We all know that we used to put RON97 petrol into our tanks with the RON92 always being an available choice but is not a popular one. The government then introduced RON95 petrol which is priced at the RON97 price with the phasing out of the RON92 petrol altogether. This means that drivers who are used to the pricing for RON97 price would need to pay more if they are to continue using the petrol or if they wants to keep their current budget intact then they would have to go for the new RON95 petrol.
So does your car actually works well with the RON97 petrol? First and foremost, some drivers might think that using a lower octane fuel could damage the engine. this is not true because the fact is that engines today are designed to actually perform with fuel which do not require that high in octane volume like the RON97. In fact, most cars today could do pretty well with RON92 and RON95 hence, running on RON97 would actually be using a far better grade than the engine was first intended for. As a matter of fact, some of the new generation cars from Mazda was supposedly designed to run on RON87 petrol.
Unless your car is a performance tuned car, then RON95 is a pretty good choice already. No point going for the RON97 petrol as it is now more expensive and is not entirely necessary. Honda Malaysia announced recently that all the models which are distributed by them here since 2001 are all compatible with the petrol, except the Civic Type R, which essentially is a performance car. According to Toru Takahashi, the Chief Executive Officer, all Honda cars (except the Type R) was designed to run on at least RON91 petrol and hence RON95 is more than sufficient.
So unless you are driving a Civic Type R, all other cars are good enough for the RON95. It might feel a bit rough during the transition, once the petrol run-in, then it would be fine. Of course, if you are using an older car (15 years or more) then it might take a bit longer to acclimatize, hence checking with your mechanics on this would be safe. Cars like the Mitsubishi AirTrek Turbo version, the Lancer Evolution, the Naza Sutera, Forza and the Bestari are also cars which are not recommended to run on RON95 petrol so owners of these cars should continue using RON97 petrol.
