How come they sell 85 here in CO?

 

I read somewhere on this site that it has to do with altitude I think.

 

with my knowledge on octane and gas (which isn't much) 93 needs to be run in higher compression motors.

I had a 98 Ford Contour SVT, in which Ford said required 93 octane. (comp. ratio was close to 10:1 if i remember correctly.

The one time i filled up with 87, i noticed a (very, very) slight drop in overall performance and the gas mileage decreased enough that 93 was the only gas my car saw after that!

 

My guess would be that the CEL and especially the battery light have nothing to do with the gasoline. If the battery light is coming on at all, it's because there is a problem in your charging system (battery, alternator, alt. and batt. connections, etc.) As for the CEL, you need to get the codes that are stored (I forgot how to go about doing this in an OBD1 vehicle, perhaps someone else can chime in) and post the codes so that we can look them up and tell you what the problem is.

 

I had the alternator and battery checked and they're both good so I'm gonna clean the posts and terminals while I reset the ECU and see what happens. As far as the CEL, I'm just gonna get it tuned and a new oxygen sensor and try to go through inspection again. If I get a chance before I do that I'll try to look up the codes and post them, thanks.

 

Think I may have found the battery light problem. The positive terminal was broken off by the bolt, not enough to lose the connection but maybe enough to send some funny surges or something so I changed it. So far so good but it's an intermittant thing so I gotta drive a while to really see. Reset the ECU when I changed the terminal and still got a CEL so I'm just gonna get a tune up, new oxygen sensor and change the timing belt and work from there...Good looking with the info.

 

I've got a CEL on my 96 Accord @ 208k miles... needs EGR valve/ports cleaned. I'd do that while you're at it, doesn't hurt... especially if it's never been done (such as the case on my car.) Replacing the O2 sensors and doing a tune-up are also good maintenance and should resolve whatever is throwing a code. Either EGR flow, O2 sensor or a misfire would be my top guesses (and are the most common). If it was anything worse or other than those, the car would likely be having noticable drivability problems. Good luck, keep us posted.

 

That'd be my guess. Even if it was an engine designed for premium and you went to regular, I wouldn't expect a CEL. It just depends on the car, there are some fairly high-compression Hondas that are designed to run on regular, some may benefit a bit from premium (a relatively rare situation, and chances are this is stated in the manual) but in most cases regular is fine unless otherwise noted. Running premium won't hurt any car though.

 

personally id just start use 87 and not even think about it... should be fine.

 

I was reading the manual and it says 85 or above so I'm just gonna switch to 87 an have it tuned. Gas is 3.25 @ gallon for regular in NJ and I've seen as high as 3.79 for regular...