Is Premium Petrol Worth Buying?

optimus_primera

Seeing as though Tesco don't have 'Tesco refinerys',and get the fuel from various suppliers,and that fuel has to be within a specification, then i'd buy the cheaper option ......

bigjl

bryanb wrote: »

Have you any facts to back this up please?

There have been many studies done over the years, Fifth Gear did a comparison test with a normal small engined car, a mid range car and a Subaru WRX STi.

Maninthestreet you are mistaken on that, I watched it and they concluded that it would only benefit the driver of the tuner turbo car, in that instance the WRX.

The results where almost unreadable in all but the WRX, which had much more power and torque.

A turbocharged, high performance car will always respond well to better fuel, BP even used to sell 102RON at some stations, mainly in areas that had a high proportion of jap imports, funnily enough, some young lads used to use it for track days. The higher the RON, the more boost you can run without risking detonation and putting a hole in your piston.
When I had a WRX I had to use the fancy Shell petrol, I think it is called V-Power now..


As an aside my Mondeo TDCi runs like crap on supermarket diesel, but runs fine and smokes less on Esso/BP. It even does less to the gallon on supermarket diesel. And the diesel knock is horrendous.
Though I have heard similiar stories from a few TDCi owners.

bigjl

optimus_primera wrote: »

Seeing as though Tesco don't have 'Tesco refinerys',and get the fuel from various suppliers,and that fuel has to be within a specification, then i'd buy the cheaper option ......

It isn't the basic fuel you need to worry about it is the additves they don't put in it and they way they look after their storage tanks.

But somehow I can't see BP selling thier petrol cheap to Tesco's.

And lets not forget the problem with contaminated fuels a few years ago, that was only a problem with supermarkets.
Some people buy the cheapest Jaffa cakes in Tesco as they are all the same, not.

optimus_primera

5 minutes from here is an oil refinery, you get tesco,sainsburys, morrisonsand asda branded tankers coming and going from it daily ......

bigjl

There you go, all retailers of crap fuel in my opinion.

My wife always puts Tescos fuel in her Clio DCi, I filled it up with Esso, result she thought I had serviced it as it was running smoother.

I had noticed that it was puffing out a little smoke, a day after putting the Esso diesel in it it had stopped this little habit, not as much smoke as my Mondeo under load, but it was alittle puff all the same.

neilmcl

optimus_primera wrote: »

Seeing as though Tesco don't have 'Tesco refinerys',and get the fuel from various suppliers,.

Actually they do, under the guise of the Greenergy fuel supply company which Tesco have a large stake in.

neilmcl

optimus_primera wrote: »

5 minutes from here is an oil refinery, you get tesco,sainsburys, morrisonsand asda branded tankers coming and going from it daily ......

That's a flawed argument. Just because the fuel comes from the same refinery doesn't mean its the same. Every customer has their own blend of additives and cleaning agents added to the mix.

benham3160

Been using supermarket fuel for years.

Never had any problems.

Regards,
Andy

King_Nothing

I run my Focus on Shell V-Power at every available chance. Mine is a remapped 2.5 litre turbocharged Focus though, and it does run slightly better than standard gutter fuel.

rygon

As said, the fuel is the same coming from the refinery. Its the additives added to the tanker afterwards that makes the difference (normally to stop the engine from corroding / eroding, carbing up etc).

Biggest thing that bugs me, petrol station next to LOR and Conoco oil refinery (as in right across the road) is one of the most expensive around here .. and our town is more expensive than neighbouring towns grrr.

Also to do the tests correctly you need to do it over a long period of time, with no outside influences (ie wind, road conditions etc) Sure all of that is done in a lab by the manufacturer who, as already said, records the findings in your manual