Vehicle manufacturers and oil companies love to make extra profits so they love it when they are able to persuade you to purchase premium fuel. They like it so much they continue to perpetuate inaccuracies about premium fuel. Inaccuracies such as premium fuel will provide better fuel economy. Inaccuracies such as high octane fuel can enhance your engine's performance. Actually these aren't inaccuracies they are complete myths. Gasoline retailers and refiners love premium gasoline because it is so much more profitable than regular gasoline. You end up paying about 20 cents more per gallon for premium gas and the retailer only ends up paying about 8 cents more. The retailer makes 12 cents more on every gallon of high octane gas he sells. The refineries take in a few cents per gallon more on premium than on regular when they sell to distributors. When you realize that the few cents per gallon is multiplied by the tens of thousand of gallons of gas that refineries sell, you can see that it adds up to a lot of extra profit. The oil refineries and fuel retailers aren't the only companies that profit from premium gas. Car makers use premium gasoline to increase their bottom line too. They do that by using premium gasoline to increase the perceived value of their cars. If a car has to have premium gas it must have a more expensive engine therefore the car must cost more. Using that logic the car companies can get higher prices on some models by recommending only premium gas can be used in those models. This adds credibility to their contention that the car is worth more money. Another benefit of premium gas that auto makers capitalize on is to take advantage of the anti-knock properties of premium gas. By designing engines to be optimized for that property of premium gas they can create engines that in fact do get more horsepower out of premium then out of regular. Since these engines do have some horsepower gain it enables the auto makers to advertise bigger horsepower ratings for their "premium engines". Higher horsepower means more expensive auto which means more cost for you and more profit for the car manufacturers. The optimized for premium engines do perform with a small increase in horsepower running on premium gas. Most engineers and car experts seem to agree that you can use regular in a premium engine and you probably can't tell the difference. Since low octane regular fuel can be used in a "high octane engine" without any noticeable change in performance and high octane fuel does not improve fuel economy why do you need to use premium gas? It all comes down to profit! Making you believe you need to use high octane fuel, the oil companies and auto makers put more money in their pockets and as a result you have less money in yours.
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Vehicle manufacturers and oil companies love to make extra profits so they love it when they are able to persuade you to purchase premium fuel. They like it so much they continue to perpetuate inaccuracies about premium fuel. Inaccuracies such as premium fuel will provide better fuel economy. Inaccuracies such as high octane fuel can enhance your engine's performance. Actually these aren't inaccuracies they are complete myths.
Scott Siegel is the author of a 143 page book of automotive industry insider information on saving gas and dollars at the pump. Visit us to learn how you can get better gas mileage. Find out how to increase gas mileage. Feel free to grab a unique version of this article from the Unique Articles Submission Service
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