PREMIUM-VS-REGULAR GAS FOR 2024 GT??

[GWink]

Washington state has the 3rd highest average gas prices in the USA, right behind California and Hawaii!….I know, I paid for the GT’s HP, so why not get it all the time, right? How much HP is lost if I used 87 octane? Premium here is 50 to 60 cents more per gallon and it hurts, just a little each fill up, you know?

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[IceGamer]

In Germany the average price per 'premium' (91 Octane) gallon is around $7.15 so I would say prices in Washington State are as good as it gets

If you don't push the car and use it as a GT car you won't feel much difference as you should loose around 15 to 25 HP. However, in Germany the car is rated for 93 Octane (in US numbers) and would benefit from 95, which is truly premium and offered at almost every major gas station but costs like $8.05...
I would go for 93 if I daily the car and 95 if I would like to track/race it. I wouldn't cheap out on the gas or on any fluid for a car in general. It's just not worth it. However, if I had to pay US gas prices I would always buy the best gas available ;-)

Edit: I had to change the numbers... Sry for that but our 95 is your 91 so the car isn't rated for 91 but 93 Octane in Germany. Real premium gas with a 95 or 96 rating is widely available in Germany so I would opt for that if I had to pay US prices

 

[Frogdog1]

Washington state has the 3rd highest average gas prices in the USA, right behind California and Hawaii!….I know, I paid for the GT’s HP, so why not get it all the time, right? How much HP is lost if I used 87 octane? Premium here is 50 to 60 cents more per gallon and it hurts, just a little each fill up, you know?

According to Google, who knows everything, (yep, uh huh), you can believe what you want:

" Using regular gasoline in a Mustang GT can lead to a noticeable decrease in horsepower, although the car's computer will adjust to prevent severe damage. The loss can range from 20 to 40 horsepower. While the car can run on regular, using premium fuel will allow the engine to run more optimally and achieve its' advertised power output."

You're driving a car with a 12/1 compression ratio in an engine that makes up to 486 hp (using 93 octane) and in stock form. That is compensated for, BUT personal choice, in my 2025 GT, is to not make my car compensate for 87 octane nor lose the HP. I bought the car partly for its' horsepower and using 87 octane in it doesn't make sense, to me, even though Ford says you can do it. Ford also implies, if you read enough, that 93 octane is preferred.

Just me, but I bought my car not caring what gas mileage it got nor what gas costs me. It isn't an economy car. My suggestion is to use what you can afford. Using what you cannot afford doesn't make sense so you may be between a "rock and a hard place".

I feel for you and wish you luck in whatever you do.

 

[insaneBoredom]

You are lucky - the spread between 87 and 93 in NE Ohio is almost 1.00. But 87 is only 3.15/gal. I do run 93.

 

[Q6543]

It’s not about “less hp”, it’s about the car detonating or pre ignition knock and pulling timing to make less hp.

93 octane is hardly adequate, it’s a 12:1 high comp engine…

people gain more adding in a gallon or 2 of E85 from the extra octane and computer adapting.

 

[GrabThatBlue]

I'm from the Netherlands and I always find it funny when Americans say "high gas prices".
You guys, even in California, pay at least half less than what we have to pay.

Premium is 2.28 Euro's a Liter.
That's 8.63 Euro a Gallon.
That's 9.82 USD a Gallon.

And your average monthly salary is even way higher than ours.

 

[robvas]

I'm from the Netherlands and I always find it funny when Americans say "high gas prices".
You guys, even in California, pay at least half less than what we have to pay.

Premium is 2.28 Euro's a Liter.
That's 8.63 Euro a Gallon.
That's 9.82 USD a Gallon.

And your average monthly salary is even way higher than ours.

How many miles a year do you put on your Mustang?

 

[DarkkMatter]

$3.60 or so in VA for 93. Found that 1/2 tank is around $30
I'm getting around 20.7 MPG atm.

 

[GrabThatBlue]

How many miles a year do you put on your Mustang?

I don't know yet. Maybe around 25.000 tot 30.000 kilometers a year.

 

[LouG]

As far as I can make out, our 98 = US 93 and our 95 = 91 there. Our 98 has no ethanol in it either.
Our prices have just dropped around 25 cents a litre, now it's around $2.85 for 98 and $2.65 for 95.
It's nice to have price drops in winter when we don't travel as much..........not!
I mix it up a bit, 98 on road trips, 95 around town.
I don't do a lot of kms, so it's no big deal and I knew the car was no economy King.
That said, never had a car that did 18L/100 kms (13 mpg US) in town before.

