Ive been looking into the ss for a while and im curious about gas grades. Ive seen the manual and it says to use nothing lower than 83 octane unless you want knock. The lowest we have here is 87. Is 87 octane on the ss with the supercharger gonna kill performance or murder the engine over time?

 

You should plan on putting in at least 91 octane. I put in 93 (I don't have 91 avalible).

You can run 87 but you lose power, I see little point of getting a fast car and putting slow gas in it ?

 

didn't know there was 83 octane gas. just put 91 or higher and you'll be ok.

 

I think gas is a bit expensive for me to drive this car then. Ive got a show truck and im getting married so im trying to have a nice car but yet be practical at the same time. I guess Ill look into a grand am sct

 

What about 89 octane, thats our middle grade gas here cuase the next grade is 93. We dont have 91 here

 

Ern,

You can safely drive your SS/SC on 87 octane every day of the week.

But think about this a bit, you are buying a high performance vehicle. It really requires 91 octane petrol to run at peak output, but aside from gas think about other maintenance costs.

When I get my oil changed at the dealer it's $66, yep thats a lot but it's washington DC and it's Mobil 1 oil. Then think about tires, they are much more expensive than tires for a regluar car, expect to pay at least $180 a tire and I am being generous. Plus you are going to get like 20k miles on a set of tires, so expect to change them more often. And I dunno your record and for me it wasn't an increase at all, but insurance might be higher.

Stuff to think about. Speed aint cheap ...

 

so you can run 87 on the cobalt SS's? it's mandatory for me to put in at least 91 octane. i tried putting 89 before due to they ran out of 91 and i was in the middle of the desert. car was messing up bad. it was shaking most of the time like it wanted to stall.

 

Yes you can. The computer will detect if it starts to knock, and retard timing until it stops.

 

Thats some expensive oil changes. I know mobil 1 isnt cheap either. As far as tires goes, I know exactly where your coming from. I have a show s10. 20s with 255/35/20. Try 265 a tire. Thats expensive.

I think I need to look into it more. It does get really good gas mileage on 91 octane right. I thought i red 25 town and 29 highway?

That seems really good at that grade for a superhcarger

 

83 octane??? interesting....

60 bucks for a mobile 1 oil change and whatever filter that is the SS has is actually good.

Also dont buy the car if you cant buy the gas.... the SS isnt designed to run below 91, BUT it can, doesnt mean you should though. These are all costs that most people should research before buying a car, its called the actuall cost of ownership.

Also if you are only one grade of gas difference thats usually 10 cents a gallon...

cobalt i'm guessing has about a 13 gallon tank...

so basically for $1.30 extra every time you FILL UP your tank FROM EMPTY

you get better performance and take some pressure off of your engine to make up for low octane.... sounds like a no brainer to me

 

Hey DC5, how about non-Type S? Can they run below 91 octane?

 

yes, you can put in 87 octane on the base model rsx.

 

amen.... i run sunoco 94 octane in my SS, and it runs like a scalded dog, also get 43 mpg on open road at 60mph! here it cost 2.50 a gallon vs 235 for 91 octane....but if u can afford to do all the upgrades on the car, why worry about 15 cents a gallon??

 

run 93 for the best performance!

 

go to the track and get 105 lol, no cats alowed. Shoot a flame out your tailpipe the size of a ******* long ass snake. No go with 89+ 87 is not to good to run on all the time.

 

I run 93 every time I fill up unless I happen to be near a Sunoco. Then I use the Ultra 94.