It's OK to be a regular guy.

May 10, 11:21 PMLA High Performance Cars ExaminerBill Campus/Rodriguez

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One thing almost all cars have in common is the need for gas. It doesn’t matter if it’s the survivalist in the oxidized Mercury station wagon or the overweight investment broker stuffed into a convertible BMW Z4, at one time or another during the week we all have to pay homage to the gas pump. Our generous friends at the oil companies have given us three choices, regular, mid-grade or premium gas. The price between regular and premium can vary by as much as twenty cents or more…ouch!

Now if you drive a sports car or high performance sedan that was made during the 90’s and up, for the most part it’s gonna be ok to put in regular gas. That’s because most cars these day’s have what’s called a knock sensor. This little device works a lot like a microphone and can hear the knocking or pinging in the engine. So lets say you have a modern high compression engine and the manual specifies premium. You accidentally fill the tank with regular. Well if knocking or pinging occurs the knock sensor will detect it and adjust the timing of the spark till the problems gone. For a modern engine made to run on premium you may lose a little horsepower but your really not gonna notice 2 percent too much.

So an engine designed to run on premium is not going to suffer from pinging while running on regular unless you put too much of load on it. An example would be pulling a steep grade, in 100 plus degree heat while carrying excess weight. The knock sensor and computer can only adjust the engines timing so much and so premium which requires higher temperature and pressure to ignite is a better choice here.

For cars made to run on regular gas, premium will not give them a boost in power. After all you don’t want to give the oil companies any more money than you have to. Sure they have slick advertising campaigns but I just find it hard to believe companies like Exxon. They keep saying their helping to clean up the environment but let’s face it, they can’t even clean up their own gas station bathrooms.

So listen, save yourself a little money from time to time and remember, “it’s OK to be a “regular guy”.