What gasoline type do you use for your 4Runner?

[pwanghk]

Greetings:

The Toyota dealer customer service rep (the person who show you the how to operate the car, warranty, go over some document etc at delivery time) told me that it is recommended to use Regular unleaded; however, the owner manual recommend Premium unleaded. So who is right? Personally, I always use Premium for my Camry and Altima. So I don't know if there will be any difference for an SUV.

Your insight thought or additional comment is greatly appreciated.

 

[Fireman77]

What I use

I started out using Premium but after gas got really spendy I swithced to Plus and have had no problems. I also only get gas at the big three: Shell, Texaco, or Chevron. I'm not a big fan of "discount" gas.

 

[LTC9024]

SAVE YOUR MONEY

The question keeps coming up time and time again. If you read the owners manual carefully you will note it does not say it is REQUIRED!!!!!!!
Save your money.......I have used regular since I got the vehicle with no problems, the V8. The V6 manual says exactly the same thing. Any company will say Premium is recommended since there is a slight chance there might be slightly better performance.
All the experts agree if premium is not REQUIRED, SAVE YOUR MONEY!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[pwanghk]

Thank you all for your insight thoughts

 

[Auburn 4Runner]

Most new vehicles are made to run on regular gasoline. The rep that sold me my 4runner said regular gas would do fine.

 

[thunderpaw]

Just a bit of info.

Octane is the measure of anti-ping ability of the gas. The higher compression the engine, the higher octane you need.

Higher octane actually produces LESS horsepower (due to the chemicals required to prevent pinging)

Typically truck motors are low compression motors.

However, the computers are designed to compensate for bad gas, so no longer is it quite so easy to give the advice - just use the lowest octane that doesn't ping. This computer compensation will reduce HP and change timing to prevent pinging.

Thus, I would go by whatever the owner's manual says. I use mid grade on my '97 4runner, though I know it would probably be ok with a tank or two of low octane. Towing or going up steep hills/mountains will increase the load and require higher octane too.

 

[pwanghk]

thunderpaw:

Thank you for your explanation. It's very helpfull.

 

[arouth]

pwanghk

You can buy another warranty at the end of your 3 year/36,000 mile warranty. Whenever you buy don't buy anything besides teh vehicle. They will have all kinds of offers like rust proofing and stuff and its all a ripoff.
I'm going to be using the normal gasoline.
If you got anymore questions, fire away!
arouth