Octane booster

[Big "J"]

With the price of premium getting way too high.... do you all think using mid-grade and putting in some octane booster will help or not?

[babysvt]

I would not skimp on fuel and would use the premium and not add the booster. I am not sure what your gas prices are like but premium here is only $.10 more than mid-grade and most good octane boosters cost $3 to $10. Here it would be more expensive to add the octane boost. I am sure there are those who have tried it. Will be interesting to see.

[NJ04e53]

don't octane boosters cost like $10? if so I would just fill with premium since the difference of mid-grade and premium is about 10 cents here in jersey..that's $2.00 more for a 20 gallon tank..

[BrianX54.4is]

Petrol here is €1.30/ltr (that's about $2.04) but I buy shell v-power that's another 5c/ltr more - I just find the car runs well on that. On top of that the Irish government believes it fair to impose an annual €1,491.00 motor tax if you drive a larger than 3.0 engine. You can pay by 6 months or 3 months but that costs even more (up to €1,684.00/year - $2,636.00). For new car buyers there's the 30% Vehicle Registration Tax imposed on the retail price which is of course in addition to the 21%VAT.

A new E70 X5 4.8 M Sport starts at €120,000 here and when you add the best of the packages and options it can be more than €163,000 ($255,192) inc. VRT/VAT - don't believe me? check out the BMW Irl car configurator.

I guess the point here is that if the rising costs of motoring are an issue then the X5 is not a sensible choice for your wallet. However, when I fire her up every morning - I can't help but smile and think "hey, I deserve it!".

From July 2008 the government here is changing the VRT and motor tax calculations to reward buyers of lower CO emmission cars but penalise buyers of cars with higher CO emmissions. Interestingly, 68% of BMW models will see a reduction in price here due to BMW EfficientDynamics. Sadly, the X5 won't be one of them but the 520d SE will drop in price by more than €8,000!

[Tomaz]

I have used octain boosters in the past for ultra high compression engines but would not reccommend it for modern engines. The side affects include deposits on the plugs and mass airflow sensor, and possibly catalytic converter. The best advice is put the required octain gas in and drive economically.

[Wagner]

Um, if you can't afford an extra 15 cents for premium fuel, you probably should ditch the BMW

[primetime]

Octane boost won't hurt it..And no it doesn't cost 10 bucks...At least not when i've done it...I've put mid grade in and used octane booster. It does make a difference. But I wouldn't make a habit out of it...Its just one of those things, you shouldn't really put anything in your tank but premium gasoline...So try to use premium regardless, but to answer your question it won't hurt the car, at least from my experiences with it I haven't had any ill effects from it..I've done it probably 6 times in the last 2 years....

[mrbmwx5]

Got the Gas pain??????? ride one of these

[vinuneuro]

Originally Posted by Tomaz

I have used octain boosters in the past for untra high compression engines but would not reccommend it for modern engines. The side affects include deposits on the plugs and mass airflow sensor, and possibly catalytic converter. The best advice is put the required octain gas in and drive economically.

Yep, the ecu can only pull timing. It can't add timing when you increase the octane past what BMW tuned for. The result will be an incomplete burn.

[Quicksilver]

This question has been pounded to death and the answer you see below is the same.

Originally Posted by Wagner

Um, if you can't afford an extra 15 cents for premium fuel, you probably should ditch the BMW