Bye Bye petrolbusters

keithsav

Just got this email ...

Dear Petrolbusters user,

You are receiving this email because you are a registered user of the AA Petrolbusters service.

We have been running Petrolbusters as a free service on https://www.theAA.com since 2001. Unfortunately, the significant cost of running the service can no longer be justified given the relatively small number of regular users. We have, therefore, decided to stop the Petrolbusters online Service from December 9th this year

Al_Inshearah

Have recieved e-mail from Petrolbuster since 2001 and in all that time my local station has allways been the cheapest, therefore if the service stops I can be fairly certain that my local station will still be the cheapest.

scholesy_2

If it is only stopping due to the small number of regular users, how about all MSE's sign up.........but i'm sure they already are ;D

just a thought

scumgrinder

The only real use I found was if you regularly go to areas you don't know, you could see where was cheap. Just buy supermarket fuel its always cheap. And you should already know who's cheapest in your area.

JPR

Just tried to sign up - they will not allow that now!

Hanoijane

Just buy supermarket fuel its always cheap.

I read honest john in the saturday telegraph who answers motoring questions from readers. He frequently pillories people with performance problems (pinking, stalling etc.) for buying supermarket fuel and tends to recommend Shell optimax. Apparently this is because he doubts the quality of supermarket fuels which tend not to include performance enhancing additives such as detergents which are beneficial to the vehicle. Is it marketing half truths? Does Optimax give more power and more mpg than standard fuel? Dunno.

http://www.honestjohn.co.uk

This is his regular column, which is a good read if you are a motorist.
http://motoring.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/main.jhtml?menuId=2776&menuItemId=-1&view=DISPLAYCONTENT&grid=P9&targetRule=

24seven

http://www.aapetrolbusters.com/

Anyone can use this login, if you want to check for cheap fuel in your area before the site closes

mail address = demon@mailinator.com
Pass word = sprite

Silent_Bob_3

I read honest john in the saturday telegraph who answers motoring questions from readers. He frequently pillories people with performance problems (pinking, stalling etc.) for buying supermarket fuel and tends to recommend Shell optimax. Apparently this is because he doubts the quality of supermarket fuels which tend not to include performance enhancing additives such as detergents which are beneficial to the vehicle. Is it marketing half truths? Does Optimax give more power and more mpg than standard fuel? Dunno.

Drivers of normal production cars will not notice an difference using Optimax which is a 98 RON grade fuel as they were designed to run on normal unleaded 95 RON fuel. BP Ultimate, Esso Power and Sainsburys Super Unleaded are all 97 RON grade fuels.

The only difference is the cleaning agents which are supposed to clean the engine. However no long term consummer tests (that I know about) have taken place to prove this is the case and shouldnt be relied on when it comes to servicing your car.

Pinking (a too early combustion of the fuel) should not occur in cars designed to run on 95 RON fuels. This can occur in cars designed to run on higher fuels - usually American of Japanese imports.

My own car is a Jap import and is designed to run on 100 RON (which is the standard in Japan) but is clever and is self adjusting (within 5 miles) to which fuel is going into the combustion chamber.

I generally use Optimax wherever I can, then BP Ultimate and then Sainsburys Super Unleaded.

Unless Honest John has done any chemical analysis and long term tests in lab conditions on these fuels then I wouldn't be too concerned what he has to say. Using supermarket fuels doesnt lead to stalling of cars - infrequent and poor servicing records and poor driving (gear changes and over-revving etc) and general wear and tear are what cause other problems such as stalling.

Hanoijane

Interesting stuff.

I'm not here to defend HJ but in one column he said this to the owner of an Opel Omega;

"I must receive at least 50 e-mails per week from people who simply don't believe me and, ignoring my warnings, fill their high-performance cars with any old supermarket rubbish."

BTW, I buy supermarket fuel. ;D