 

[Neggytive]

Yes the 5.0 has high compression, but it is cylinder pressure and hot spots in the combustion chamber that cause "pinging" or pre-detonation of the fuel that can cause bad things such as bent rods and hammered bearings.

The car has microphones in the block, more commonly known as knock sensors that when a "ping" is detected because of low octane gas ( octane is not a measurement of power, it is a measurement of resistance to pre-detonation/pinging) will retard the timing so that there is no pinging, but when you retard timing you take power out of the engine ( Engine Masters on MT has a great episode about timing and power)

Some people say to add a couple of gallons of E85, I am not a fan of that as the car does not have a sensor that changes the tune to compensate for E85 having less BTU's per gallon than gasoline, but hey it's your car go for it.

Some people just suck it up and pay for the higher octane so the car will tune itself for maximum power.

Some people will mix the gas at the pump, putting in 5 gallons or 87 octane to every 5 gallons of 93 giving them an in between octane rating that will keep the knock sensors happy.

But if you are not mashing the gas and driving somewhat normally you probably won't even notice the reduction in HP but you will save yourself 15 bucks every time you fuel up.

Where my car does not get a lot of use, I am using ethanol free 93 octane gas in it, which costs about the same as premium fuel, so I feel your pain as far as burning $5 dollar bills when I fill it up.

 

[NegativeMultiplier]

Washington state has the 3rd highest average gas prices in the USA, right behind California and Hawaii!….I know, I paid for the GT’s HP, so why not get it all the time, right? How much HP is lost if I used 87 octane? Premium here is 50 to 60 cents more per gallon and it hurts, just a little each fill up, you know?

93 here is on average $1.25 more than 87, encroaching on $5/gallon in some places.

If you're not paying something egregious ($10+), I'd just buy the full tank of premium and call it a week.

 

[MAT1955]

@GWink ..... the two most important things you can do for your coyote engine engine is use FULL synthetic oil and use 91 octane. Particularly from 2024 on you have a 12:1 compression engine. Using 87/89 in them is just stupid. Buy a crap car if you can't afford 91 then it won't matter when you scorch the engine. Used to build and run HP engines car/marine. More dumba$$es ruin engines with low octane gas and crap oil than by abusing them. Cheap gas and oil absolutely remove any safety margin you gain by using quality gas/oil. Seriously.....we're having this discussion with the new Coyote engines that are works of art?! And when the day comes that I am going to start mixing octanes at the pumps I'll know it's time to get a second job as a greeter at Walmart to afford decent gas/oil. For a forum of very intelligent members we sometimes stray into pure dumba$$ territory. IMO this is one such time.

 

[Sofa King]

I feel your pain... also paying washington prices. Though we pay some of the highest prices in the country... much of the world pays even more. Though not an answer to the question (asked over and over), I will give my 2 cents. I have built engines (long before computer controls) anywhere from mild (street) to wild (drag racing) and have always kept below about 10.5:1 for street on regular gas... above that, premium would be needed, and above 12.5:1 I would use race gas (100+ octane). Now with computer controls and advanced engine design, it is "safe" to run 87 octane in a 12:1 engine... but I never would! Some performance cars of the past were premium only from the factory... you pay for a performance car, gotta pay for performance fuel...

 

[AZ_Ryan]

@GWink ..... the two most important things you can do for your coyote engine engine is use FULL synthetic oil and use 91 octane. Particularly from 2024 on you have a 13:1 compression engine. Using 87/89 in them is just stupid. Buy a crap car if you can't afford 91 then it won't matter when you scorch the engine. Used to build and run HP engines car/marine. More dumba$$es ruin engines with low octane gas and crap oil than by abusing them. Cheap gas and oil absolutely remove any safety margin you gain by using quality gas/oil. Seriously.....we're having this discussion with the new Coyote engines that are works of art?! And when the day comes that I am going to start mixing octanes at the pumps I'll know it's time to get a second job as a greeter at Walmart to afford decent gas/oil. For a forum of very intelligent members we sometimes stray into pure dumba$$ territory. IMO this is one such time.

The gen 4 is 12:1 not 13:1. Also the Coyote has adaptive timing and is perfectly safe to run on 87 or 89 octane.

Now, why you would want to in order to save gas money on a 50k car is a whole other conversation. But he's not going to ruin his engine. Lol

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