i'm new to all this euro car stuff and basically all of my previous american cars have always used regular unleaded.
i know its the price you have to pay for havinga luxury car but premium gas is ssooo expensive.not that i really mind paying for that price at all cause i love my baby, but do you think i can get away with using midgrade at all?

 

if you use a lower grade, you will get worse gas mileage. someone did the math out in a previous thread, but the worse gas mileage will equate to spending more money than if you used premium

 

I believe there's something in the owner's manual about this regarding which octane rating is recommended. If I remember correctly, it's 93 and 95. I've not seen any studies made comparing the bottom line of higher octane vs lower grade. You can definitely use lower grade, but it's not 'recommended', plus you lose some power.

 

my 03 3.0 is 91 octane minimum, and i tried a little stdy with my last car, difference was 30 miles to the tankful, in favor of premium gas!! been usin it ever since

 

Yes better gas milage is the least of the benefits.
I used to fill up with premium then at half a tank, top it off with minimum. Within the year of doing so my fuel throttle clogged causing the car to feel like it was going to stall out when stopping. Not too mention the $135 charge from the dealer to install a new one. All due to running low octane fuel.

 

The higher octane keeps timing from being pulled resulting in more power and also better mpg. No reason to fill up more often and have a slower car.

 

Not to mention burned valves, when the engine pre-ignites due to low octane gas the knock sensor detects and retards timing to protect the engine, but some of the damage is done. Buying poor quality fuel is like eating junk food, fills you up but you will pay for it later in poor health.

 

[:@][:@][:@]If you are going to be too cheap to put premium in ANY turbo charged car, you should not be driving it... It will mess up your internals. Seen it happen all the time, not recommended.

 

These cars are equipped with knock sensors right??? All they do is dumb down the timing and allow you to run the cheaper gas...but its only like $5 extra to run the good gas rather than the cheapy gas.

 

thanks everyone for your honest answers. again, this site rocks. who better toanswer your question than from a4 owners themselves.

btw... captain, your analogy was right on target! it makes perfect sense.