What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car

Hey guys Superincars here, and today I'm gonna show you What is the Best Fuel you should use in your car.

And not only am I gonna show you, but I'm also gonna explain why so we could stop all the myths and misinformation out there about different fuels. 

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car - F-Type

So, no matter what vehicle you drive whether it's a luxury car, a truck or SUV, a Compact car, a hybrid car, a sports car, a convertible or a muscle car. If it uses gasoline, this article applies to you. 

Now, at the gas pump there are a bunch of choices that you can make, you could use the less expensive regular gas, you could use the mid-grade, or you could use the more expensive premium or super gasoline. 

So which one do you pick? no one wants to put the wrong fuel in their car and, damage the engine get poor fuel economy, or spend extra on fuel that isn't gonna help them. 

In this article, I'm gonna show you exactly what gas your car should use and why 

I want to thank Shell for supporting this article, what fuel is best for your car, once and for all. Stop all the myths and give you guys the facts, so with that said let's get started. 

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car

Here's what you're gonna see when you're walking up to a pump, in this case, we have diesel here which we're not going to talk about in this article. 

If you have a diesel truck or car, don't put gasoline in it, because it won't run. It'll damage the engine and vice versa. 

Also, if you have a gasoline car, don't put diesel in it. So don't make that mistake, but we're not gonna talk about this. 

What we are going to talk about is the gasoline, so in America, we have 87, which is regular 89, which is mid-grade and 91, or 93, which is premium or high test fuel.

These octane numbers tell you one thing and one thing only, that's the resistance the fuel has to detonation or engine knock.

The bigger octane number the more energy that fuel has

I want to clear up a myth right away, that I hear all the time, and that is, the bigger the number the more energy that fuel has.

So, you're gonna get better fuel economy, because it has more energy or you're gonna get more power because as more energy, and that's completely false. 

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car

All the different octane's of gasoline, have the same exact energy content 87, 89, 91, 93. All Have the same energy in them.

Now, there are some myths out there, that say certain octane's burn fuel hotter, or colder, or faster, or slower. And that's just not true these all, burn the same temperature at the same speed. 

There are other myths out there say, certain octane fuels burn cleaner or more completely, and that is also not true.

More complete burn has less to do with the actual gasoline, and more to do with the fuel to air ratio inside the combustion chamber. 

So, the octane ratings that you see at the pump are exactly that the octane rating of that fuel. 

87 and 93 have identical energy content, but the octane in 93 is higher than the octane in 87, and that is important octane, is the resistance to detonation or engine knock, and detonation and engine that could destroy an engine. 

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car

So, in turbocharged engines supercharged engines, or high compression engines like in this Corvette, you're more likely to get detonation if you're using a lower octane fuel.

With forced induction, or high compression, there's more heat, there's more pressure, and that means the fuel is more likely to explode before it's supposed to.

And that detonation that knocked sounds like a bunch of marbles, or ball bearings bouncing around inside the engine, making metallic pinging noises, which is not good, so let me show you why.

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car

Here's the combustion process inside of an engine, now when you're using the correct octane fuel the spark ignites the fuel, and the flame starts at the spark and travels outwards. 

This is a smooth, and even burn that creates pressure to push the piston downwards, and then the exhaust gasses are forced out of the cylinder, and the process repeats.

Fuel with a lower octane

Now, let's take a look at the combustion process, when you use a fuel with a lower octane than the manufacturer requires. 

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car 

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car

So, the fuel and air mixture is pulled into the combustion chamber, and the spark plug ignites it just like normal.

But, as the flame moves outwards the pressure inside the cylinder increases, and causes pockets of fuel to ignite unevenly, and this creates an explosion rather than a smooth burn. 

And that metallic naki here, is the uneven explosion which could damage the piston rings, valves head gasket, and even the block.

So, higher octane fuel prevents detonation in forced induction and higher compression engines. 

The best fuel and their relation with the knock sensor

Now, today's fuel-injected cars have something called a knock sensor The knock sensor is like a doctor's stethoscope except for your car's computer 

It actually listens for engine knock, and when it hears the engine knock, it tries to change the timing of the engine to prevent knock. 

