Are superfuels worth the cash? (WhatCar)

Hintza

http://www.whatcar.com/car-news/are-superfuels-worth-the-cash-/256405

For those of you who have toyed with the idea this makes interesting reading.

I would have thought a few caveats are necessary though.

The fuels were tested in petrol 1.2 Polo and diesel 318d BMW hardly the type of cars these fuels are aimed at and will not really show any benefit.

But for high performance engines they should offer more power and smoother running but as some else noted elsewhere if you use that exytra power you won't save anything.

The one really interesting thing I noted on the radio this morning was the Diesel premium fuel will (supposedly) make it slightly easier to pass the MOT emissions test which could be useful. My car struggled a bit this year.

Kilty_2

Hintza wrote: »

The one really interesting thing I noted on the radio this morning was the Diesel premium fuel will (supposedly) make it slightly easier to pass the MOT emissions test which could be useful. My car struggled a bit this year.

As will Millers diesel additive which works out cheaper per tankful (you put a few ml into a tank, don't know how much cause I don't do dag-dags but it's not like Redex where you pour the whole bottle in) IIRC

Hintza

I was advised to pop a bottle of the Lucas stuff in, cheaper and better supposedly. Anyway they got the car through. The biggest problem was I delivered th car at 9am nice and hot 40 miles covered and they didn't MOT until 5pm so the thing was stone cold again. But he is pretty good he will rum them up to temperature before doing the emissions which helps.

vikingaero

Who in their right mind is going to put Super Unleaded into a 1.2 Polo? The whole rationale for buying a 1.2 Polo is to save fuel with the small engine size. Same with the 318d BMW. That car will be driven by a sales reprobate who will chuck anything in it.

I have a BMW 530d company car and I chuck normal Tesco Diesel in it for the Clubcard points. Quite frankly if Tesco Diesel is bad for the car in the long term then after 3 years that's not my problem.

I so run Mrs V's Corsa on Shell Unleaded and the Mazda 5 on V-Power Diesel. I run it on V-Power Diesel not for the MPG benefits but because it seems to burn cleaner. With supermarket fuel I find the tailpipe gets a black soot and with V-Power Diesel the soot is far less and grey in colour.

Kilty_2

vikingaero wrote: »

Who in their right mind is going to put Super Unleaded into a 1.2 Polo? .

Adds 100bhp, innit.

Seriously though, the fuel companies would have you believe they'll make any car do 50000MPG and have 20000BHP with these fuels, so it's good to see some real world tests bring it back down to earth isn't it?

daveyjp

Increases of 1-2% could also be down to 101 other factors as well as the expensive fuel.

asbokid

The service manual for a Ford 2.5l V6 states that high octane petrol is not necessary (i.e. it's a waste of money).
"The Powertrain Control Module automatically adjusts (ignition timing?) to the type of fuel in use."

Coveredinbees!!!!

My RGV liked super unleaded.

Lum

Here's a test of Tesco's 99 RON in two somewhat more appropriate cars (a Subaru Impreza WRX STi and a Ford Fiesta ST)

http://www.pistonheads.com/news/default.asp?storyId=12400

asbokid wrote: »

The service manual for a Ford 2.5l V6 states that high octane petrol is not necessary (i.e. it's a waste of money).
"The Powertrain Control Module automatically adjusts (ignition timing?) to the type of fuel in use."

That means it is capable of adapting to both types of fuel and can in fact take advantage of the possibilities that super unleaded can offer. Usually any savings you might make up are eaten up by the fact that you drive harder.

Alternatively you could get a car like my previous car, which was mapped for 100RON by default from the factory and would just eat piston rings if you ran it on 95 as the knock sensor just couldn't deal with anything below 97.

jase1

Interestingly, every Mitsubishi engine I have owned has benefitted from premium fuel to a measurable degree. Every other engine has been completely unaffected by the 'upgrade'.

The GDI *needs* high-octane fuel or it stuffs up. I've had two of these engines (a 1.8 and a 2.4) and neither liked cheaper fuel, and the manuals warned against it.

But the 1.6 Orion engine (a basic, run-of-the-mill lump if ever there was one) and the Hyundai 1.3 Alpha (an even more basic engine, but again heavily based on the Orion) both gave around 5-10% better fuel efficiency with high-octane, and are smoother.

Ford, GM, Daewoo, Nissan, Peugeot, Subaru, none of them seemed to care.

skiddlydiddly

They should do these tests on an engine dyno for a true result.