Premium. By my math it's maybe $6 per tank less for regular. That's a pittance for proper HP and performance. Just my opinion - to each his own.

 

~ agreed.

 

Was advised to use the 89 octane rating for the car. Told there was no need for 91 octane as it is overkill. In all the auto columns and mags,they say use what the manual recommends.

 

Not sure who advised you but if 91 is overkill then 89 is overkill as well. Either go for what's required (min 87) or go for the OPTIMUM performance recommendation which is 91 or higher. Either way, your car will run fine.

 

DO NOT use 89 if you come to Nebraska; watered down 10% ethanol gas.

 

I've made this point too many times over the years. If you can afford a brand new luxury vehicle, you can afford the proper fuel...
Be nice to your Volvo.

 

I've made this point too many times over the years. If you can afford a brand new luxury vehicle, you can afford the proper fuel...

Amen.

Although I use 87 in V8, but keep 3.2 on 91 diet...I do experience knocking during hard acceleration in summer running my 3.2 S80 on 87, but never - on V8 XC90.

And neither are turbos......which generally like as much octane as available; especially in the heat.

 

I have the 3.2 and used 87 up until May-June timeframe when I started experience very rough starts and several stalls. After having the local dealer look at the vehicle I re-read the owners manual and found, for the 3.2 engine at least, that 87 is fine but Volvo recommends 91 or higher (in San Antonio area it's 93) during the summer months. Since I've started using 93 my starting/stalling experiences have dropped significantly.

 

We only use 93 Octane here in NJ for our XC60 T6 AWD R-Design, because it is a mere few pennies difference from 91 (Sunoco is the only ones that carries 91); salesman said to use 87 and we all laughed at him, and then I pointed out exactly in the owners manual which stated to get the MPGs/HP you need to use 91 and up! If it's a turbo engine I only use 93 octane; e.g. 1994 940 Turbo, 2004 S40 1.9t LSE, 2007 S60R, 2006 S60 2.5t. Though I tried putting 89 once in the S40 when gas prices started to get high and the car did not do very well with it; but then again the car already had like 45,000 miles of 93 only, lol! The dealer told me that it was perfectly fine to put regular (87) in the R and that I should; basically I felt like smacking him in the face, hehe! My Mazda is the only one that I put 87 regular in it, but then again its a 2.0L 4cly. NA motor, which will not benefit from higher octane fuel; I try to stick with good fuels like Sunoco, Shell and BP.

 

I just though I would mention some of us don't even have much of a choice. On base they only have 95 octane and 98 octane. They quit selling the 93 about a year ago.

 

I think the #s are slightly different Euro->US. RON as opposed to RON+MON/2?

Either way - I spend 10x a month on the payment as for the fuel. Pennies difference savings is shortsighted IMO.

 

What would the US equivalent of Euro 98 be?

 

Shell 91.
noticeable decrease in things when using 89.

 

4-5 pts lower to convert to US version.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octane_rating

 

Good read. Lots of info. So I'm getting around 93 US fuel. I might have to give the Shell V Power a try. They have one down the road, but the Euro exchange rate dosn't make it very feasable. These guys get hammered over here for gas. I feel bad for them sometimes.

 

93 is all that is offered here. No 91 in SE US. 87-89-93.