Ron is not McDonald

The new RON 95 grade petrol was introduced to the Malaysian market 2 months ago, so this posting may seem a little out of date, a little too late (ouch!). However, some people are still confused about all this RON mumbo jumbo, so, this is my contribution towards Ron education. It’s always better late than never.

RON stands for Research Octane Number. The octane number or rating refers to the petrol’s ability to withstand auto ignition inside the engine. Auto ignition or premature ignition (no funny ideas please!) happens when petrol is ignited in the engine BEFORE the spark plug ignites the fuel. This phenomenon is commonly known as “knocking”. Knocking has a negative effect on the performance of a vehicle.

The higher the octane number, the higher the fuel’s ability to resist auto ignition. Therefore, RON 99 is harder to ignite compared to RON 95 and so on.

High performance vehicles are designed to be used with higher octane fuel. Higher octane rating reduces (or eliminates) knocking and hence keeping performance at its optimum.

Using fuel with the right octane rating will maximise the effectiveness of your vehicle but at the same time most modern vehicles (I’m not sure if Proton is included in this list), are fitted with knock sensors which enables the engine to adjust it’s combustion timing according to the fuel octane rating and hence avoids knocking. Not all vehicles require fuel with a high octane rating. Your car’s owner’s manual will tell the minimum octane requirement for your car. Most cars can still use RON 92 and using a higher than recommended RON rating does not make your car more powerful, it just makes the engine work harder to ignite the fuel.

I’m not a petroleum engineer, heck I’m not even an engineer of any sort but my recommendation is use RON 95, because it’s cheaper, unless you are driving a BMW M3, Porsche, Mercedes AMG or Suzuki Swift sport.