Required Fuel Type

[Tickle]

If you drive 1000 miles per month, the gas price difference can be $500 a year. Overthinking?

What inspired you to buy this car?

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[Clark_Kent]

If you drive 1000 miles per month, the gas price difference can be $500 a year. Overthinking?

It doesn't seem you're genuinely interested in getting to bottom of these minor inconsistencies. It's clear you're pressed up about saving a few bucks. Just put 87 in the car and be done with it.

 

[DC2-R]

If you drive 1000 miles per month, the gas price difference can be $500 a year. Overthinking?

You are not spending an extra $500 a year.

You are filling up 4 times a month (250 miles per tank for 20 mpg). With a 12.4 gallon tank you are looking at 595.2 gallons a year (4 x 12.4 x 12).

The price difference between 87 and 91 is not $1. The difference is $0.30 to $0.40 which is $180 to $240.

Running 87 to save $240 a year is asinine.

 

[AZCWTypeR]

Use 91 or higher if you intend to keep the car long term. Detonation is hard on head gaskets.
I've had premium fuel only cars for the past 25 years. It always amazes me to pull in behind an exotic car at the gas pumps and see them pumping regular, saving pennies on a six figure car.
My Acura TL lost 3 mpg when my wife filled it with regular, so definitely false economy (along with plenty of pinging). Pinging was so obvious, she never put regular in again.

 

[MoodySara]

My wife filled the tank on her Si with 87 by accident. I was away so she called the dealer practically crying.
They told her not to worry, but if she was really concerned to put a few miles on it and top up with 93 (our premium around here).

OTOH, when she had a 2.0 Turbo Accord, it was completely happy on 87.

 

[fredzy]

Knowing well how engines work, I would never run less than 91 in this engine or honestly any turbo or high compression engine.

93 is available to me and I would never use below that. There are some places around me that have 92 as the maximum - I would not put that in my tank and feel sorry for all you poor ACN folks.

 

[Atom3S]

I’d pay an additional 50 cent more per gallon over the price of premium 91 oct for 93 oct gas if we have it here in KC.
even with the 1.5 turbo standard Civic , I told my sister to use premium during the hot summer mos. when you’re cranking the AC and/or having passengers in the car
i.e. Heavy load situation.
it absolutely is worth the xtra coins to maintain the performance.

 

[Nothing]

They make it clear that premium is recommended. 87 is listed as a minimum. As others have pointed out, this indicates that you can get away with 87 if you have to, but you should use 91 given the option. Honda would not recommend premium if 87 was equally serviceable.
Looking at tuning threads, it's clear these ECUs are very aggressive. They do not learn over time; they react and reset (I believe every time you press the pedal).

87 comes with risk, and again, given the $500 / year potential delta you provided compared to the cost of the car... it doesn't seem to be a risk worth taking.

We just had a similar thread on the DE5 forums -- keep in mind the DE5 tune is even more aggressive and 93 is recommended -- and I cannot understand spending $50k+ on a car if an extra $500 / year in fuel savings is worth risking the condition of that vehicle to you...

Usually ECU will pull timing if it senses knock, this is a bigger issue for turbocharged engines. There's a variety of reasons why this is important, some being used error, gas truck filling the reservoir with the wrong gas, old gas, crappy gas, etc. sometimes you find yourself stuck in the middle of nowhere and they only have 87.

Hope none of that happens but you hope to not need to be in that situation for long. It might throw a CEL, might go into limp mode, might do just fine.

FL5 has a lot of documentation errors, like wheel lug nuts. Recommended fuel may be a bit more important, but the website is not usually source of truth for anything.

Also, I usually avg 25mpg and 91 is 30c more than 87. At 12000mi/yr your premium (91/93) would have to be over $1/gal more than 87. Or maybe you're getting 10 mpg hammering around the track on 100..

Either way, just stick 91 minimum in it. You'd get more traction asking whether royal purple is needed, or ATE super blue is needed vs Honda fluids.

 

[xpeng]

FL5 has a lot of documentation errors, like wheel lug nuts.

What are the errors about wheel lug nuts?

 

[katch922]

I wish I lived in the states so I could pay less for gas. I have never even seen 93 around my area. I don’t mind tho, I am already not happy with 91 and 2.15$ per litre lol.

 

[TypeRD]

@xpeng

In US owners manuals it says the lug nuts should be torqued to 80 ft lbs. This is the correct spec for all Civics except the Type R. The Type R uses larger lugs which should be torqued to 94 ft lbs. Hopefully they’ve fixed this info in all manuals by now, but I don’t know. https://www.civicxi.com/forum/threads/lug-nut-torque-for-fl5-owners-manual-wrong.51756/

It seems that EU and Japan have the most “complete” manuals. The EU manual also states the engine break-in period = 1000 km (~620 mi). The US manual doesn’t have this info (unless they’ve corrected it recently).

Also just use 91 octane or higher. It is the recommended octane rating.

 

[xpeng]

@xpeng

In US owners manuals it says the lug nuts should be torqued to 80 ft lbs. This is the correct spec for all Civics except the Type R. The Type R uses larger lugs which should be torqued to 94 ft lbs. Hopefully they’ve fixed this info in all manuals by now, but I don’t know. https://www.civicxi.com/forum/threads/lug-nut-torque-for-fl5-owners-manual-wrong.51756/

It’s still showing 80 in my manual, I used that number to check my wheels yesterday, and found out no wheel lock key coming with the car. I also checked tire pressure, all 53. I believe the dealership did nothing for pre-delivery inspection.

 

[TypeRD]

It’s still showing 80 in my manual, I used that number to check my wheels yesterday, and found out no wheel lock key coming with the car. I also checked tire pressure, all 53. I believe the dealership did nothing for pre-delivery inspection.

That’s annoying. They should’ve given you a key if you got wheel locks. Are you sure they didn’t put the key in the “spare tire” compartment, maybe? This is another topic, but most wheel locks are pointless. There are a couple of brands of locks that are actually effective. Common wheel locks are hardly a deterrent unfortunately.

Over-inflated tires is a common “problem” too. This is done from the factory because they’re on a long journey from Japan and no one will monitor the tires until the dealer gets the car. The dealer may opt to keep the tires over-inflated basically because the car could sit in the showroom for months and rarely move. Over-inflating helps prevent flat spots. They should have checked this before you drove off the lot.

Going to stop here as to not hijack this thread any further.

 

[NoelPR]

That’s annoying. They should’ve given you a key if you got wheel locks. Are you sure they didn’t put the key in the “spare tire” compartment, maybe? This is another topic, but most wheel locks are pointless. There are a couple of brands of locks that are actually effective. Common wheel locks are hardly a deterrent unfortunately.

Over-inflated tires is a common “problem” too. This is done from the factory because they’re on a long journey from Japan and no one will monitor the tires until the dealer gets the car. The dealer may opt to keep the tires over-inflated basically because the car could sit in the showroom for months and rarely move. Over-inflating helps prevent flat spots. They should have checked this before you drove off the lot.

Going to stop here as to not hijack this thread any further.

My ITS had overinflated tires too and didn't had a long journey like the CTR.
Is common at least under honda's umbrella.

 

[NoelPR]

Usually ECU will pull timing if it senses knock, this is a bigger issue for turbocharged engines. There's a variety of reasons why this is important, some being used error, gas truck filling the reservoir with the wrong gas, old gas, crappy gas, etc. sometimes you find yourself stuck in the middle of nowhere and they only have 87.

The car is tuned to work 1st with premium fuel and adjust if knock is detected.

That is the problem that people ignore, a knock event needs to occur before the ECU reacts.

Avoid that by running the recommended fuel.

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