Supermarket fuel - does it really give lower mpg ?

david39

In reply to property.buyer:

I agree about the point you make about Kelloggs - I have no knowledge of the cereal manufacturing business, but I bet a subsidiary of Kelloggs trading under a different name does make cereals for other companies - perhaps a Kelloggs factory worker might confirm or deny that (the parent and the subsidiary companies could share the same production lines, even).

As for different qualities of fuel going into different-brand tankers at the same loading point, I have been involved in fuel distribution at retail and wholesale level for most of my working life (and I'm retired now). That includes on-site visits to many of the major storage depots in England and I can categorically promise you that the base fuel of each grade of petrol/diesel that goes into all these tankers when loading from a multi-brand loading point comes out of the same storage tank and is therefore identical. The difference is in what goes in at the same time - the additives - how little or how much?

mahesh_on

As has been indicated it does make sense for all to get the same grade initially -does anyone know what these so called additives are that add such a markup to the price?
And do they have any research backing it up -surely they must if they are to be marketed as such? We can add Redox to clean/improve injector performance so the same can be done earlier i guess in the tanker as opposed to us manually doing it

Mark_Hewitt

mahesh_on wrote: »

As has been indicated it does make sense for all to get the same grade initially -does anyone know what these so called additives are that add such a markup to the price?:)

I don't think they do add anything to the price. The supermarkets charge less for fuel as they can afford to make less profit on it. The brands charge more because they can. It's simple supply and demand.

david39

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline#Additives

will give you a detailed background to what is added to petrol. Adding the normal extra dosage into the base product at the distribution point puts about 0.90 p onto a litre of fuel.

Base petrol itself will have some additives in it when it leaves the refinery so that it can be sold to meet the EN228 spec without further tampering. The optional additives put in at the distribution depot are extra to those.

maninthestreet

intranix wrote: »

that's not true, they tested fuel additives that you can buy in halfords, this is not the same thing. They found reduced mpg and power from these products.

this is not the same as comparing 95 and 98 ron fuel!

This must have been a separate test - they definitely compared premium petrols with 'ordinary' supermarket petrol.

vikingaero

kwaks wrote: »

Source? Well I pump 20000 barrels of crude oil out the sea bed a day.

You must have arms like Popeye!

AdrianHi

david39 wrote: »

In reply to property.buyer:

I agree about the point you make about Kelloggs - I have no knowledge of the cereal manufacturing business, but I bet a subsidiary of Kelloggs trading under a different name does make cereals for other companies - perhaps a Kelloggs factory worker might confirm or deny that (the parent and the subsidiary companies could share the same production lines, even).

As for different qualities of fuel going into different-brand tankers at the same loading point, I have been involved in fuel distribution at retail and wholesale level for most of my working life (and I'm retired now). That includes on-site visits to many of the major storage depots in England and I can categorically promise you that the base fuel of each grade of petrol/diesel that goes into all these tankers when loading from a multi-brand loading point comes out of the same storage tank and is therefore identical. The difference is in what goes in at the same time - the additives - how little or how much?

This question comes up from time to time on many car forums and many times someone from inside the industry says exactly this, same base fuel, different additives added. One exception is claimed to be Shell V Power where there are said to be differences in the refining process.

property.advert

david39 wrote: »

In reply to property.buyer:

I agree about the point you make about Kelloggs - I have no knowledge of the cereal manufacturing business, but I bet a subsidiary of Kelloggs trading under a different name does make cereals for other companies - perhaps a Kelloggs factory worker might confirm or deny that (the parent and the subsidiary companies could share the same production lines, even).

As for different qualities of fuel going into different-brand tankers at the same loading point, I have been involved in fuel distribution at retail and wholesale level for most of my working life (and I'm retired now). That includes on-site visits to many of the major storage depots in England and I can categorically promise you that the base fuel of each grade of petrol/diesel that goes into all these tankers when loading from a multi-brand loading point comes out of the same storage tank and is therefore identical. The difference is in what goes in at the same time - the additives - how little or how much?

Thanks for clarifying that. You do mention the base fuel of each grade though. Would that itself not indicate that there are different grades and if so, shine a torch on the possibility of supermarkets (and others) choosing one grade over another ?

I do not understand additives but that is due to a lack of knowledge on my part. I would have thought that if one additive gave better economy or performance then it would not take long for that product to be adopted by all, otherwise there would be product differentiation in the market and just how could someone market a fuel which was known to be less efficient, other than on price, which is where the supermarkets come back into the argument ?

Certainly if I knew petrol from Shell gave me an extra 5 mpg then I would be a fool to shop elsewhere unless the price was discounted sufficiently to compensate.

newcastle123_2

i experience no difference

david39

Why is it the assumption of most people that supermarkets sell inferior fuel compared to that of the majors?

Just because they do not actually refine the product does not mean that they choose to buy poor quality fuels. The same argument could apply to BP who themselves no longer refine any petroleum products in the UK and I understand that Total are looking to rid themselves of their only production plant here, too.

Does that mean that they are downgraded to the same level of respect as the supermarkets?