On my commute to work this morning, one of the local Chinese radio station was discussing about the new ceiling price ruling for RON95 and RON97 petrol. In case you didn't know what's going on, read it here. I got so irritated by the amount of nonsense being aired on national radio by the DJ and one particular guest for their morning programme that I switched station.
Many members of the public are still pretty ignorant about RON fuel rating. And the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob is no more better informed. He has been saying things like RON97 is better for the environment, gives more performance to the engine, and a load of other bull crap.
A lot of this have already been covered in an earlier post here, just ignore the no longer applicable ceiling price. Another informative article was posted on MTM last year.
In technical terms - petrol are commonly rated based on their Antiknock Index (AKI), a measure of octane quality. The AKI is a measure of a fuel’s ability to resist engine knock (ping). The AKI of a motor fuel is the average of the Research Octane Number (RON) and Motor Octane Number (MON) or (R+M)/2. Optimum performance and fuel economy is achieved when the AKI of a fuel is adequate for the engine in which it is combusted. There is no advantage in using gasoline of a higher AKI than the engine requires to operate knock-free.
In simple terms, if your car manual states the minimum RON requirement is RON 91, you will not get any improvement in exhaust emissions / engine performance by using a higher RON rating fuel. Most modern petrol powered cars are tuned to run on RON91 / RON 92 petrol.
Below are a summary of petrol quality standards of measurement, which I manage to reproduce from some reference materials published by the U.S. National Institute of Automotive Service Excellence.
Click to enlargeOnly Point 1 and 2 affects driveability of the vehicle, but as mentioned above, you will not get any performance advantage from running a higher RON rating fuel than what your vehicle's engine is originally designed to operate on. All other fuel quality properties have no relation to the RON index number. So there is no such thing as RON97 is better for the environment, is better for your engine etc etc, unless the vehicle manufacturer specifically states RON97 or higher is fuel required.
The table below are the common additives added to modern petrol.
By the way, there may be a lot of references on Caltex fuels in the linked article, but this blog is not related / supported in any way by Chevron. The reason I like to promote Caltex fuels is because my own car does not need anything higher than RON 92. And not many oil companies in Malaysia offer RON92 fuel except for Caltex, Esso, Mobil and BHPetroleum. But only Caltex and BHPetroleum is able to confirm that the same quality of additive is being used for their higher grade RON 97 petrol as well as the cheaper RON 92 petrol. I pay a lower price and I noticed that I got better mileage than another megabrand petrol who promises great mileage, so I have no complaints. Plus, there's a Caltex station is near my house.
4 comments:
All Shell stations that used to be Projet before the takeover also offer RON92.
Really? I rarely go to Shell.
What do they call it? The regular Shell Super is already RON97.
Interesting article. There is an ex-Projet station near Atria, I forget what the RON 92 is called.
Just wanted to share some personal experience - I own a 1985 Mazda RX7. When using Caltex Regular, I have difficulty starting engine when cold. Lots of cranking before it actually fires up.
I've wondered whether it was a property of the Caltex fuel, some odd fuel additive or perhaps my local Caltex station was spiking their petrol with kerosene.
No similar issues running Shell or BHP regular. However, I like the "smell" of the Shell petrol better :)
Sorry - comment above should mention "Caltex Ron92" not Caltex regular.
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