Supermarket Vs Branded fuel

Trebor16

andygb wrote: »

So using your logic, why is diesel cheaper in mainland Europe than standard unleaded petrol?
I would suggest that the government has encouraged the price rise because of the increased number of diesel vehicles on the road.
This has nothing to do with technology, but everything to do with greed by the oil companies (increased profits) and the government (increased prices equal increased taxation).

It has nothing to with logic. Diesel is cheaper in other countries because the rate of duty applied by the state is lower than that for petrol. For example the rate of duty in Germany is 47 cents per litre for diesel and 65 cents for petrol, a difference of 18 cents or about 16p per litre.

vax2002

Road traffic fuel is refined to specification and stored at one of 14 storage facilities, if you live near one of these, you can watch fuel trucks from every company going line up, fill up and scatter, they que up, fill up and ******** off.
Same fuel goes in each tanker and away it goes.
All thats different is marketing and storage.
Problems are 99% caused by storage like when supermarket fuels had the burning oxygen sensor, it was down to fuel which had been stored in new tanks fitted with silicone seals, that melted and contaminated the fuel.
The best money saving tips is, buy the cheapest, it all left the same depot.

Hammyman

flyingscotno1 wrote: »

I hear this a lot but it's not quite true. I believe many fuels are transfered at Grangemouth but not refined there, but in any case Stanlow also serves Scotland from what I remember. Used to be a regular ship to Clydebank Oil Terminal which was used for Greenergy to supply the fuel from there.

Thankyou for the correction. I'll try to remember it but probably won't so feel free to correct me again. I'll get there eventually. :D

Hammyman

andygb wrote: »

So using your logic, why is diesel cheaper in mainland Europe than standard unleaded petrol?
I would suggest that the government has encouraged the price rise because of the increased number of diesel vehicles on the road.
This has nothing to do with technology, but everything to do with greed by the oil companies (increased profits) and the government (increased prices equal increased taxation).

Its actually more simpler. In the UK, petrol was the most common fuel and houses were heated by gas so as a result, we built less diesel refining capacity proportionally.

Ebe_Scrooge wrote:

The worst thing about this - it's extremely annoying for those of us with diesel cars

I don't see why. Its about a 2% difference in price however a diesel car should get at least 25% better economy over an equivalent petrol model so on a cost per mile basis, diesel is still way cheaper although LPG wins hands down at the moment.

redux

SHIPSHAPE wrote: »

Why is diesel now so much more expensive than petrol when back in the day it was other way around?

There isn't really justification for this.

In the winter there's more demand for heating oil, very similar to diesel, so we used to see about 3 pence difference appear in winter and then phase out again.

As suggested above, there might be something to be said that more diesel is sold now and some is imported from refineries abroad, but even so the price difference looks overdone.

It seems to me that the price difference between diesel here and abroad is a lot more than it used to be - was 12 to 18 pence a litre, now 22 to 35 pence a litre (i.e. £1.06 equivalent in Luxembourg today), so I don't see justification for the extra 9 or 10 pence here at the moment.

As for the thread question, I've used supermarket diesel in 3 cars for most of the last 15 years or more, with some commercial biodiesel a couple of years ago. No problems. On a couple of occasions of trying premium grades abroad I haven't noticed better consumption

jaydeeuk1

One question, if I was to switch to using the expensive shell stuff, do I need to be running on fumes to ensure there is hardly any 'contamination' with my bog standard morrisons 95 stuff? Only asking as I tried it for first time the other week, and other than costing more it made no difference. My car only has a small 32 litre tank, and usually have 6 or so litres left between fill ups.... so if 18% of the fuel in my tank was standard stuff, then if the ECU set the timings for 97 stuff, it wouldn't be running efficiently would it? Is the answer going to be 'run it for x amount of fillups to dilute it and then you'll notice'? If so, it sounds like a Loreal skin moisturiser advert

roddydogs

Welcome back, old thread ...........its been at least 3 months since it was last posted

Lagopus

One advantage of branded fuel is the lack of queing time - Sainsbury's at Morecambe is always busy, but at the BP garage nearby you can take your pick of the pumps!

Horizon81

Have never and never will put supermarket fuel in any car of mine. As discsussed, it may come from the same refinery but it isn't the same end product as what you get from Shell, BP, Texaco, Total etc.

People have short memories - it's only been a couple of years since that contaminated fuel managed to destroy thousand of oxygen sensors. And it all came from supermarket petrol.

nickj_2

i would have thought you'd save more money by adjusting your driving technique rather than paying for a "high mpg " fuel