NEVER EVER use regular octane gas!
 

I live in middle tennessee and about a week or two ago, as prob most of you heard, we had a huge gas shortage. Premium gas was IMPOSSIBLE to find as was mid grade because they stopped making it temporarily cuz of the hurricane. Regular gas was the only thing we had IF you could even find any so I had no choice but to get regular gas which I hated to do.

Well dont ever do it!!! My poor Rx 8 ran like shit almost like it was about to stall out and die! The check engine light came on and stayed on all the way up til we FINALLY got more premium gas around here and i couldnt fill up fast enough! All is better now but i learned my lesson and figured I would let anyone know on here that thought about trying to use regular gas NOT to ever do it!

MANY 8 owners run 87 with no problems, but to each his own.

Somethin' else must be wrong with your car. I'm only 2.5 hours north of you, and have been using "regular" 87 octane for over a year, now, with no adverse effects whatsoever. That includes 100+ degree days this summer.

Sounds more like you got shitty gasoline to begin with; it wasn't the octane rating that caused your problems.

you realize you can buy octane boost from most gas stations as well as AutoZones, etc... Would have worked as a temp fix until you could get what you usually put into the car was available.

you could have spared yourself and car a lot of drama... ah well.

jeremy, I sense that something else could be wrong with your car. I know a local here who has ALWAY run 87 octane (and fuel in California SUCKS) and has not had problems.

how many miles on your car? original coils / wires / plugs??

True dat!

I'm guessing it was used to premium.. Regular just wouldn't cut it.

I have never had one problem with my car actually. It has been a dream! But i do take good care of it and ALWAYS use premium gas which might be why the sudden problem in switchin straight to regular gas after two years of having premium. I am not saying that ALL cars wont run good on regular gas but maybe those of us who have always used premium gas should not switch back to regular. I dont think anything would be wrong with my car but it was very odd to me how it suddenly started acting weird when i used regular gas. There has to be a reason they stressed using premium only when i bought it?

Probably nothing wrong with your car but sounds like you could have gotten bad gas no matter the octane. I'm pretty sure premium was recommended by Mazda, not required in the early 8's.

The thought of bad gas did go through my head cuz the local news station was doing a report on a sudden increase in cases of bad gas when we were going through this "gas shortage" so you are right...that may be the problem or at least part of the problem.

Possibly water in the gas. Similar symptoms.

I've only run 87 once for a short period with no problems. Generally 90 tho'.

Yeah, due to the shortage, I'm sure some places are adding water their gas supply which sucks.

I have 2005...42000 miles...original everything...only thing i know i need right now is an air filter and i realized pretty fast im gonna have to order one. No one seems to carry ours in stock. I certainly am not going to the dealer for that. I can do it myself.

Yeh they actually proved that a home depot here was doing it and it ruined this guy's lexus and Home Depot agreed to pay for the damages to his car. I am sure alot of the stations were doing it and maybe didnt get caught.....YET

I guess I don't see the point in saving $.20 a gal on a $12,000+ vehicle. Maybe I'm too middle class, but I wouldn't dare put anything but premium in my 8.

Thats exactly how i feel! It does not cost that much more to use premium vs. regular or mid-grade. Unfortunately at the time i had no choice and i only got about 5 gallons to last until i could find premium but I immediately noticed the difference whether it be cuz of bad gas or lower octane.

Water usually gets into a gas stations supply due to condensation in their tank, not because they are adding it to the supply. Water is heavier than the gasoline, so it settles to the bottom. When the tank is drained, you pick up more of the water than gas. During times of normal supplies, the stations tank never gets drained down to that point.

That could be true too but from what i understand they are still responsible for keeping the water out....there is some limit or something to how much water can be in there but i do know there is a minimal amount allowed.

Get the K&N drop in... dont go with a conventional filter.

Nothing wrong with the gas or car. You have to reset the ECU if you switch from premium to regular or the car will run bad.

My car does the same thing.

New air filter, Coils, wires and plugs. You'll have no problem with 87 octane after that.

Not that you should run 87 octane ever. I'll run 89, but since gas prices dropped back below 4 bucks I'm up to 91 again.

My experience has been also to not use 87, especially if you are pushing the car. I used to run 87 all the time, without any problems, until 1 95F day, I was flooring it in 2nd, and POW! POW! POW!!, big time detonation. My car ran really bad for the rest of the day and had the "marbles in a can" sound. I was seriously worried, but the next day the car had went back to normal.

But lesson learned, I'm never using 87 ever again!

Thread read failure!

Learn to read much? :jump:

91!!!!

I've run nothing but 87 for 4 years and 4 months (52 months to be exact) and the car runs like a new one.