Q: i am about to purchase an 05' nissan maximain canada...there are conflicting views on whether to use premium or regular fuel. this website http://www.canadiandriver.com/buyers-guide/2005/nissan/maxima.php says to use regular fuels as well as the 2005 maxima owners manuel (they recomend premuim for improved performance). however i belive the gas cap on the maxima says "premuim recommended" which gas type should i be using? thanks alot
A: Most modern cars can adjust to use any type of gas. As the owners manual says, you might get more power when using premium fuel, but I doubt this engine is powerful enough to take advantage of the higher octane anyway. If the cost of gas is a concern, just buy the cheapest gas you can. There is no quality difference between any of them. If for some reason you hear pinging (like marbles dropped into an empty coffee can), then move up one grade of gas - but the modern electronic controls and sensors in the engine make it extremely unlikely you'll notice any difference. edit: incidentally, octane is a measurement of how hard it is to burn the gas. The higher the number, the harder it is to burn. In high performance engines, this allows the engineers to use more aggressive techniques to get more power, but those techniques make the engine hotter. To avoid the gas igniting prematurely, higher octane gas is used. Modern engines can detect when lower octane gas is causing the gas to ignite prematurely and the computer can force the engine to run less aggressively to safely burn the lower octane gas. So, you get a little less power, but the engine still operates perfectly normally.