What do Tesco do to their fuel??

Lovelyjoolz

I filled up a couple of weeks ago with Tesco diesel. I never normally use Tesco fuel, but I was running late for a long journey and that was the closest option.

First few miles were fine, but accelerating down the slip road onto the motorway the car was sluggish and juddery as if it were miss-firing. I thought the turbo was going initially it was so spluttery on acceleration. And the size of the black cloud coming out the exhaust when hard accelerating was a little disturbing.

I guessed it was the fuel so for the next week I drove about as uneconomically as I could (windows down, air-con on) just to burn the stuff up and once it was getting close to empty I filled it up at my usual Murco station. Everything is fine now.

So what is in / not in Tesco diesel that upset my poor car so much??

OddballJamie

Strange, Tesco usually give you more horse power. :rotfl:

jase1

Never had a problem with Tesco petrol. Maybe it's your badly-designed engine that's the basic problem?

fivetide

Might have been a dodgy batch or your car needed an 'italian tune up' and a good blast along the road. All comes from the same refineries at the end of the day...

fivetide

jase1 wrote: »

Never had a problem with Tesco petrol. Maybe it's your badly-designed engine that's the basic problem?

*ahem* he's on the diesel

jase1

fivetide wrote: »

*ahem* he's on the diesel

I'm fully aware of that :rotfl:

GolfBravo

Lovelyjoolz wrote: »

but accelerating down the slip road onto the motorway the car was sluggish and juddery as if it were miss-firing. I thought the turbo was going initially it was so spluttery on acceleration. And the size of the black cloud coming out the exhaust when hard accelerating was a little disturbing.

Maybe the engine was going through DPF regeneration process (assuming your car has DPF?).

WTFH

Lovelyjoolz wrote: »

First few miles were fine, but accelerating down the slip road onto the motorway the car was sluggish and juddery as if it were miss-firing. I thought the turbo was going initially it was so spluttery on acceleration. And the size of the black cloud coming out the exhaust when hard accelerating was a little disturbing.

If your car is reasonably new (i.e. within the last 5 years), then it sounds like you were just having a DPF regen. Perfectly normal, it just coincided with you filling up.

I've run a modern diesel on Tesco (and other brands) of fuel with no issues at all.

Strider590

It's often been said that certain cars don't like supermarket diesel. Again I suspect it's to do with additives (which are added when it reaches the petrol station).
At this time of year it could also be that Tesco have switched over to winter diesel too soon?

Who knows?

Lovelyjoolz

jase1 wrote: »

Never had a problem with Tesco petrol. Maybe it's your badly-designed engine that's the basic problem?

Helpful. Thank you. I'll forward your thoughts to VW. Perhaps they'll redesign the whole range on your say so?

Lovelyjoolz

WTFH wrote: »

If your car is reasonably new (i.e. within the last 5 years), then it sounds like you were just having a DPF regen. Perfectly normal, it just coincided with you filling up.

I'd go with that if it just happened the once, but it happened constantly until I filled it up with Murco again.

It was almost as if there was a 'flat spot' on the throttle. If it weren't so annoying I'd be tempted to stick half a tank of Tesco in it again just see if it was a bad batch.