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Of course you're free to do what you want but consider this:
Lets say the average per tank savings for regular vs. premium is positive $10.00 USD (it's less than that, but 10 is a nice round number). Lets say a major engine overhaul/replacement with installation is $4000.00. Your average fuel usage is 25 mpg and each fill-up is 16 gallons.
So lets see:
$4000/$10=400 so you need to burn 400 tank-fulls of regular gas to offset that one time when you accelerated and the engine safety system didn't step-in soon enough, or maybe your waste gate failed, etc.
25(m/g)*16(g)=400(m) per tank
400*400(m)= 160,000 miles
So um, lets see, you'd have to drive 160,000 miles (likely more) to offset the cost of one major engine problem caused by regular non-recommended fuel use. I wonder if you haven't voided your warranty?
And that isn't even considering your: decreased enjoyment of the car, increased time from point A to B, decreased fuel economy, likely increased maintenance expenses during that time (how much is a cat replacement?), increased worry everytime you accelerate, increased pollution from your tailpipe, and the hours you'll spend at the shop over the entire 160,000 mile life of your poor vehicle.
It adds-up to a bunch of negative cost savings.
I'm not going to try to change your mind, but have you considered what you wrote "Heavy use of throttle on the street is very rare as you really cannot maintain full throttle for any appreciable length of time without being arrested or getting into a big accident."?
The above simply is not true in my experience. One example: when merging onto a highway where everyone is traveling 80 mph. The absolute safest way to merge involves matching or sometimes exceeding the speed of the traffic flow. At that time I know I don't want to be thinking, "jeez, I really hope the electronic safety margins built into this Saab can save the engine because I'm going to need some boost now." Or worse, "I hope he'll move over when he sees that I'm only going 50 because I'm cheap and can't put a big load on my engine to match traffic speed quickly enough.", or "what was that, pinging? Have I been on boost too long again?" or eventually "Hey! What is all that white smoke billowing out of my tail pipe? The pinging stopped, but now I have white smoke, hmmm."
Here's something to try, sometime when you're in a multilane situation with stoplights in a conjested area--carefully pass some people, downshift agressively and quickly accelerate into the void between the traffic masses that the stop lights create and then resume normal traffic-flow speed. When you do that you're using full throttle but you're also positioning yourself in SPACE and that is the safest place to be. After you've earned that position in traffic through your heavy throttle use you'll also have the benefit of lane choices, better visability, increased TIME if something does go wrong, greatly increased control over your destiny, and have increased the odds that you'll be in the first wave at the next light, which creates the opportunity to again accelerate yourself into space. Your Saab has been specifically designed to give you that ability. Try the same thing on the highway too. Heavy acceleration will create safety through space with proper application.
Like I said before, I don't really care what you run in your car but it does truly baffle me that you purposely choose to both handicap your car's performance AND greatly increase your risk of engine damage on a regular basis. Why not get a NA car whose manufacturer recommends regular gasoline?
posted by 67.10.24...
, Fri, 22 Oct 2004 13:54:59
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