MPG Impact of Regular vs Premium Gas

[ramblinwreck]

So we all know that Ford rates the 2.7 at around 30 more horsepower when you use premium fuel. This equates to almost 10% more horse power.

Does anyone know of any official MPG ratings from Ford based on fuel? I expect premium to get better fuel economy since it makes more power, but I’m not sure if that’s accurate.

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[kevin.gt]

My guess is the computer can detect higher octane, which can handle higher compression. Computer then allows higher boost and more fuel to make more power. In other words, I wouldn’t expect it to help fuel economy.

Go jackets!

 

[Big Boss]

Turbo engines love premium. When I had my Mazda I averaged 28 to 30 mpg on 89. When I would fill up with 93 I would get 32 to 33.

I would expect the ecoboost to react similarly

 

[kevin.gt]

This is a cool write up on ford ecoboost knock detection. Clarifies how they can run on regular and premium with variable power output. https://www.stratifiedauto.com/blog/how-the-knock-detection-system-works-in-the-ecoboost/

 

[WRF3MD]

I was getting 16.9 on 87 and 17.4 on 93

 

[Tricky Dick]

Some of my early testing indicated premium was worth about 1-2 extra mpg for me. Worked out to be about a wash on cost per mile.

 

[MNBigfoot]

So we all know that Ford rates the 2.7 at around 30 more horsepower when you use premium fuel. This equates to almost 10% more horse power.

Does anyone know of any official MPG ratings from Ford based on fuel? I expect premium to get better fuel economy since it makes more power, but I’m not sure if that’s accurate.

Where are you finding 30 HP increase using premium? I'm seeing about 1% increase in Torque and almost 5% increase in HP, per the updated specs.

 

[mdonathan56]

Definitely better with 93 Octane

14.34 Ford Fuel (Have to assume 87)

15.56 93 Non Ethanol

18.26 93 W/Ethanol

17.74 93 W/Ethanol

 

[PartyMarty]

The question for me is 93 non top tier (Sams club) or 87 top tier (exxon/shell etc.)? 93 at Sams is about 15c more than Exxon 87 around here, but Exxon 93 is a good 60c more than Exxon 87.

 

[RagnarKon]

Don't have my Bronco yet (huge sad)... but I did this experiment on my work-supplied Ford Ranger over the course of this past winter. Ranger uses the same 2.3L engine in the Bronco. To make this relatively scientific (yet still real-world) I did three tanks of each... averaged the numbers together.

• 87 Octane - 22.1 MPG
• 89 Octane - 22.9 MPG
• 91 Octane - 22.7 MPG
• 93 Octane - 23.2 MPG

And then I graphed them to see how expensive gas had to get before it was worth it to buy 93 Octane over 87 Octane.

I realize this graph doesn't look like much, but basically I'm looking at the cost per mile. The price of 87 fuel is on the X axis, and the cost per mile is on the Y axis. As you can tell from the graph, the higher the cost of fuel is the better of a buy the higher octane fuels become. So really what I'm looking for is the intersection points between lines of higher octane fuels and 87 octane line, as those intersection points tell me when it becomes cheaper to buy higher octane fuels. To calculate this I used the typical cost of fuel in my local area:

• 89 - $0.30 higher than 87
• 91 - $0.40 higher than 87
• 93 - $0.50 higher than 87

And here is what I found:

• 89 - Approx $8.30/gal
• 91 - Approx $14.80/gal
• 93 - Approx $8.60/gal

So... TL;DR is fuel as to get MUCH more expensive for it to be worth it to buy premium fuel over 87 octane.

(If anyone wants me to plug in the usual fuel cost in their area lemme know what the differences in cost are and I'll plug it in.)

 

[iwantabasebronco]

Definitely better with 93 Octane

14.34 Ford Fuel (Have to assume 87)

15.56 93 Non Ethanol

18.26 93 W/Ethanol

17.74 93 W/Ethanol

How new is your rig? Mileage goes up with break in. Great experiment!

 

[ramblinwreck]

Some of my early testing indicated premium was worth about 1-2 extra mpg for me. Worked out to be about a wash on cost per mile.

This was sort of what I thought my happen. Here, premium is 8% more than regular. If it makes a 1-2 mph difference then It would be a wash cost wise.

 

[mdonathan56]

How new is your rig? Mileage goes up with break in. Great experiment!

Picked it up 1/28/22 and it has a little over 800 mile on it. Those numbers are all around town driving. I've got a road trip to Georgia at the end of the month so we'll see how it does on the freeway.

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