But you don't want to have an engine knock, in the first place you want to fill up with the proper fuel, so you prevent engine knock altogether. 

So, your decision at the pump is pretty important, the higher the octane fuel we're resistant to engine knock. 

But, that doesn't mean when you pull up to the pump, you should run the highest octane you could get. because you might be throwing money away. 

Many cars run perfectly fine unregular gasoline, and I'm gonna show you in a little bit, how to tell which fuel your car should be using, so you don't put premium in A car that could use regular, and vice versa. 

You don't want to put regular in a car that needs premium, so I'll show you that in a second, but first the next myth I want to bust, and that I hear all the time, is that fuel from America isn't as good as Fuel from Europe, or Australia, or other parts of the world.

Why the fuel from America isn't as good as Fuel from Europe?

The reason why people think that fuel from America isn't as good as Fuel from Europe, is because we have 87 octanes 89, 93. now if you look at a pump in Europe, you see 95 octanes and 99 octanes. 

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car

Since 95, and 99 are bigger numbers than what you can find at American gas pumps, it must mean the fuel here has a higher octane. 

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car

And actually, this is misleading because in Europe they use run research octane number, as their rating for octane. 

In America, we use the pond pump octane number for our rating, so fuel from Europe and fuel from America, are basically the same.

Europe's 95 octane is like our 89, or mid-grade Europe's 99, or 98 octanes is like our 93 octanes, or premium.

So, hopefully, that clears that myth up the fuel here in America, is very similar to the fuel in Europe, the octane rating system is different, but the octane is the same or very similar. 

Alright, so now you know octane, is the main difference between the different fuels, and how important octane is, but there's one other thing I want to talk about, and that is fuel additives. 

So, every brand has to add a fuel additive, it's set by the government to keep your engine clean. 

Each brand has there owned proprietary ingredients and they all do it in their own specific ways. 

Some of them, use the exact same amount of additive in each of their fuels, I know specifically for Shell they use seven times more additive than required, by law in their premium fuel. 

What does this fuel additive do?

Well, the fuel additive can helps clean carbon deposits, also known as gunk and sludge. 

If you don't have these additives in the fuel over time, your engine will become a lot less efficient. 

So, you could get carbon deposits in your fuel injectors, you could get it on your pistons, or on the piston rings, and you could get it on your valves. 

Now, I'm not the type of person to just tell you these things, I like to show examples, so you could really understand. 

The difference between clean, and dirty valves

So I'll show you dirty fuel injectors on the fuel injector tester here, but first let's take a look at the difference between clean, and dirty valves.

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car

Here are four valves from a port injected four-cylinder motor. 

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car

This is a completely clean valve to give you a reference of what a clean valve looks like. 

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car

And here's a good comparison, this is a valve with the normal amount of carbon deposits on it.

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car

This right here is what you would find in a normal daily driven port-injected vehicle, you can see there are some carbon deposits on the valve, where it seats against the head.

There are some carbon deposits of right here, and there's some carbon deposits on the valve stem but nothing Significant.

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car

Also, if we take a look underneath the valve, you can see there are carbon deposits under here as well, and again this gives you a good idea of what you would normally find.

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car

Here's a good example of a valve that has some carbon deposits on it, this isn't even that bed direct-inject engines could be much worse with carbon deposits, building upon the top of the valve right here in the picture above. 

Now, the problem with this gunk and sludge is it's gonna lower the efficiency of your vehicle. 

So, fuel isn't gonna atomized with the air, as well the air traveling over this valve isn't gonna travel, as smoothly into the combustion chamber. 

The valve might not seat properly against the head, and not seal properly, so you'll lose fuel economy and you'll lose some power, and that's why it's important to make sure your engine stays clean. 

So, you're able to see the difference between clean and dirty valves now? 

The difference between clean and dirty fuel injectors

Let me show you the difference between clean, and dirty fuel injectors using this fuel injector tester. 

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car

So, here are 4 fuel injectors, and you could see injector one, and four have a good even spray pattern. 

But, injector three is a little dirty, and the spray pattern isn't as strong an injector two, is by far the dirtiest, and has a very poor spray pattern.

