I've been avoiding this thread, but now I'll jump in.
I'm extremely picky about how I take care of my cars.
I have a lot of accumulated experience with many high performance cars.
I have a lot of knowledge gained from schooling as well as from personal experience about taking care of cars.
I run 87 octane in my SVT.
I'm not crazy or ignorant. I know what I'm doing.
I have run both 87 and 91 (highest available in California) in it enough to determine that there is absolutely no difference in how it runs or what the fuel consumption is.
As long as I can tell no difference, I'm not spending the additional money for higher octane.
I've owned the car since new. In that time there has been only two times that ANY ping has been observed. Both times (over a year apart) it was on a warm winter day (we get a lot of those in California) with winter blend fuel. There was a very slight part throttle cackle that went away with just a very little bit more throttle. I can live with that.
This has not been the case with any other high performance car I have owned. If it needed premium fuel, it got premium fuel.
As long as I take good care of mine (agressive maintenance) and it doesn't need premium fuel, it probably won't get it.
Normal disclaimer -- your results may vary.
