Long Term Effects of running Regular Gas When Premium Is Reccomended?

[HiTek21]

Reason I ask is because my aunt is selling me her 93 Acura Legend for real cheap and she said shes been running regular unleaded and it's suppose to run Premium. Will this cause damage to the engine? When I take ownership of the car I'm going to switch back to premium, but will there be any kind of damage if I do or is it okay?

 

[Analog]

Originally posted by: HiTek21
Reason I ask is because my aunt is selling me her 93 Acura Legend for real cheap and she said shes been running regular unleaded and it's suppose to run Premium. Will this cause damage to the engine? When I take ownership of the car I'm going to switch back to premium, but will there be any kind of damage if I do or is it okay?

does it *ping* a lot? I wonder if pre-ignition causes long term damage to the mechanical parts.

 

[Colt45]

As long as it's got an anti-knock sensor (most anything half-modern does.. hell my '84 Audi does), then the only problem is a little loss of power

not much, but some.

if it doesn't, then you probably get ping-hell or something like that.

 

[Thegonagle]

A little less potential horsepower on the ground and a much fatter retirement account.

It doesn't harm a modern engine like the Acura Legend's.

 

[JEDI]

wait..i thought lower octane had more power?

 

[vegetation]

Engine controller will retard timing when it senses a knock so it might run a bit sluggish but eventually the timing gets kicked back up, then cycles through if it happens again. If you drive the car normally (i.e not being a ricer) then generally there should be no knocking at all even if the engine recommends premium fuel. Manufacturer's specifically keep the base timing specs conservative just to prevent this type of thing from happening..

 

No long term effects, as was previously stated, the ECM will retard the ignition timing once knock sets in, other than that there will be no effects.

wait..i thought lower octane had more power?

Lower octane fuel burns more readily, higher octane fuel resists spontaneous combustion, both have the same amount of BTU's per gallon.
Some engines run better on regular than premium because of stroke/bore and combustion chamber design.

 

[PliotronX]

Premium damage.

 

[tweakmm]

Legend's are pimp rides. I :heart: mine. In my owners manual(94) it says that the engine will recocognize the lower octane fuel and compensate at a loss of power. I do not know what the long term effects are though.

 

Premium damage.

Now there's a informative post.