Octane booster doesn’t save money on gas

Filling with regular and then adding octane booster doesn’t save money on gas

As fewer and fewer engines require high octane gas, the price for premium has been rising. In some cases, the price difference between 87 octane and 91 octane is almost 80 cents per gallon more. That makes people wonder if they can fill their tanks with regular (87) octane and then treat it with octane booster instead of filling up with premium. I’ve shown the match below, but octane booster doesn’t save money.

It’s simply not cost effective to fill with regular and then add an octane booster

Let’s take a look at a popular octane booster; Lucas 3X octane booster. Lucas states that adding 1 15-oz bottle to 25 gallons of gas raises the gas 30-points or 3 octane numbers.

At .40/gallon price difference between regular (87) and mid-grade (91), if you add 1 bottle of Lucas Octane booster to boost regular gas to 91 octane, it’s close to break-even.

Price of booster at Autozone $11 plus .1.07 tax = $12.70. If your tank holds 25 gallons, you’d save (25 X .40 = $10.00. But if you only need 15 gallons, you’d actually lose money if you poured in the entire bottle. 15 gallons X .44 = $6.00. Or, you’d have to measure out just 9-ounces from the bottle to break even.

To get to 93 octane, you’d need to raise the octane by 6 numbers, or two bottles of Lucas 3X octane booster (2 x $12.70 = $25.40. If you fill with 25 gallons of 87, you’ll save $20 in fuel (25 gallons x .80 savings per gallon). But you’ll spend $25.40 on booster

What’s the point of it then?

If octane booster doesn’t save money on gas, what good is it? There’s only one real use for it; if you or a friend accidentally fills your car with regular gas and it’s not performing well or you have a check engine light due to knock, you can add octane booster to solve your short term problem.

Is there any harm in using an octane booster?

That depends on what the manufacturer uses in their additive. If you pull up the manufacturer’s MSDS sheet and see ingredients like ferrocene or iron pentacarbonyl, stay away. Those products can deteriorate your spark plugs, causing an iron oxide buildup that results in misfire. And, they can damage your catalytic converter due to the iron oxide.

Cheaper octane booster

There are cheaper octane boosters on the market, but usually you get what you pay for. In other words, they don’t boost your octane as much.

Make sure you read the spec sheet to see how many octane numbers the product claims in order to compare one brand to another.