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car

Here's the queen injector number one, next to the dirty injector number two, and you can see the difference in the spray pattern.

The clean injector atomizes the fuel, and makes a fine mist whereas the dirty injector has more of a stream, it's not atomizing the fuel.

That will cause poor fuel economy, and a decrease in power, because the fuel isn't gonna burn as evenly like in the rest of the cylinders. 

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car

So, if you have a slight misfire, lower fuel economy a decrease in power, there's a potential of a clogged injector like this. 

And this is where using a good high-quality fuel could help clean the injector, and restore the proper spray pattern.

I think that's so cool to be able to see the fuel injectors, and how they spray. 

Now the last thing I want to show you is the top of a piston, now I don't have any Pistons, because they're hard to give an engine. 

How the carbon deposits form on the piston head?

So instead, we're gonna go into the engine using a Special borescope camera, and I'm going to show you what it looks like in there, and how the carbon deposits form on the piston head.

So, I took the spark plugs out, and I'm gonna slide the borescope camera into the spark plug hole, so we could see the top Of the piston.

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car

And you can see the dark spots on the piston, I'll circle them in red, these are the carbon deposits.

Now a little bit of carbon deposits is normal, this right here what you see is completely normal, But if this builds up too much, you could increase the compression of the engine, or create hot spots, which both of those could cause detonation.

So, that's how fuel additives help keep the engine clean, from valves to injectors to piston heads. 

But Shells V-Power Nitro+ does a couple of other things, I just want to mention real quickly because it's pretty impressive.

So, let's take a look inside of an engine, to see what the fuel additive does, more specifically Let's look at what the piston is doing.

It's important to prevent wear and tear inside of the engine, so it lasts a long time, and that's not easy because inside of an engine there's a lot of fast-moving parts, that are undergoing some pretty tough conditions.

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car

The engine oil is the main protector of all these moving parts, but now this new fuel additive actually helps out a little bit.

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car

It'll get on the cylinder wall, and help protect the upper piston rings against friction, and wear so that's some pretty cool technology, and there's one more benefit I want to mention.

So if your car doesn't get used a lot, maybe only take her out on track days, Another way's she's getting stored or maybe you store your car for the winter, and doesn't get started. 

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car

You want to make sure you protect your fuel system, from corrosion like you see on this valve, 

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car

This fuel additive will actually do that, it'll help protect the metals from corroding, so they don't end up looking like this. 

So now, you know about octane, you know about the fuel additives, but what does this all mean for your car? 

What Fuel Your Car Should Use

The answer is very simple, no matter what car you drive, use the manufacturer's recommendation on what fuel to use in your car.

They design the car, they design the engine, they design the tune, so if they're saying to use premium, use premium, and if they're saying to use regular fuel use it.

There are three different methods you could use to find out what fuel your car Should use, let me show you them. 

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car

The first and easiest method is when you go to fill up, just check behind your fuel door, and look for this sticker, you can see right there It says to use 91 octanes or greater. 

If you don't have this sticker here just check the fuel filler cap, sometimes it's written on there, but not every car Has it written on the filler cap, or on the back of the fuel door. 

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car

For example: In the drift staying there is nothing written on the back of this fuel door, there's also nothing the fuel cap. 

What Fuel You Should Use in This Car?

So how do you know what fuel you should use in your car? 

Simple grab your owner's manual: 

1. Flip to the back. 

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car

2. You can see it right here, It says fuel choosing the right fuel filling your vehicle with fuel.

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car

3. Let's go to those pages and there you go, I can see right away use 87 octanes use regular. 

It also gives you other good information: Like filling up in a higher elevation if you hear a light knocking or heavy knocking, and fuel quality different things, like that so it's worth the read. 

But I know not everybody has an owner's manual, so there's one more place that you could check, and that is on the dashboard of your vehicle. 

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car

So get inside your car, and take a look at your dashboard, you want to check over by your fuel gauge.  You could see on the gauge, it says premium required, so this is another place you could look. 

Now notice that said premium required, there's a big difference in language between the word required and recommended when talking about fuel. 

This car needs premium, it is required, so if you put regular in it, it could damage the engine. But some cars say premium recommended. 

