88 Octane for 2010 Prius - What's up with that?

I'm a bit interested in the grade my dealer put in my car when he filled it up last week.

Of course, I haven't even called to ask, because I'm not really concerned that the answer will come back at anything other than "normal grade unleaded gasoline."

I haven't heard a single knock yet.

I'll be putting the car through its paces the next couple of days, so we'll see whether there is a problem with the gasoline currently in the tank. (And "No" I don't believe my dealer put premium in the tank!)

 

Ok. Here's the answer.

As expected, the Owner's Manual is wrong. The correct grade of gasoline is Octane 87. There will be a revision of the Owner's Manual in the future.

Sorry for all the confusion. Happy driving!

Doug Coleman
Prius Product Manager
Toyota Motor Sales, USA

 

We never doubted you, just the guys who proofread the manual. Does that mean we will all get new manuals, or just those getting their cars after the replacement will get the updated ones?

 

this is an joke post right?

 

That's a relief... it seemed too strange to be true anyhow.

 

it must be a typo. I've only ever seen 85/87/89/91-93 octane, and 100 octane racing fuel at gas stations.

I ran 85 once coming from Albuquerque cus that's all that was available for regular due to higher altitude

 

Instant collector's item! I've got one. Bids, anyone?

eBay auction . . . what's the right price? $85? $87? Nah . . . $88!!

 

LOL my 2006 civic manual had a sex line number for help line... now that a keeper

 

Sandy,

Did they fix your problem?... Are you sure you weren't mistakenly referring to a manual from "other equipment"?

 

While I am happy it is a typo. Will we be getting a corrected manual? Some dealers are less than educated about the Prius and if the manual says 88 octane they could use that against some customers to deny doing warranty work.

 

Yeah! I guess we can put this to bed. Sorry if I sounded a little out of bounds BUT if it had turned out that the new Wunderkind Beltless Engine ran on premium? That would of been a huge strike against me purchasing a Prius. And yes, I'm paranoid enough to imagine any scenario.....it helps...

Someone tell The Blue Man Group to stand down.

 

Yeah, I can see the service dept adding a sticker to the manual for that page. A cheap fix and it will work.

 

Premium gas is selling for about 20% higher right now than regular gas. Close to 3 bucks a gallon in some places. The price difference used to be about 10% a few years back. Diesel is also high-priced. The message is avoid cars which use premium gas or diesel. I had a hard time believing Toyota would premium up the Prius!

Gas prices will be a factor in the car market from now on due to that $4 gas last summer--which really spooked new car buyers.

Once the 2010 comes out this summer, it will be a great time to buy a used Prius, if gas prices stay down.

 

In the Midwest, and specifically, the Chicago area, it seems that this is always a ten cent different between grades. This morning by me,

Regular 87 - 2.55/gal
Mid 89 - 2.65/gal
High 91 - 2.75 a gallon

What I have never understood (anybody get this?) is how regardless of the price of the crude, there seems to always be a ten-cent difference between grades. This would make sense, say at $50 per barrel, but then I would think that when it hit $100 a barrel that the difference should have at least grown to more than 10 cents? Maybe 20? Nope, always 10 cents??

 

In the New York area, for at least the past 15 years, the cost of Mid is always closer to Premium than it is to Regular.

For instance, at the gas station I went to this morning, there was a 30 cent spread between Regular and Premium, as follows:

Regular - $2.59 a gallon
Mid - $2.79 a gallon
Premium - $2.89 a gallon

With pricing like this, Mid grade users would spend less if they blended their own.

 

The dealers would get their own corrected service bulletins.
The dealers are not going to deny warranty claims when they can call Toyota to get confirmation if they are confused about the mnual correction. They make money on they warranty work, so it doesn't make sense for them to take it upon themselves to deny a warranty claim without even checking.

Most likely they will not replace entire owners manuals to correct just a few characters on one page. Maybe if there are a lot of other errors spread all over the manual that need fixing.
A supplemental correction page for the manual can be sent to each owner.

 

No. The person before me said the dealer would check the fuel and use it as an excuse to deny warranty claims if 88 was really the correct octane required.

It has since been made clear that the 88 listing in the manual is a typo, so it doesn't matter anymore.

 

My guess is that it wasn't a typo, that the 2010 Prius runs best on 88 but will run fine on 87, and that it's only now a "typo" because 88 would have eventually meant business disaster for the Prius.