87, 89 or 91 octane in a 850 turbo?

[vince]

Okay, I bought my 1995 Volvo 850 turbo wagon, about 9 months ago, and the previous owner provided me neither with service records, nor with the user's manual!

I have a simple question, for which extensive searches have not provided me with a definitive answer: Should I put premium, regular or intermediate gas, in this beauty? I definitely notice a difference in performance with premium, but if regular won't hurt, I'd rather stick to 87 octane fuel, given the sky-rocketing prices. Right now, I put regular 4 times out of 5.

There are 170k miles on my baby, and I haven't gotten a CEL in 2 months now! And yes, there IS a working light bulb behind the CEL window.

Actually, if someone had a .pdf version of the user's manual, or a link to it, a personal message would be welcome. THANKS!

[Ozark Lee]

It isn't a .pdf but this should get you there.

http://new.volvocars.com/ownersdocs/199 ... 850_1.html

...Lee

[wheelsup]

I've put regular 87 into my '95 850 NA over the last 5.5 years. I did initially have issues with using it, as my car had a hard time starting after using it a few months. This was traced to an extremely dirty fuel filter that was clogged. I was buying the "cheap" gas in NJ from the towel-heads and I honestly think the gas was crap.

I put premium into it for a few months after that, then when gas starting going up again I put regular 87 in from reputable companies such as WaWa. That was over 5 years ago and 50,000 miles ago and still no issues, no "check engine light", nothing. One thing I'm just trying now is to see if using premium gives better fuel economy, I get around 24MPG, almost all highway on my 850 wagon and I drive like grandma (55 mph, slow acceleration, etc.). Since premium is now still $0.20 more than regular, or about 6% more, if my economy improves by that amount or more I will start putting premium in again.

If I remember correctly, Volvo recommends Premium 91+ octane or better on their cars though.