NickTee

Another thing to consider is that octane boosters claim to raise x-amount of gasoline by y-amount of points. Most of them raise a full tank of gas by 10-12 points. However, 1 point is only point 1 octane(0.1). Therefore you need 10 points to even raise the fuel by a single octane, forty points to raise 87 to 91 octane, and 60 points to raise 87 to 93 octane.
Lucas octane booster is about the only one that really works effectively, requiring 3oz to raise 5 gallons of gas by 30 points(3octane). That means you'd need a whole bottle to raise a 15 gallon tank slightly less than 50 points. However it contains MMF and isn't street legal, and it can negatively affect O2 sensors, which is why it works much more effectively than others. However, you're paying $7-8 dollars for a single bottle, versus just buying premium.
So even with octane boosters, you're throwing $5-8 dollars away and raising your tank by less than 2 octane. Buy premium, don't be cheap.

oddseth

People always complain to me about how their new car requires premium gas and how expensive it is to fill the car but not once have they taken the time to do the math. Let's say the average driver drives 12,000 miles per year and on average 93 octane gas is $0.45/gallon more expensive than 87 octane gas and the IS350 gets an average of 20 mpg in mixed driving. By those metrics, you would use 600 gallons of gas per year which would cost a whopping $270 extra per year in gas for Premium over Regular. That is $22.5 (or about 5 Starbucks specialty coffees) per month extra which is virtually nothing. I hate to say it, but if you can afford a $50K car, or even a $30K car, you can afford to spend an extra $20 a month in gas.

4TehNguyen

iTrader: (1)

i had a friend try out regular in his 08 IS250, he said it ran horrible, weak, and bad mpg

oddseth

Agreed! I still run 93 octane in my Is350 since I drive the car pretty hard but we put 87 in the misses' C-class since it is a long term rental (lease) and she neither cares nor can tell the difference in the very slight decline in performance.

MWIS350

I was thinking the same

shirosan

I would think that most people who buy to own a Lexus would put premium gas in the tank, as long as they know how to read the gas cap stating Premium Gas Only, LOL. Though, since our cars come equipped with data loggers I wonder if Air to Fuel ratios, cam timing, etc. is logged as well. However, I doubt that dealerships have access to that information, and Lexus wouldn't release it.


Same here