

 

Use 87, and put the money you'd otherwise spend on 93 for bolt-ons. You'll get more power.

Speaking of lead feet. I got 29 mpg in my Corolla this tank :-X

 

Oh yeahhhhh

 

43.9 MPG

I'm pretty jealous of that. I'm on my third tank of gas now. First tank was 29.8mpg, second tank was 32.3mpg, and currently this tank is averaging 32.5mpg.

My city/hwy split is about 60/40, though :frown:

 

Where the confusion comes in is octane is rated by road and motor tests(Look for this formula on the label, R+M/2). Gasoline does have more power potential but ethanol has a higher octane. E85 is rated at 105 octane and one gallon has about 75% power potential of one gallon of gasoline. There's about a 3-4% difference of power potential between E10 and pure gasoline. E10 is mandatory here and in several other states, some countries too. The main reason for that are the "benefits" of reducing oil consumption and emissions(C0,CO2). Some cons to ethanol is it is very corrosive, will destroy fuel system components, and doesn't fire well in cold temperatures.

I should of explained beforehand for those who don't know. E10 is 10% ethanol and 90% gasoline mixture. E85 is 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline.

And for those who want to know one gallon of diesel has 113% power potential over gasoline.

 

Gasoline is a bit different everywhere (different counties, states, provinces, etc.)
I have used premium (91) in Ontario and have in the past, yielded better fuel economy when compared to using 87 because the premium I put in (Shell) is with 0% ethanol, whereas 87 in Ontario generally has about 10% ethanol. My understanding is that ethanol has about 1/3 less energy and density (kj) than gasoline so from a strictly technical standpoint, using gas with no ethanol should give you a 3.3% increase in fuel economy compared to gas with 10% ethanol.

 

There have been seven fill ups so far, all of them with 87 octane.
From those fill ups, I have a 37.86 avg mpg.

And that is from the math, not what the crazy computer thinks :facepalm:

 

91-93 and avg 35-43 mpg