Posted by: lflanagan - 17 November 2007 14:07:47
hi all, ive just bought a new 1973 Volkswagen bay fronted camper van 1583 cc and i was just wondering if anyone knew if it can run on unleaded petrol?? please answer thanks :)

Posted by: djkeev - 20 November 2007 20:26:56
The short answer is YES you can. BUT....... Providing you run PREMIUM grade fuel. Here is a short quote from a very long article. The article address is... https://www.volvoclub.org.uk/fuels.shtml ____________________________________________________________ "Can classic cars run on today's petrols with higher octane ratings? Yes. Using today's modern fuels with higher octane ratings won't harm the engines of classic cars designed to run on petrols with low octane ratings." ____________________________________________________________ Hope this helps, there are other articles that say No you cannot but unless you have poor quality valve seats (which very few cars have) you are fine, just spend more $$ and upgrade to higher octane fuel to achieve the lubrication missing from leads absence. There was a lot of hype when unleaded fuel was introduced (I remember them well, I was in the Auto industry at the time) about excess wear with unleaded fuel but studies and time have debunked most of those concerns. There is somewhere a list compiled by the Canadian Government listing what vehicles have valve seat problems but I cannot locate it at this time. Dave

Posted by: 1958 Harry - 27 November 2007 14:00:58
If you're in the UK we only have 95RON and above anyway so its all 'premium' grade. And yes you can run VW's on Unleaded with no problems. If you are really worried tho (and you're UK based) Sainsburys still sell 4 star Lead Replacement Petrol :)