Most of us drive around with premium grade RON97 in their tank, right? It’s famously called as “baru” while the other grade, RON92 was called “lama” (thanks to Bangladeshi petrol kiosk workers who popularized the terms that time). RON is an abbreviation for Research Octane Number. Google it for more info. For your information, all fuel provided at petrol stations in Malaysia now are unleaded fuels, regardless of their grades. So no more “merah”, only “hijau” fuels are available nowadays. Ok, I’m confused already. We're not talking about traffic lights, are we? The now obsolete leaded fuel was famously called ‘merah’(thanks again to the Bangladeshi), remember?
I used to believe that the higher RON will give more power. What I didn’t know power is limited by the maximum amount of fuel-air mixture that can be feed into the combustion chamber. These are controlled by the car ECU which is factory-preset by the manufacturer. If my car owner's manual says minimum RON91 to be used, so it means the engine are already designed and tuned to run with RON91 ( i believe most Hyundai-Kia engines are using these setup?). So, RON92 is good enough for me to use. Putting premium RON97 or V Power is not going to give me any performance advantage and just wasting money. Unless i have a high-compression engine which could be prone to pinging, i have totally no need for RON97 or higher. The only thing that higher RON gives me is less likelihood of pinging. Even so, most cars nowadays have knock sensors which detect the vibration or shock caused by detonation of lower octane fuel and can signal the engine management system to change the ignition timing to reduce or eliminate the problem.
Many people think that RON92 are inferior in quality because they don’t have the same additives (which provide the same cleansing effect/performance) as in RON97. Well at least Caltex have confirmed that both their RON97 (gold) and RON92 (silver) carries the same Techron additives (yeah, I know, confuse about the colours again right?). And I’ve read somewhere that Mobil-Esso also have the same additive package for theirs. Not sure about Shell Regular or Petronas Prima though (it’s becoming rare nowadays to find stations that sells one, anyway). For a full tank of 55 liters, at least I can save RM4 per tank by using this grade. Not much but still can buy me a good teh tarik & nasi lemak ayam combo once a week, or buy 4 tabloids per week (non mainstream only). For the last few months, i've been using the Infiniti from BHPetrol. So far so good compared to other brand. Manage to clock approximately 564km (on par with when i'm using RON97 for the same volume of fuel usage and still improving).
The problem now is my other car that requires minimum RON97 (guess which manufacturer that is). Say i fill it with RON92 anyway, trying to save some money. My car will still work fine because the engine management system will be detecting knock and retarding the ignition timing to compensate. But by changing the ignition timing, i could be losing efficiency in the engine, which could translate into worse fuel mileage. I may save a little money, but it costs more in the long term because I’m going to be filling up more often to do the same mileage. Hmmmm…anybody have a calculator, please??
I used to believe that the higher RON will give more power. What I didn’t know power is limited by the maximum amount of fuel-air mixture that can be feed into the combustion chamber. These are controlled by the car ECU which is factory-preset by the manufacturer. If my car owner's manual says minimum RON91 to be used, so it means the engine are already designed and tuned to run with RON91 ( i believe most Hyundai-Kia engines are using these setup?). So, RON92 is good enough for me to use. Putting premium RON97 or V Power is not going to give me any performance advantage and just wasting money. Unless i have a high-compression engine which could be prone to pinging, i have totally no need for RON97 or higher. The only thing that higher RON gives me is less likelihood of pinging. Even so, most cars nowadays have knock sensors which detect the vibration or shock caused by detonation of lower octane fuel and can signal the engine management system to change the ignition timing to reduce or eliminate the problem.
Many people think that RON92 are inferior in quality because they don’t have the same additives (which provide the same cleansing effect/performance) as in RON97. Well at least Caltex have confirmed that both their RON97 (gold) and RON92 (silver) carries the same Techron additives (yeah, I know, confuse about the colours again right?). And I’ve read somewhere that Mobil-Esso also have the same additive package for theirs. Not sure about Shell Regular or Petronas Prima though (it’s becoming rare nowadays to find stations that sells one, anyway). For a full tank of 55 liters, at least I can save RM4 per tank by using this grade. Not much but still can buy me a good teh tarik & nasi lemak ayam combo once a week, or buy 4 tabloids per week (non mainstream only). For the last few months, i've been using the Infiniti from BHPetrol. So far so good compared to other brand. Manage to clock approximately 564km (on par with when i'm using RON97 for the same volume of fuel usage and still improving).
The problem now is my other car that requires minimum RON97 (guess which manufacturer that is). Say i fill it with RON92 anyway, trying to save some money. My car will still work fine because the engine management system will be detecting knock and retarding the ignition timing to compensate. But by changing the ignition timing, i could be losing efficiency in the engine, which could translate into worse fuel mileage. I may save a little money, but it costs more in the long term because I’m going to be filling up more often to do the same mileage. Hmmmm…anybody have a calculator, please??
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