Supermarket fuel

redux

photome wrote: »

was talking to someone yesterday who works on trucks so different vehicles I know, but he has heard of many issues with different cars this winter using all different fuels.

he puts it down to the "bio" part of the fuel and cars trying to comply with the emmission laws and that it is becoming increasingly difficult to comply leading to problems that we are seeing.

That may or may not be correct but it made some kind of sense to me.

Some garage add more "bio" additives than others apparently.


Will wait to get shot down now

For a while, I ran my car on B100, which is 100% biodiesel.

I know that the makers/vendors added no anti-waxing products in winter - I asked, and the reason was partly environmental, why make the fuel nastier, but they didn't envisage a problem for most UK weather, and starting at minus 5 was fine.

Even so on a couple of occasions when the weather forecast had down to about minus 8 I added a few litres of ordinary diesel, reckoned to about 15 or 20 per cent, so still 80% bio.

No problem at all.

Citroen HDI

But maybe they could consider having slightly lower bio content in winter and more in the summer, or reduce the amount derived from palm oil.

Rolandtheroadie

redux wrote: »

For a while, I ran my car on B100, which is 100% biodiesel.

I know that the makers/vendors added no anti-waxing products in winter - I asked, and the reason was partly environmental, why make the fuel nastier, but they didn't envisage a problem for most UK weather, and starting at minus 5 was fine.

Even so on a couple of occasions when the weather forecast had down to about minus 8 I added a few litres of ordinary diesel, reckoned to about 15 or 20 per cent, so still 80% bio.

No problem at all.

Citroen HDI

But maybe they could consider having slightly lower bio content in winter and more in the summer, or reduce the amount derived from palm oil.

Running 100% all year round with no additives, but I dont use palm oil.

Didnt even consider palm to be honest, was thinking poorly made Bio was getting into the system somehow.

But that sounds more plausable.

Back when I ran veg oil, when you got a sudden cold snap, you got white flakes clogging the filters.

worried_jim

I only ever used palm oil (100%) from May to September. In three years of running on Veg I only had one waxing issue and it cost me about £100 in garage fees to rectify.

redux

scotsman4th wrote: »

Running 100% all year round with no additives, but I dont use palm oil.

Didnt even consider palm to be honest, was thinking poorly made Bio was getting into the system somehow.

But that sounds more plausable.

Back when I ran veg oil, when you got a sudden cold snap, you got white flakes clogging the filters.

I hadn't thought of it myself when I first wrote that, hence the edit a bit later.

The joint operation of Tesco and Greenergy was for a while producing bio made from palm oil, but I don't know if that is still the case.

Greenergy's campaign to undo the lower duty rate for smaller providers recycling used oil and favour theirs from new oil was rather tenuous at the time on environmental grounds, given that increasing palm oil production was linked to deforestation.

Anyway, as I say, I didn't have any problem at all with other bio made presumably from rapeseed. This was mainly bought in this country, though the first couple of tankfuls I tried were in Germany, where it was subsidised a bit while the Greens were in the government.

As for clouding in what you were using, maybe it's a difference between palm and rapeseed or sunflower, maybe something else.

I wonder though if a fair proportion of any problems could just be low mileage users running in winter on fuel bought in October before the winter additives came in. Topping up half a tank might help avoid that.

elp99jcm

mjfp509 wrote: »

In the letters I am sending, I have specified that, depending on their responses, I will be contacting both !

I advise other sufferers to do this the same.

I have just submitted a story to Watchdog on this, I hope you do as well, it is a simple online form. I will also contact trading standards.

mutley74

Tesco have refused to accept my complaint on using the diesel which caused waxing issue on my filter. Even though i know of another person who has had same problem from same tesco garage in same week. Tesco HQ said i was the only complaint ever received. The Tesco fuel store manager told me waxing is a common problem at his garage!

I now refuse to use Tesco fuel ever again, very poor service.