MIXING FUEL OCTANE, MORE EFFICIENT?

For some, mixing two different fuel octanes is still the preferred method to minimize daily fuel cost. They believe that mixing two octane level of fuel, 90 RON with 92 RON for example, will result in higher octane level compared to the lowest one and therefore engine combustion will be more efficient thus produce more power.

But it’s actually the contrary. By mixing higher with lower RON octane, the sulphur and all the additive substances of the higher octane fuel will be lost in the mix. This can lead to severe problems in the engine, as the RON decreases, engine performance is diminishing. To maintain the same performance the engine will need more fuel. There goes the idea of having efficient fuel consumption.

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If this happens for a long period of time, the engine can further develop knocking, as a result of insufficient combustion that produces crust in the cylinder. This is not the case though for modern engine equipped with knocking sensors and electronic fuel injection system. Knocking sensors detect if the fuel quality is under the compression ratio standard and will adjust the combustion accordingly, but the premature combustion can still occur and engine performance will diminish, or in other words, the power is decreasing.

So that is why you should fill your tank with standard quality fuel recommended from the car manufacturer. Basically, all engines are designed to use fuel with certain octane to keep its peak performance.

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