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car

For example: If we take a look at my Corvette underneath the fuel door, it says right here premium recommended, So what that does? Is that allows us to run regular fuel without any issues? 

Is that allows us to run regular fuel without any issues?

So the cars knock sensor will adjust the timing, so you don't get that detonation, and you could run regularly with no problem at all. 

You'll lose a little bit of fuel economy, and probably a little bit of power, it might not be noticeable, but it is completely fine and completely safe to run regular. 

But again, it says premium recommended not required, and also it's recommended, which means it is better to run premium, but you don't have to. 

What I can do if my car is supposed to run regular fuel?

Now there are a couple situations where your car is supposed to run regular, but you need to run premium. 

For example: My truck has a hundred, and fifty thousand miles on her, I was driving on the highway one day giving it some gas, and all of a sudden, I was hearing detonation. 

So I immediately pulled off filled up with premium, and that detonation. 

Went away when you think what happened was there's carbon buildup inside the Engine, either increasing the compression ratio or maybe it created a hot spot in a cylinder, either way, I was getting detonation. 

With the premium, it went away, so in that type of scenario, you definitely don't want detonation run premium. 

And show claims if you run their premium fuel for 2,500 continuous miles, it'll clean 70 percent of the carbon deposits in the injectors.

If you have a port injected engine 70 percent from the valves, which is pretty impressive.

So not are you stopping that detonation, but you're cleaning it out, now you could run regular fuel without any issues, so the problem went away, which is a good thing.

Another situation where my car normally takes regular, this is the drifts thing, she could take regular all day long, but you might need to change the premium if you start modifying the car or get it tuned.

In this case, I haven't got it tuned yet, but when I add the Supercharger and go to the tuner, you have to listen to what your tuner says. 

If your tuner says run 93 Make sure you run 93 Otherwise, you're gonna get detonation and you could damage your engine.

So stock she runs regular just fine, but once you get a car tuned listen to your tuner.

What if Your Car Requires Premium

The last scenario I could think of is your car requires premium, but for whatever reason, you fill it up with regular.

• Maybe you hit the wrong button by mistake, you hit the 87 and you fill your car up with regular you don't catch it.

• Or maybe you're at a gas station, and they don't have premium, and you're in the middle of nowhere, and you need to get gas Otherwise you won't be able to get to where you need to go. 

Don't worry there is a solution after you fill up with the regular gas.

What you would do is you would go out, and you would buy one of these bottles of Octane booster.

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car - Octane booster

And you could get this at your local parts store, sometimes the supermarket and maybe even the gas station you're at.

All you do is you empty it into the gas tank, and this will boost the octane of that regular fuel that you put in there, so you won't damage your engine.

If you have to drive to pick this stuff up, just take it easy don't give the car a lot of gas and go slow. 

and then knock sensors on the engine should adjust the timing so you don't damage your engine. 

What is relation betwine E85 fuel and 85% Ethanol?

And there's one more thing i want to mention in that, is E85. 

What is the Best Fuel to Use in Your Car

If you see E85 like this doesn't mean 85 octane, this means 85% ethanol and you only want to use this if you have a flex-fuel vehicle.

Again You could check your owners manual to see if your vehicle is flex-fuel or not But make sure you do that because if your vehicle isn't flexed fuel You could damage the engine by running E85.

I just want to mention that really quick, so you don't fill up with the wrong fuel by mistake.

EA t5 is: 85 percent ethanol not 85 octane  

But in summary, use the fuel your car manufacturer recommends:

• If they say Run regular use run regularly.

• If they say Run mid-grade use run mid-grade. 

• If It says Premium required use run premium. 

• If it says Premium recommends you could choose. 

But for my experience Premium will let the car run better. 

You'll get a little more power, and a little better fuel economy, plus you won't have to worry about any detonation at all, but it really is that simply just use what the manufacturer recommends. 

So, there you go now You know what fuel you should use in your car and why? We busted a couple of myths and I told you guys the truth and all the facts.

So you have all this knowledge on what fuel you should use, hopefully the article was helpful. If it just remember to share it with others, and as always see you in another one.