Bought a clean '97 4.0 Land Rover with 148k miles and love it. My questionis, the manual says, "Only use Premium Octane gas'." Can anyone tell me if it's possible to use a lower octane or recommendation? With gas prices in California what they are it would sure help. If not . . . oh well. Thanks for any input.[8D]

 

With regular 87 octane, you will carbon up the engine, loose power and about 2 MPG.
Main reason is that if you carbon up your heads, you can damage your valves and boy it isn't worth it.

 

Its a pay now or,,,,,,,pay later.
Pay now its much better.

 

Thanks for the honest answers. This is a great forum and I'm sure I will get a lot of mileage from it. Thanks again.

 

If you want to improve your mileage consider, new 02 sensors, new Magnacor plug wires and a good set of Bosch Platium Plus 4 plugs.

 

I started out using premium 93 octane, but I have been using mid-grade ever since gas exceeded $3.00/gallon in South Carolina for my '02 Range Rover. I know the minimum recommended rating is 91, but I just assumed 89 would be okay. Is the 89 doing me damage?

 

i have an 93 RR v8 which i run on nothing less than 95 octane and it killed me to keep the fuel up to it. I went out and brought a pod fillter,it cost me close to $60 aus for all connections and fitting is easy but it has cut my fuel bill by more than a third and in 2 weeks i`ve saved more than the cost of the parts and the time spent was more than worth it..

 

You know what they say about assuming???
You will cost your self more in repairs and maintance using anything less then 91 octane, as well as loose at least 1 MPG.

 

What is this Pod Filter you mentioned?

 

its like a high performance air fillter they use alot on turbo motors,its a cone shape and the total surface area is fillter it gives greater air flow to the engine eg: better performance and less fuel.in oz they range from $30 to $130 the later being a washable one which they say can last up to 200,000 klm you can also get adapters to create your own cold air intake.