SaulG

Hi - I'm new to the forum so excuse me if this has been discussed. I bought an 03 ES 300 about a month ago and have had the 1,000 mile checkup. I have used regular gas and premium gas and haven't noticed any difference in performance - I am getting around 19 mpg mixed and 24 on the freeway. Pickup, etc seems the same with both octanes. Anyone have experience along this line.

SaulG

Nabeel

Not sure about the new ES, but I think premium gas is required. Either that or Lexus reccomends it for 'improved performance.' I'd reccomend just spending the little extra money and put in premium. If you plan to keep the car a long time, it will be worth it. Premium burns cleaner and will leave less carbon deposits on your valves. For added cleaning, try using Chevron gas if available in the area. It contains small amounts of Techron, which may sound trivial, but trust me, it will help out in the long run. I've seen cars with 100K+ miles and squeaky clean valves as a result of just using only Chevron gas.

SW03ES

I agree, spring for the premium for all the same reasons.

BTW, how are you enjoying your ES?

ripe911

I spent a few weeks experimenting what gas type is best for my 96' es300. When I used regular gas I felt the car shake a little more when I leave the car parked and engine idle. When I used premium gas the engine was much quieter and didn't shake at all. So I stick with premium.

zexen

ever since i've changed to royal purple engine oil, it didn't really matter what gas i used, so i'm running on 89 octane gas now. the cheap stuff since it's so expensive down in texas. during the year, there used to be a time with like $.99/gallon. pretty good.

Nabeel

Zeta, I'm curious. Why do you say that it does not matter what type of gas you use? What does Royal Purple do to enable you car to run the same on any type of gas?

Also-and I've actually been wondering about this for a while- who's the youngest member of CL?

mcelligott

I would like to be enlightened on this as well...never heard of royal purple

EGainer

Youngest member thread

TruenoHatchiRok is the youngest CL member.

DesertRat

I think our Toyota engines have a knock sensor that detects early-stage predetonation (pinging) and responds by retarding the ignition. This will keep the engine from hurting itself, but reduces the output of the engine. So I use good-quality name-brand premium gas in my cars. In my town, I buy Shell gas because they have the newest tanks, so the fuel is least likely to be contaminated by condensation and crud. Aside from that, I use Texaco, Conoco, Phillips, Chevron...whatever...they ALL have some kind of cleaner additive (like "Techron").

I also keep my tank full as much as possible, to minimize crud and water buildup, and this will also reduce the effects of getting some bad gas--better to take on a half tank of dirty gas than a full one.

Changing oil brands has absolutely NOTHING to do with the basic octane requirements of an engine. Using a better oil may conceivably lower the operating temp of an engine, so an engine that's pinging due to excess combustion chamber temperatures may run better. But if that is the case, then we're talking about an engine that "has issues"...

njes300

I try to use premium all the time . But i did experiment with a full tank of regular and full tank of premium a few times . There was definitly a noticable difference in power .
I think the gas mileage was better w/ premium .

jimmit

I always use 93 octane and my uncle filled up my tank once with 89 octance and that was a HUGE difference in performance. The car had pretty much no pick up and was so sluggish. I would never put anything but 93 octane in a Lexus. Same for the RX. If it says use premium why not just follow the directions. I was reading somewhere that it really didnt make any difference on some cars like on ford crown vics and hondas because their engines were built to use 87 octane so using a higher octane wont boost performce or give better gas milage. It mainly depends on what the engine was built to use. They also tried using 100octance in the car and gave no performance boost at all and it ran the same with 87 octane but than again this wasnt a car that was meant to use 93 octance. I'd stick with 93 if I was you.

SaulG

Thanks for all the replies. Most of you (including the lexus newsgroup) lean towards using premium. I did a small calculation and figured the difference in cost over a year is about $200 - 300. This is pretty small considering the investment I have in this car. I'm not convinced there is any noticeable difference in using premium over regular but what the hell I can look at it as insurance and Lexus does recommend using premium.

SaulG

flipside909

That's a big myth sorry to say. Higher octane fuels are more pollutant that lower octanes.

Nabeel

And where did you learn that?

EGainer

i hear that higher octane burn cleaner... "Help the environment. Try our cleaner burning Super 93 today!"