Tried XP95 in Innova Hycross: Effect on performance & fuel efficiency

I was curious to see whether higher octane fuel would be beneficial or not so I waited till the reserve light came on and then filled up a full tank of XP95.

BHPian Cresterk recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

On this week’s boring experiments, I have been driving a lot so I tried using XP95 petrol (95 octane). So waited till the reserve light came on and filled up a full tank of XP95. The price difference vs normal petrol in Kochi was around 8 Rs and a full tank of 42L meant it was about 330 Rs more.

After driving around the whole week, I have noticed... 0 difference. No difference in acceleration, no change in engine noise. I even tried flooring it a few times once half the tank was used up to be sure.

Tank-to-tank mileage stands at around 16.7Kmpl. Which is around the same as I got with normal 91-octane petrol.

Why did I bother even trying this? Due to the Hycross hybrid having a high 14:1 compression ratio, I was curious whether higher octane fuel would be beneficial. Apparently not. The compression ratio is so high because the Atkinson cycle allows a larger expansion ratio, not because the engine is compressing the air-fuel mixture harder.

In conclusion, just stick to “regular” petrol unless the owner’s manual specifically states that the engine is designed to run on higher 95-100 octane fuel for optimum performance. The “premium” fuel marketing is just nonsense for cars that are not designed to use them.

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