I have the 08 with V6 and I'm pretty shure its say to use regular fuel in the manual ?

 

I own an 09 with the 3.0 and alll I burn is regular grade fuel and have had no issues with spark knock of any kind, and have driven it hard once or twice . Wanted to see if it would pull to redline in 5 gears. Did it with no problems at all and had speedo to 175 km before I let off gas. No spark knock or pinging of any kind. I do have one car that will not run properly if I try to run anything but supreme as it needs as much octane as possible. Just my 0.02 cents.

 

I have an Outlander ES 4wd and I added premium gas just to see what would happen. I did notice that the throttle was more responsive in Automatic mode. However, I could get the same response if I shift into manual mode and downshift to a lower gear (using regular unleaded). I'll have to see what happens if I put it in manual mode while driving on premuim unleaded.