Academics: premium fuel is only suitable for low-year cars

Lecturer at the Faculty of Engineering, Padang State University (UNP) Rifdarmon, M PdT (ANTARA / Mario Sofia Nasution)

Padang (ANTARA) - Lecturer at the Faculty of Engineering, Padang State University (UNP) Rifdarmon M PdT said that fuel with RON 88 such as premium is only suitable for low-year cars with a compression of 9.7 kilograms per square centimeter.

"High-year cars have higher compression, which is 10 to 11 kilograms per square centimeter, so we need better fuel with RON 90 pertalite or RON 92 Pertamax," he said in Padang on Thursday.

He gave an example, out low-compressed cars such as "kijang super", old "kijang" and others. Meanwhile for Electronic Fuel Injection (EFI) cars, it is recommended to consume fuel with RON 90 or RON 92.

He explained that if the fuel with RON 88 is given to cars that has high compression, it will cause "knocking" on the vehicle engine.

Knocking is a burst of combustion in the combustion chamber inside the engine. The fuel should burn when the fire coming from the spark plug comes together and then combustion occurs.

Meanwhile, if the RON fuel is lower than the vehicle compression, self ignation will occur which causes the fuel to arrive late.

"This is certainly not desirable and more better the latest output cars should use fuel with a higher RON," he said.

According to him, this premium fuel before this was called RON 88 octane gasoline, but in 2013 the gasoline changed its name to premium because there was an additive added namely lead.

The result was that this premium octane rose to RON 90 while at that time Pertamax constant with RON 92.

After that because lead is dangerous, then premium fuel without lead so the RON returns to 88 and a pertalite appears that uses an additive capable of producing RON 90.

"Besides that, RON 90 will be more efficient than RON 88 because the substances that can burn are more perfect," he said.

Translated by: Mutiara Ramadhani