(October 26, 2012 at 7:05 am)apophenia Wrote:Actually no. Changing to a higher grade of octane only will mask a greater issue, (if any change occours at all.) Especially if you have been faithfully using the same octane in the same car for some time. For the knock you hear in that situation is a form of preignition, usally caused by a build up of of excess carbon with the combistion chamber. Simply uping the octane might only prolong the amount of time you can drive without hearing a knock or more accuratly a pinging sound, but eventually you will hear this ping again (as the carbon continues to build up.) when you do it will most likly be accompanied with dieseling if you have an older car. (That is when you shut the car of and it still chuggs and trys to run)
You know, I'm told that if you have excessive knocking, a change in the octane of your fuel can be an expedient fix.
The solution here is to run the car through an injection cleaning process (which can be costly but will be your only solution if you just "up your octane" and wait for the problem to resurface.) Or on the on set of the pinging you hear, you start treating the fuel with a product like seafoam, or you can purchase fuel that has these chemicals already in them. I perfer the seafoam as it is a little more fast acting. You spend a little more up front but will save $$$ over the long run.
There are 3 other things that can give you a preignition ping/knock do you want to hear about them as well?
