High test gas required
 

Has an explanation been given as to why a 1.4l engine, smaller than the bottle of Pepsi in my reefer needs to run on premium fuel?

Maybe get better mpg,less motor noise and to get the most power out of that 80hp motor,iam sure you can run lower grade but your mpg will go down.

I did some investigating over the weekend, and found the folliwing reasons which echos what you stated.

A) premium fuel results in a 5% greater fuel economy
B) engine runs quieter due to enine timing being calibrated for premium fuel

Regular fuel can be used in an emergency only, but the knock detector will retard the timing and result in lower economy and noiser operation. So I'll get 5% better fuel economy with premium gas, but it'll cost me 10% more...... yup, that makes sense....

It must be a mundane Chevy engineer "thing". My 09 Avalance is a Flexfuel model as most were that year and could run on corn juice. Great! Last summer it only cost me
$2.21\gal which was about .60 cents cheaper (Gas America) than unleaded at the time.
HOWEVER, my gas mileage plummeted too which negated the savings\gal. Power seemed about the same!? Oh, this was only right after the summer corn harvest and before we shipped it all to China, etc. This winter it was within .20 cents of unleaded with the same crappy economy. So, I stuck with unleaded. See their logic? Mostly a "false", green, economy figure which raises OUR food prices and screws all middle Americans...again! AGAIN!!

Premium fuel is required for higher compression and forced induction engines. The Volt has a compression ratio of 10.5:1, which is pretty high. You COULD run low octane fuel but the car would probably knock and pull timing, making less power. Higher octane fuel won't make the engine make any more power, but lower could make it make less. High octane fuel requires a hotter temperature to ignite, running lower grade octane could result in detonation- air/fuel igniting before the spark fires, damaging the engine.

to the fella talking about corn juice it does kill gas mileage when i was living in pa SHEETZ gas stations carried E85 and i ran it one time cause i went from 32 mpg to 19.7 mpg highway granted the 32 mpg was sunoco 103 but on regular 87 i was averaging about 25 combined

and regardless of what the people say on youtube high test gas is better keep a log for 3 weeks and drive the normal routes you drive daily and you will see a difference

gas
 

I was unaware the car that makes you look like a tool also requires premium fuel.

that's cute...

Yes, most engines can survive on lower, with knock sensors, but it's not pretty.

Ethanol also likes F* up the works.

E85 is a crap shoot, it doesn't save the planet, nor is it cheaper, all it was ever supposed to do was get votes from corn growing states. nothing more, nothing less.

however, mean time, it's destroying engines, fuel lines, boats, lawn mowers, riding mowers, and more. But hey if I made the laws and $200 large a year, I wouldn't care about that... would I?

Very helpful to know about my car now.Thanks for the post.