Super 98 vs Special 95: The Gap Is 12 Fils a Litre, About AED 240 a Year, and the Owner's Manual Decides Which Way It Runs

Gulf News listed the October prices on 30 September: Super 98 at “Dh4.40 a litre, up from Dh3.80 in September”, Special 95 at “Dh4.28 a litre, up from Dh3.69” and E-Plus 91 at “Dh4.21 a litre, up from Dh3.61”. Every month the pump question gets asked again, usually at the pump, usually as a feeling. It is a small, fixed number, and it is worth working out once.

How much more does Super 98 cost than Special 95 in a year?

The gap between grades is set in fils, and it barely moves. In September 2025, Khaleej Times had Super 98 at Dh2.70 and Special 95 at Dh2.58: 12 fils apart. A year and a 66% price rise later, they are still 12 fils apart. September 2026 was 11.

So the cost of the grade choice depends on litres, not on the month. Here is the arithmetic for an illustrative car doing 20,000 km a year at 10 litres per 100 km, which is 2,000 litres a year, at October prices.

Super 98 over Special 95 is AED 7.20 a tank and AED 240 a year, or AED 20 a month. Special 95 over E-Plus 91 is AED 4.20 a tank and AED 140 a year. Swap in your own litres: the yearly gap is the litres multiplied by 0.12 for 98 against 95, and by 0.07 for 95 against 91.

For scale, the October reprice alone added 59 fils a litre to Special 95. On the same 2,000 litres, that is about AED 98 a month, roughly five times what the grade choice costs. The committee moves the bill far more than the nozzle does.

There is a second effect hiding in the fixed gap. In September 2025 the 12 fils were about 4.7% on top of a Special 95 litre. In October 2026 they are 2.8%. The dearer petrol gets, the less the grade matters as a share of the bill.

What does the owner’s manual actually decide?

Trading runs on spec sheets. A buyer names the minimum grade the goods need, and paying above that spec is a cost with nothing on the other side of the ledger. Paying below it is cheaper only until the goods fail. The owner’s manual, and the label inside the fuel flap, is the car’s spec sheet. It usually says one of three things.

The manual asks for 95 (most everyday cars). Super 98 is then AED 240 a year for very little. The US Department of Energy’s fuel guidance says higher octane “may slightly improve performance and gas mileage during severe duty operation, such as towing a trailer or carrying heavy loads, especially in hot weather. However, under normal driving conditions, you may get little to no benefit.” In 2018 Gulf News quoted Autodata’s Bill Carter more bluntly: “There is no advantage in using a higher grade of petrol than is recommended by the car manufacturer.”

The manual requires 98. Now the 12 fils run the other way. Special 95 saves 2.8% at the pump, so it only saves money if the engine burns less than 2.8% more fuel on it. The same US guidance warns that “using a lower octane fuel than required can cause the engine to run poorly and can damage the engine and emissions control system over time”, and that newer engines adjust their timing to reduce knock, at the cost of power and fuel economy. A AED 20-a-month saving is a poor trade against that.

The grade is a AED 20-a-month decision. The engine’s spec decides which direction it runs.

The manual recommends 98 but accepts 95. This is the one genuine choice. The DoE’s wording for this case is “it’s really up to you”. The price of the choice is the table above, not a feeling at the pump.

One caution on reading manuals: cars built for the US market quote octane on a different scale from UAE pump labels, so the number in an imported manual may not match the number on the nozzle. The label inside the fuel flap of a GCC-spec car is the cleaner reference.

How to see the grade decision in your own spending

The cleanest way to see this in a budget, as with the rest of what a car costs a month, is in litres, not in dirhams. A fuel line that reads, say, AED 820 in September and AED 950 in October says the bill rose. It cannot say whether that came from the price, from more driving or from a different nozzle. Record the litres from the receipt next to the amount, and the three come apart: litres explain the driving, the price per litre explains the committee, and a price per litre that sits 12 fils above the posted 95 rate explains the grade.

I run it the way any cost line gets checked at month-end: a price and a quantity, never just a total. Worked once, the 98-or-95 question stops being a monthly argument at the pump. It is AED 240 a year, and the manual already decided which way it should go.