I got off of work late around 10 and decided to fill up the gas tank where i usally fill up at a cooperate cardlock gas station. Everything was normal and all of a sudden i hear a guy screaming the "F**k". I kept on pumping and he ran towards me from his Audi A6 yellen "STOP STOP" n i asked him wuts wrong, n he tells me that the premium gas was not really priemum but midgrade he read the piece of paper which was taped onto the gas bar thing. i stoped pumping and went to the nearest 7 11 and bought a STP octane boster n poped it in hoping that atleast the octane level would go up a couple of points....now my question is will the midgrade fuel have any effect on the cat?

 

dude nothing will happen from one time or even 10 times

 

The guy in the Audi might want to relax a little, a tank of midgrade is not going to damage anything. You're not driving a top fuel dragster.

 

And octane booster is a waste of money!

 

Ur car will just retard timing and w/e it has to do to use lower octane gas. Which basically means your car will be slower. No harm done though. Just refill with premium next time and you are back to normal.

 

I would blow my car up and sue the gas station for a million dollars.

 

It's very nice of you considering you are very sensitive against octane ratings , I know some guys driving expensive cars and trying to make some "huge" savings in their opnion by refuelling low octanes lol
BTW, sevren this should be the funniest post today

 

hahaha, i had that happen to me, i was going to snap and i just got the f**k out of there, i never went to that gas bar again

 

OMG!! Park the car, drop the fuel cell and drain immediately. You'll also need to repalce the fuel rail, fuel injectors, fuel pump and possibly the engine!!! OMG...OMG...OMG....

lol, just messin...you'll be fine. Don't sweat it.

 

Hahaha I find this funny in the aspect that i use lowgrade Fuel on my X. Knock on Wood, its been running fine since the day I got it and treats me well.

 

Your car will be slower though with 87 octane. As long as you are ok with that then whatever. I don't know if there are any long term problems with the engine not running at its optimum performance.

 

Slower....eh maybe at WOT you might lose a few ponies, but won't be noticeable. There are so many different mixes of fuel at every grade, the ECU is smart enough to compensate. I would continue to run premium as the manufacturer requires, but a slip up here and there will have no consequences.

 

If the engine alters its timing for knock suppression when you put in low octane then I would have guessed that it is running at sub-optimal efficiency and therefore fuel efficiency might be reduced so it could be a false economy.

On a related note, I read on the Wikipedia page on octane ratings that

...Consumers may note that "gasohol", or 90% gasoline with 10% ethanol gives a higher octane rating (knock suppression)...

I always thought gasohol was the cheap nasty option.

 

I only fill with Mobil in my cars. I have no clue how their gas is formulated, but my car is MUCH quicker and has a better throttle response when I use Mobil than if I fill with BP or Shell. I can immediately tell if Mobil gas is in the tank after getting into either car even if I haven't driven it in weeks. That's how big the difference is. I believe BP and Shell use more ethanol in their gas than Mobil. Maybe that has something to do with it?

And filling with BP, Shell, etc. all make the car feel the same way. Mobil is the only one that stands out from the group.

 

Where i live we dont have Mobil and the only shell station that i know of looks like a run down truckers stop. However we have Petro Canada wich does the trick. on a side note i just lost a race to a friggan dodge calibir but dunt care cuz i kno he had NOS and a turbo in it.

 

The number of cars that I have lost races to is simply ridiculous. Even kias and the new 4-cylinder jap cars can beat me. But at the end of the race, you still have the sexy euro car and they have a POS old Japanese or Korean car. So what if its faster. Lots of cars are faster than the x-type that cost a lot less. I never get upset with losing a race. I know that 192hp in a 3500lb car is going to be ridiculously slow. But at least we lose in style. lol

 

The X-Type has above average traction thanks to its weight and its AWD system, so you need to use it to your advantage. Can you describe how you race? I have a 3.0 so it's a bit more powerful than yours, but it's still not a powerhouse on the highway at 60mph+. However it's got a very good 0-60mph time, especially with manual transmission. I just don't see how a cheap Jap/Korean car would beat you from red light to red light, unless that car was heavily modified. But then if you invest a lot of $ into your cheap car, it's not exactly a cheap car anymore.

 

The car does hook up, that's no doubt. I find however the top end more satisfying than the low end, and feel the car shows its legs better on the highway at higher speed. Of course I am strapped with the 2.5 auto and it is much less punchy than the 3.0's I have driven. I noticed the throttle tip-in is a little more aggresive on the 3.0 as well.

It's just not a race car. Nor are the others mentioned in the post above.

 

I'm not into street racing. But say 3 lanes merge to 2 ahead. And either im trying to pass someone and merge in front of them or I'm trying to get ahead so they are forced to merge behind me. That's where most of my encounters occur. Light turns green and I just mash the throttle. Thanks to the awd, I have 0 wheel slip even in rain, which is where i can easily take off ahead of people because they can't accelerate as hard with FWD or RWD. But in dry, I've been beaten by the current generation Nissan Altima I4 2.5 several times. And several other cars with I4's. The new ones have almost as much power as the X and weight less. So they are quite quick. But none of the 4-cylinders have an engine that sounds as good as the lowly 2.5. Leave your car in park or neutral and just slowly rev your car to redline (Think of hearing a car on a dyno). Do it very slowly and you will hear the pitch of the engine change tones several times. It sounds amazing.

I once raced my friend from a light till 70mph. He has an 06 sentra 1.8. We each had 2 other passengers in our cars who weighed roughly the same. And we were dead even till about 60 where I started to pull away slowly. I was only half car length ahead at 70. So the x-type 2.5 is slowwwww. The 3.0 is much better.

Unfortunately when I bought this car new in fall of 2002, they weren't giving discounts. So the 3.0 was quite a bit more expensive. They didn't start giving away the cars till 2004. Which is when everyone started just getting the 3.0s.

 

Oh and the 1000-3000 rpm range just SUCKS. If I take a right hand corner and I dip below 3000, car won't accelerate at all.