95 RON in an e92 M3

[river_rat]

rassi said:

I ran mine on a mix of 95 and 98, and must say I never noticed any change of performance or fuel economy regardless.

+1

I always noticed the engine hunting seemed to be worse when colder weather - during the summer it pretty much stopped.

[GroundEffect]

ant man said:

The S65 produces 420hp with 98ron fuel. Evolve tested the difference of 95 vs 99ron (Shell Vpower) a few years ago and it is 10bhp.

You will the transient torque differences more than anything else. What were they?

[Tony B2]

GroundEffect said:

ant man said:

The S65 produces 420hp with 98ron fuel. Evolve tested the difference of 95 vs 99ron (Shell Vpower) a few years ago and it is 10bhp.

You will the transient torque differences more than anything else. What were they?

But surely, I thought it was "all in their heads".....?

And having discussed it with BMW M engineers, its not all in their heads, either.

[Wills2]

Tony B2 said:

But surely, I thought it was "all in their heads".....?

And having discussed it with BMW M engineers, its not all in their heads, either.

No point Tony, it's Pistonheads.

You and your M engineer friends are wrong, I saw it on facebook some tight arse running the car on a shoe string budget said it didn't make any difference.

[Tony B2]

Wills2 said:

Tony B2 said:

But surely, I thought it was "all in their heads".....?

And having discussed it with BMW M engineers, its not all in their heads, either.

No point Tony, it's Pistonheads.

You and your M engineer friends are wrong, I saw it on facebook some tight arse running the car on a shoe string budget said it didn't make any difference.

You are right, Neil

It was so much easier in the days of m3torque.....the good old days....;-)

[davie3door]

I would say that the M engineers know what they are talking about.
I personally run any performance car that I own on V power, never had any fuelling issues that way.
Imo worth the few quid extra £ per tank.

[D4SH]

Having recently purchased this vehicle and then committing the cardinal sin of actually reading the manual, it does say the car is designed to use 98RON but 95RON is acceptable. Although there will be a slight drop in power of about 10bhp.

I find my car a bit lumpy on start up (although revs don't bounce about), but thought that was due to the cold start system? I love the extra noise and the thought that this beast is of a car is just a bit grumpy when woken up

[Tony B2]

D4SH said:

Having recently purchased this vehicle and then committing the cardinal sin of actually reading the manual, it does say the car is designed to use 98RON but 95RON is acceptable. Although there will be a slight drop in power of about 10bhp.

I find my car a bit lumpy on start up (although revs don't bounce about), but thought that was due to the cold start system? I love the extra noise and the thought that this beast is of a car is just a bit grumpy when woken up

Yes - I like the cold start thing, too. There is usually a small fluctuation on mine (+/- 200 revs) which goes away after after 10 - 20 seconds.



Amazingly, some people have this cold start sequence coded out. I cannot imagine why.

[cerb4.5lee]

Tony B2 said:

D4SH said:

Having recently purchased this vehicle and then committing the cardinal sin of actually reading the manual, it does say the car is designed to use 98RON but 95RON is acceptable. Although there will be a slight drop in power of about 10bhp.

I find my car a bit lumpy on start up (although revs don't bounce about), but thought that was due to the cold start system? I love the extra noise and the thought that this beast is of a car is just a bit grumpy when woken up

Yes - I like the cold start thing, too. There is usually a small fluctuation on mine (+/- 200 revs) which goes away after after 10 - 20 seconds.



Amazingly, some people have this cold start sequence coded out. I cannot imagine why.

I enjoyed the cold start on mine, but then I was always gutted when it settled into it's silent idle though...I wanted it to stay at that volume.

[Max Maxasson]

If only they could make the F8x M4 sound like the E9x M3...I could forgive the M4 a lot if it had that V8 scream.

[John Laverick]

Wills2 said:

No point Tony, it's Pistonheads.

You and your M engineer friends are wrong, I saw it on facebook some tight arse running the car on a shoe string budget said it didn't make any difference.

I can only assume your comment wasn't aimed at me as mine certainly wasn't run on a shoestring in the year that I owned it despite sometimes putting 95 Octane in it. The E92 M3 has far more power than necessary for road use so missing 2% of it's power is hardly worth losing sleep over.

I can only tell you my experience, I noticed no difference 95 vs 98 during normal (and spirited) road driving. I can believe it might lose 10bhp at the top end if measure on an engine dyno but my arse dyno couldn't notice it.

[HannsG]

My E46 M3 ran much better on 97ron+.

I never believed they hype until i started driving high performance cars. It made a difference.

The difference in price is barely worth mulling it over.

If you were banging a Supermodel, would you take her to Maccy D's?

[Front bottom]

I think my post has become a little misunderstood. I was quoting someone from another forum (albeit Facebook) saying that the s65 was designed to run on 95RON. I was just wondering if anyone else had heard this.

I also mentioned fuel snobbery when it comes to M cars. There is some of that displayed in this thread.

[JMBMWM5]

Front bottom said:

I think my post has become a little misunderstood. I was quoting someone from another forum (albeit Facebook) saying that the s65 was designed to run on 95RON. I was just wondering if anyone else had heard this.

I also mentioned fuel snobbery when it comes to M cars. There is some of that displayed in this thread.

The car will run on 95 Ron, and is capable of running on Lower fuel ratings around the world, BUT Performance will be impaired somewhat.
All dealers fill all cars with PISS 95 Ron that includes "M" cars. If you test drive one it will still go well and it will only have the cheap stuff in it.
I always put the better stuff in "M" cars but it's not a requirement , the ignition will just retard down to the Ron level.

[jamoor]

My fuel cap filler says 95 is ok so thats what I put in.

[Tony B2]

jamoor said:

My fuel cap filler says 95 is ok so thats what I put in.

Yes, and eating bread and water for 24 hours is OK.

[XMT]

95 Ron is your issue.
Baffles me when people say they cant tell the difference.

V power all the way, even the BP ultimate is crap.

Tick over is the tell tale sign if your car likes it or not. Even in my N55 335i it hated anything but V power.

[IainWhy]

John Laverick said:

I can only tell you my experience, I noticed no difference 95 vs 98 during normal (and spirited) road driving. I can believe it might lose 10bhp at the top end if measure on an engine dyno but my arse dyno couldn't notice it.

I always feel a little bit depressed when i read things like this, I am not having a pop at you, just at the assumption that because you don't notice it all is well.

These cars don't magically know the octane of the fuel in the tank, they pull timing out of the ignition map when the knock sensors start to pick up detonation.

So with these cars having *cough* such a trouble free bottom end, do you want more knock or less knock in your engine?

[Front bottom]

XMT said:

95 Ron is your issue.
Baffles me when people say they cant tell the difference.

V power all the way, even the BP ultimate is crap.

Tick over is the tell tale sign if your car likes it or not. Even in my N55 335i it hated anything but V power.

Some people say Shell V-power makes things worse, or it only appears when they use it. Others swear by the Esso 98RON stuff.

Me? I use Tesco Momentum. Mine has just come back from Sytner after having a throttle actuator replaced and I mentioned the cold start 'hunting' thing to them. They said it's normal, as did someone else I spoke to who has worked on many e92 M3s.

It's all part of the 'cold start cycle' apparently, which can be mapped out, which many owners do I suppose. That would explain why a lot of cars don't do it with present owners.

[fido]

I bought an M3 this week and I’ve already done half a tank of 95 and VPower each - can’t tell the difference in the cold weather but then i have taken it over 6k rpm yet. It has a pretty advanced trionic knock sensor so in the lower rpm ranges and cold air it’s probably happy with 95. Glad I got the M3 instead of the M2 but it does like to drink ..