Re: MPG
I ran premium for the first 11 months and 9,200 miles. Diligently checked mileage at each fill-up and made between 13 and 18 mpg, depending upon what conditions I was driving. The 18 was almost all on the 1,000 mile trip to Cabo. Since then, I have a short daily commute here and do quite a bit of beach and sand driving and am certain that is the reason for my somewhat lower mileage than most others have experienced.
After reading the many posts regarding the no risk of switching to regular unleaded, I grudgingly decided to test it out. I have had bad experience with regular, as my 1995 Bronco shows way worse performance using it. It performs with lower mileage and way lower power using regular unleaded.
However, the H3 shows the same mileage using regular unleaded or premium - 14.5 on the first tank and 15.1 on the second tank with no noticeable power difference.
In the other posts on this forum it is discussed (by some knowledgeable people) that the timing in the H3 engine automatically adjusts and compensates when lower octane fuel is used. So, I didn't want to believe it, but it is really true and now I save 10-15 bucks per fill-up.
If you sift through the BS (and all the fun), there are some extremely helpful nuggets of wisdom to be found on this site.
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