Hey guys ChrisFix here and today i'm gonna show you what 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 so no matter what vehicle you drive whether it's a luxury car a truck or SUV a
Compact car a hybrid a sports car a convertible or a muscle car if it uses gasoline
This video 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
so in this video
I'm gonna show you exactly what gas your car should use and
Why and I want to thank shell for supporting this video and for letting me tie up one of their pumps so I could film
And teach you guys what fuel is best for your car and once and for all?
Stop all the myths and give you guys the facts. So with that said let's get started
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 video 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
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 the resistance the fuel has to
Detonation or engine knock and 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
so 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's 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's other myths out there say certain octane fuels burn cleaner or more
completely and that is also not true a 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. I could destroy an engine
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
Let me show you why 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
Now, let's take a look at the combustion process when you use a fuel with a lower octane than the manufacturer requires
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 piston rings
Valves head gasket and even the block so higher octane fuel prevents detonation in forced induction and higher compression engines
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 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 the 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?
And the reason why people think this is because we have 87 octane 89 93
now if you look at a pump in Europe
You see 95 octane and 99 octane since 95 and 99 are bigger numbers than what you can find at American gas pumps
It must mean the fuel here has higher octane
And actually this is misleading because in Europe they use run research octane number as their rating for octane in America
We use 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 octane is like our
93 octane 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 their own 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. Now. What does this additive do?
well
It 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
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 here are four four valves from a port injected
four-cylinder motor
This is a completely clean valve to give you a reference of what a clean valve looks like. And here's a good comparison
This is a valve with the normal amount of carbon deposits on it
This right here is what you would find in a normal daily driven port injected vehicle
You can see there's some carbon deposits on the valve where it seats against the head
There's some carbon deposits of right here and there's some carbon deposits on the valve stem but nothing
Significant also if we take a look underneath the valve you can see there's carbon deposits under here as well
and again
This gives you a good idea of what you would normally
Find and 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 up on the top of the valve right here
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?
Let me show you the difference between clean and dirty fuel injectors using this fuel injector tester
so here are four 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
Here's the queen injector
number one next to the dirty injector number two
And you can see the difference in 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 and 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
So if you have a slight misfire lower fuel economy a decrease in power
There's a potentially 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 and
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
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 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
The engine oil is the main protector of all these moving parts, but now this new fuel additive actually helps out a little bit
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
Otherwise she's getting stored or maybe you store your car for the winter and doesn't get started
You want to make sure you protect your fuel system from corrosion like you see on this valve and 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 should you use for your car? The answer is very simple no matter what car you drive
Use the manufacturers recommendation on what fuel to use they design the car. They design the engine they design the tune
so if they're saying to use premium
Use premium if they're saying to use regular use regular and there's three different methods you could use to find out what fuel your car
Should use let me show you them 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 use 91 octane or greater. If you don't have this sticker here 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?
For example in the drift staying there is nothing written on the back of this fuel door. There's also nothing the fuel cap
So how do you know what fuel you should use in this car?
simple grab your owner's manual
Flip to the back you can see right here. It says fuel choosing the right fuel filling your vehicle with fuel
Let's go to those pages and there you go
I can see right away use 87 octane use regular it also gives you other good information like filling up in a higher elevation
If you hear 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
So get inside your car and take a look on 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 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
So the cars knock sensor will adjust the timing so you don't get that
Detonation and you could run regular 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 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 I 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
And 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 I 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 and 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 and you could get this at your local parts store
sometimes the
supermarket maybe even the gas station you're at and 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 and 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 and there's one more thing. I want to mention in that is
e85 if you see EA t5 like this 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 flex fuel
You could damage the engine by running
E85 and 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 if you have any questions at all about
Anything I showed in this video or anything
I didn't show that you might think of feel free to comment below and I'll answer them but in summary use the fuel your car
manufacturer recommends if they say run regular run regular if they say run mid grade run mid grade if
It says premium required run premium if it says premium recommend 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 simple 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 video was helpful if it was remember to give it a thumbs up
If you're not a subscriber consider hitting that subscribe button and as always everything I used in this video is linked in the description