I LOVE the looks of the new Civic, and will soon be in the market for a new car. I stopped into a Honda dealership today with my heart set on a new Civic to find out that in order to get leather and satellite radio I would need to also get the turbo engine. I absoloutely do NOT want to get a car that requires me to spend 40 cents more a gallon on gas, so this is a deal breaker for me. The salesman told me that the turbo does indeed require premium. I'm wondering what the ramification of putting regular in it are. Can anyone help?

 

You don't need to run premium in it. Regular is fine.

 

I know if won't harm the engine to use regular, but what are the effects? Will it reduce performance, kill gas mileage, or will I not even notice a difference?

 

your cars engine was designed specifically for high octane fuel if you use anything else you will lose performance and MPG.

 

We had a Subaru WRX with turbo and lower octane gas absolutely affected performance. Drive was poor and sluggish. We'd get 32 to 36 mpg with the premium. I don't recall that lower octane made that better. Granted his was a 2003 and I'm sure some things have improved over time, but I would never do it (put anything but 91 or higher in a turbo car).