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Fri Mar 18, 2005 11:04 pm

thats it i just can't afford this damn gas. 87 is now what 91 was costing me a few weeks ago. when i refill i am going to toss 5 bucks worth of 87 in there and see what happens. if i get a bunch of pinging i will go back but if all is fine and good i will pass the info along.

Fri Mar 18, 2005 11:08 pm

They were ment to run with regular octane. I think you should be just fine... $2.37 gallon here for regular... :roll:

Fri Mar 18, 2005 11:16 pm

exactly

Sat Mar 19, 2005 4:39 am

Think yourself lucky, over here in England its around £4 per gallon, which roughly converts to $8...

Sat Mar 19, 2005 6:45 am

Just when you think Type 3's were expensive as a hobby, we get this EXTRA kick in the balls with gas prices!! ](*,)

Sat Mar 19, 2005 9:19 am

gregsargent wrote: Think yourself lucky, over here in England its around £4 per gallon, which roughly converts to $8...
Yeah but you don't have anywhere to drive, there's water everywhere! 8)

Sat Mar 19, 2005 10:12 am

EverettB wrote: gregsargent wrote: Think yourself lucky, over here in England its around £4 per gallon, which roughly converts to $8...
Yeah but you don't have anywhere to drive, there's water everywhere! 8)

But they put this tunnel in the ground., and now the Vikings can invade without their boats. :lol:

Sat Mar 19, 2005 10:16 am

I run 89.5 ethenol all the time, and no problem. It is the cheaper of the the 2 choices we have. The other choice we have is 87 regular, but our state gives a $.05 tax break on the ethenol as a "renewable fuel", so it is cheaper.

Sun Mar 20, 2005 12:00 am

Russ Wolfe wrote: 89.5 ethenol all the time

In Utah... the norm is E 85 .. worked fine in my 1300

Mon Mar 21, 2005 10:01 pm

well i took the plunge and just went for it. 20 bucks worth of 87 (got a 1.68 back change :) ) and turned the key holding my breath. she fired right up and no pings at all so far. infact i think it runs a little better on the lower grade stuff. maybe it is just me but i am still happy that i am able to use the cheap stuff.

Mon Mar 21, 2005 10:39 pm

I talked to my dad this weekend about the stupid gas prices, and he nearly swallowed his teeth when I told him I use the 92 octane stuff. He said "what the f**k do you put good gas in THAT thing for?!" I laughed, but it got me thinking... maybe cheap gas wouldn't be that bad...

Jim in seattle

Mon Mar 21, 2005 11:14 pm

well mine is a 1600 dp with webers and it runs fine. i was expecting less power but ironicly it seems like a bit more. guess this is a low compression engine.

Tue Mar 22, 2005 12:01 pm

I noticed that when I use the cheap stuff my engine tends to want to keep running when i shut it off. I knocks a bit with the cheap stuff after shut off. It runs great with 91 even though it's almost 2.50 around here :shock: . I'll keep using the good stuff cause it probably burns cleaner and doesn't leave to much deposits on valves or burn them out before they need to be & since I don't have any other habits(besides trying to buy more stuff for my ride) I'll keep spending a little on gas for now. :D

Tue Mar 22, 2005 1:27 pm

does higher oct rating fuel really "burn cleaner" i thought the only difference was higher oct fuel burns slower, to be used in high compression engines. ?

Tue Mar 22, 2005 2:27 pm

Higher octane gas, by itself, has ZERO effect on how "clean" the fuel burns. It also has no effect on how fast it burns, or anything else like this. Octane measures the sensitivity of the fuel to detonation/ping/spark knock. That's all. Higher compression engines will indeed tend to induce detonation, so a higher octane fuel needs to be used in them. In an engine that will run on a fuel of octane X, there's nothing to be gained by using a fuel with a higher octane.

HOWEVER...

Many brands of fuel will use different additives (detergents, generally) in different grades of fuel, and some do put additional fuel system cleaners in higher octane grades. This really has nothing to do with octane, and can't be generalized across fuel suppliers. In this case, it MAY be beneficial to use a higher grade of gas, at least from time to time. Some additives aren't all that compatible with some older fuel systems.

Fuel is also not the same from place to place. The refining process is very complex, and there are hundreds of different hydrocarbons compising what we call gasoline. The mix from vendor to vendor and from state to state (or country to country) will vary. It even varies during the course of the year (in cold states the fuel mix is generally more volatile in winter to aid in cold starts, for example). There are more than 15 different mixes in the US alone for "gasoline", varying from one area to another.

You should use whatever fuel you happen to like best and feel comfortable with, but don't assume you're actually using "better" or "worse" gas unless you know a lot more about fuel chemistry than most. For an engine that's as undemanding as the VW 1500/1600, I'd use whatever was available. The compression is relatively low, and it's relatively easy and cheap to rebuild the engine to clean up any long-term effects from deposits. For something like an expensive to rebuild high-compression Porsche engine, the story would be rather different.

Tue Mar 22, 2005 6:24 pm

You are complaining about $2.50 gal gas, and filling a 10 gallon tank.
Try 2 vehicles with over 20 gal tanks and only getting 15mpg.
I can't wait for the weather to warm and get the VW's back out.
The wife already wants to know if she can drive the '66 Fastback even without A/C. She will park her Brand New SUV.

Fri Mar 25, 2005 9:46 am

ditto! the wether is finally getting better up here in Seattle so I have been using the Notchback alot more. Also my wife is wanting to get ahold of a decent oval bug soon for the summer. As we just got her a new nissan titan....talk about big ol truck geeesh 5.6 liters sucks it up nice and fast and then agoin my frontier isnt so good on the gas saving either. So since it doesnt look like the gas prices are going to drop drasticaly any time soon, all we can do is hope for god weather and happy VW's.

Fri Mar 25, 2005 9:53 am

yeah i tried to use 87 several years ago when the thought of paying $1.50 for gas was just crazy... i did an experiment with it though (not intentionally)... i had just put the heads back on after putting a helicoil in one of them... boy they were clean on the inside, i was impressed!... i only ran it that way for a couple mos on 87... then had to end up pulling the heads again as i had a leak in a pushrod tube and was loosing a lot of oil... never seen so much carbon on the inside of my engine :-/ i will never put cheap crap 87 in my vw again... i don't care what anyone says about them being made to run on 87.... i'm glad i didn't understand the difference in the roz/ron r=m/2 methods when i got my car...

pd $2.31/gal for premium last night.... but it went up today... everything by my house is $2.49/gal i really just don't want to pay less and get free carbon build up :-/

Fri Mar 25, 2005 10:30 am

That carbon is from unburned fuel, or oil. Not from the octane. Actually, higher octane fuels just burn slower.
Does your engine have its thermostat in it. Maybe the engine is running too cold.

Fri Mar 25, 2005 10:37 am

Russ Wolfe wrote: Actually, higher octane fuels just burn slower.
.

I Knew it! :lol: