European and North American fuel- No, your European fuel isn’t superior.

I see this all time time on forums and Facebook groups though not so much on here. Inevitably, Europeans traveling in North America with their own car/motorcycle are worried about our "crappy peasant gas" or Americans who complain that in Europe they have "97 octane at the pump" (!) Like it's race fuel or something. 

I point out they are on completely different scales and how that number is calculated and you would think this would common knowledge in car/mc enthusiast communities.They are different but the same, like converting KM to miles but it just keeps persisting. I don't know why this is one of those things that annoys the hell out of me but it just does.  

I just paste this link now:

https://motocrossactionmag.com/amp/ask-the-mxperts-why-does-euro-fuel-have-so-much-more-octane-than-american-fuel-2/

Anybody else see this all the time?

I just assumed most of Europe still ran on steam, or maybe diesel.

Specifically, the EU uses RON, the US uses AKI, which is (RON+MON)/2, and MON tends to be roughly 10 points lower than RON, as the test is different.  It's been this way forever, and I've seen these same arguments 20 years ago.

alfadriver said:

Specifically, the EU uses RON, the US uses AKI, which is (RON+MON)/2, and MON tends to be roughly 10 points lower than RON, as the test is different.  It's been this way forever, and I've seen these same arguments 20 years ago.

That's exactly my point.  I've been explaining it for many years and this never goes away. It's a simple conversion but many people just see bigger numbers and don't know it's a different scale. It's either mentioned in a smug way to either put down American fuel quality as third world or to brag about how great theirs is when it's just different math. It's ignorant and annoying.

93 AKI American E10 gas is at least 98 RON. This is why European racing kart engines don't need leaded racing gas, despite our sanctioning bodies' best efforts to lead-poison all the kids at the track. 

Silly octane misunderstandings aside, there was (and may still be) an issue with sulfur content in US fuels causing problems with some European engines (BMW, for one). Premature degradation of the cylinder walls in early aluminum blocks, IIRC. I know the treatment used on the blocks changed; I don't know if the fuel did too.

I like the Americans who get back from a trip to the UK and rant about why does the rental car there gets better MPG than the same car they own here.

In reply to ShawnG :

Heck, you can get the same improvement in MPG by simply driving across the Canadian border. No need to go all the way to the UK.

crankwalk, I think you've reading too much into some posts :) I've never come across the smug aspect of it, usually just puzzlement.

Keith Tanner said:

In reply to ShawnG :

Heck, you can get the same improvement in MPG by simply driving across the Canadian border. No need to go all the way to the UK.

crankwalk, I think you've reading too much into some posts :) I've never come across the smug aspect of it, usually just puzzlement.

Nah it's mostly motorcycle boards and some car stuff just over the last probably twenty years. I don't want to sound overly complainy on here though I know it may sound like that in a couple of threads. I don't want to be a negative Nancy.
 

"Shipping my BMW gs to Alaska to ride the Alcan but how will it do on their poor fuel?" "Americans ONLY have 93 octane, my Skyline wouldn't run on anything less than 98 here on Australia" "Our fuel is more expensive but we also have much higher octane" (you don't, but also ignoring taxes)

and a thousand other examples over the years. 

I don't think I'm over analyzing, I think a lot of people just don't know they are calculated differently and people sometimes get weird about it. I don't see puzzlement because mostly folks just believe europe, Japan, Australia has much better fuel. 
 

We wrote a little something about that over at Classic Motorsports: How Much Octane Is Enough for My Classic?

In reply to crankwalk (Forum Supporter) :

25 years ago, I talked to a UK supplier of Alfa parts, and he would not sell me the parts because of the perception.  I've almost stopped trying.

Next time, maybe be a smart ass, and suggest that they buy something in Canada or the US for their travels, like EXACTLY the same vehicle they want to bring over.  

02Pilot said:

Silly octane misunderstandings aside, there was (and may still be) an issue with sulfur content in US fuels causing problems with some European engines (BMW, for one). Premature degradation of the cylinder walls in early aluminum blocks, IIRC. I know the treatment used on the blocks changed; I don't know if the fuel did too.

I chuckle at this theory.  The removal of the sulfur is an emissions thing far more than it is an engine wear thing, and the US has been SO far ahead than the EU in emissions, it's not funny.  Heck, it wasn't until the 90's that lead was finally banned in some countries.

And knowing that BMW's have had deposit problems for decades, it seems to me that it's just another excuse for premature failures.  Especially for BMW, who has a pretty significant amount of sales in the US- if they are not robust to the fuels here, it's their fault, not the fuel.  Everyone else deals with it- what kind of soft coating does BMW use that makes them so unique?

In reply to alfadriver :

The cylinder wall degradation happened in Europe as well, at least in the UK when they changed the sulfur content in the fuel.

There was also the rules for small engined cars that exempted them from needed cats for much longer than the bigger engined cars, and other fun stuff around emissions in the EU.

alfadriver said:

Heck, it wasn't until the 90's that lead was finally banned in some countries.

I was still buying leaded gas in California when I moved out in '91.

Is there actually a higher octane available in Japan? The reason I ask is that I seem to recall JDM imports being borderline on UK fuels back when an Impreza Turbo was a hot car and a WRX was something special and the really wild cars had names like Impreza Turbo WRX STi Initial D Phase 4.

alfadriver said:  Everyone else deals with it- what kind of soft coating does BMW use that makes them so unique?

Nikasil was the affected cylinder liner.  I know Jaguars of a certain vintage suffered from it also.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikasil

In reply to Keith Tanner :

There is - apparently you can get 100 RON fuel in Japan at the pump, and a lot of the modified cars there are tuned for it. I remember that being a major issue as a lot of heavily tuned cars had to be remapped in the UK, and access to the ECUs wasn't always possible as few tuners could touch them (HKS ones being a big issue IIRC as you have to be an authorised tuner to get access to the software and the keys to actually talk to the ECUs).

BoxheadTim said:

In reply to Keith Tanner :

There is - apparently you can get 100 Octane fuel in Japan at the pump, and a lot of the modified cars there are tuned for it. I remember that being a major issue as a lot of heavily tuned cars had to be remapped in the UK, and access to the ECUs wasn't always possible as few tuners could touch them (HKS ones being a big issue IIRC as you have to be an authorised tuner to get access to the software and the keys to actually talk to the ECUs).

But wait, you can get 100 octane fuel in Japan but how do they calculate their number? They use RON the same as Europe. So this is a good example of 100 octane in Japan is not 100 octane as we know it in North America.

In the US, using AKI this would be roughly 95 octane and our 93 at the pump would be just fine in the vast majority of cases. So is Japanese 100 octane  higher than our 93? Yes, but not by 7 points and unless tuned to the ragged edge, our premium fuel (save for maybe California 91) is just fine. Every JDM imported motor and car I've brought over runs perfectly fine on our premium.

BoxheadTim said:

In reply to alfadriver :

The cylinder wall degradation happened in Europe as well, at least in the UK when they changed the sulfur content in the fuel.

There was also the rules for small engined cars that exempted them from needed cats for much longer than the bigger engined cars, and other fun stuff around emissions in the EU.

So someone blamed the fuel, when it was BMW's fault.  Shocking.

crankwalk (Forum Supporter) said:

BoxheadTim said:

In reply to Keith Tanner :

There is - apparently you can get 100 Octane fuel in Japan at the pump, and a lot of the modified cars there are tuned for it. I remember that being a major issue as a lot of heavily tuned cars had to be remapped in the UK, and access to the ECUs wasn't always possible as few tuners could touch them (HKS ones being a big issue IIRC as you have to be an authorised tuner to get access to the software and the keys to actually talk to the ECUs).

But wait, you can get 100 octane fuel in Japan but how do they calculate their number? They use RON the same as Europe. So this is a good example of 100 octane in Japan is not 100 octane as we know it in North America.

In the US, using AKI this would be roughly 95 octane and our 93 at the pump would be just fine in the vast majority of cases. So is Japanese 100 octane  higher than our 93? Yes, but not by 7 points and unless tuned to the ragged edge, our premium fuel (save for maybe California 91) is just fine. Every JDM imported motor and car I've brought over runs perfectly fine on our premium.

But wait, I specifically mentioned JDM cars coming to the UK :) Japan might have 100 RON, but the UK only gets up to about 98 RON. And that can be a problem. As noted by Tim, if you buy a highly tuned JDM car, you can't get the fuel it needs in the UK. And I wasn't talking about random motors, I was talking about the special cars, the factory homologation specials from the late 90s.

If you are actually involved in tuning turbo cars in the US, you can see a big difference in fuels even with the same AKI rating. It roughly gets worse the further west you go, although Texas gets the good stuff. Trying to run a car tuned for 95 AKI on 91 AKI is asking for big problems, or it's really a car tuned for 91. And yes, California has the worst of the bunch.

Keith Tanner said:

crankwalk (Forum Supporter) said:

BoxheadTim said:

In reply to Keith Tanner :

There is - apparently you can get 100 Octane fuel in Japan at the pump, and a lot of the modified cars there are tuned for it. I remember that being a major issue as a lot of heavily tuned cars had to be remapped in the UK, and access to the ECUs wasn't always possible as few tuners could touch them (HKS ones being a big issue IIRC as you have to be an authorised tuner to get access to the software and the keys to actually talk to the ECUs).

But wait, you can get 100 octane fuel in Japan but how do they calculate their number? They use RON the same as Europe. So this is a good example of 100 octane in Japan is not 100 octane as we know it in North America.

In the US, using AKI this would be roughly 95 octane and our 93 at the pump would be just fine in the vast majority of cases. So is Japanese 100 octane  higher than our 93? Yes, but not by 7 points and unless tuned to the ragged edge, our premium fuel (save for maybe California 91) is just fine. Every JDM imported motor and car I've brought over runs perfectly fine on our premium.

But wait, I specifically mentioned JDM cars coming to the UK :) Japan might have 100 RON, but the UK only gets up to about 98 RON. And that can be a problem. As noted by Tim, if you buy a highly tuned JDM car, you can't get the fuel it needs in the UK. And I wasn't talking about random motors, I was talking about the special cars, the factory homologation specials from the late 90s.

Details, details .

Actually at least in the late oughts, you could get 99 RON at the local Tesco supermarket station, which was a big deal and IIRC the first introduction of fuel that was something like E5 in the UK as far as I remember. That was useful especially as I had one of those stations in walking distance. But of course then you may have jumped on a ferry and took your car to the Continent and then you definitely couldn't get more than 98 RON at the pump, and sometimes only 95RON "Eurosuper" ("super" being what a lot of European countries call premium fuel), depending on where you were.

It wasn't only the homologation specials, that time before SVA and all that, JDM imports were a big deal as it was pretty much the only way to get certain Japanese cars from the 90s for reasonably-ish money and in better condition. They only sold a handful of UK spec FDs, and I think only a handful of UK market Skylines and earlier Evos. Combine that with the amount of salt on the roads and the JDM cars were in much, much better condition.

Of course if they were modified, the may have box with funny inscriptions on them that did things to the engine that made said engine less than happy on 98RON. Plus people started importing demo cars - a surprising number of well known JDM shop demo cars ended up in the UK - and some figured out the hard way that the cars were tuned for a fuel quality not available in Europe at the pump.

alfadriver said:

Specifically, the EU uses RON, the US uses AKI, which is (RON+MON)/2, and MON tends to be roughly 10 points lower than RON, as the test is different.  It's been this way forever, and I've seen these same arguments 20 years ago.

10?  I thought it was part of the spec that the difference between research and motor could not be greater than 7.  Then again this is also old info.

I always just subtracted 3-4 numbers from Euro octane specs to get American spec, on the theory that if there's a maximum spread for AKI, it's probably cheaper to max out the spread, so any given fuel you get is probably at the max.

matthewmcl (Forum Supporter) said:

alfadriver said:

Heck, it wasn't until the 90's that lead was finally banned in some countries.

I was still buying leaded gas in California when I moved out in '91.

I thought its sale as a road fuel was banned nationwide in 1986.

You always could still buy avgas or racing fuels, of course.

We're kind of in an awesome spot for high octane fuels.  93 octane only costs like 15-20% more than 87, and if you don't want to run E85, a lot of Speedway gas stations carry Sunoco 100 octane.  Last time I bought some was $8/gallon, which sounds like a lot until you price out how much canned racing fuel costs, and canned fuel isn't taxed...

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

matthewmcl (Forum Supporter) said:

alfadriver said:

Heck, it wasn't until the 90's that lead was finally banned in some countries.

I was still buying leaded gas in California when I moved out in '91.

I thought its sale as a road fuel was banned nationwide in 1986.

You always could still buy avgas or racing fuels, of course.

We're kind of in an awesome spot for high octane fuels.  93 octane only costs like 15-20% more than 87, and if you don't want to run E85, a lot of Speedway gas stations carry Sunoco 100 octane.  Last time I bought some was $8/gallon, which sounds like a lot until you price out how much canned racing fuel costs, and canned fuel isn't taxed...

1996 not 1986. I still remember the Amoco having a leaded pump in the mid 90s in Georgia and they left the stickers on forever.  

BMW and Moto Guzzi both use Nikasil liners.

Very few problems, mostly from sitting unused and letting corrosion set in.