What do Tesco do to their fuel??

Paradigm

aliasojo wrote: »

The additives do make fuel more/less efficient in your car.

Shampoo is shampoo so you'd think, it's a base soap that cleans with things added depending on brand.

All shampoo will clean your hair but some will make it softer/shinier and others will make it heavy and lank looking despite being clean.

Fuel additives work in a similar way. They are not all equal therefore the fuel will be differently affected as will your car engine.

You may well be right but we then come back to the points made earlier in the thread.

The standard for road fuel is known to car manufacturers & they should be producing engines that run correctly on this base fuel, there is no other way of looking at it.

If, say, Shells additives make it run better/more economically then fine no problem but if it won't run properly on Morrisons/Asda/Tesco fuel then there's a design flaw or supermarkets are selling fuel that doesn't achieve the standard, something I strongly doubt.

goonarmy

bigjl wrote: »

The data is only a small window of what is produced.

Though this would indicate that the difference felt by some isn't related to the cetane number.

I would love to know what the issue is but where we have just moved to there is a Tesco that sells Esso for 1p more than the Tesco and also a Murco that is 1p dearer than Tesco so I can just avoid it.

Did put some 2stroke in the Wife's car the other day after she put diesel in at Tesco fuel and the injectors sound a little quieter, this car has fairly loud injectors, a sort of metallic rattle, was never like that when we bought it, but it has been misfuelled over the years and has also done nearly 80k in our hands most of which on Tesco diesel.

Make of that what you will.

My mk3 Mondeo did over 100k in my hands whilst avoiding all supermarket fuel as much as practicable Nd the injectors sounded the same when I sold it, the same goes for my V50, sounds like it did when I bought it nearly 60k ago.

I am happy with my position and won't try and get anybody to come round to my opinion as long as they grant me the same courtesy.

I will just post up my findings and observations, make of them what you will they are posted with good intentions.

Though I will admit I did think cetane levels might have been part of the issue, but never having added cetane improver to Tesco diesel to see ah to effect it had it was only a thought.

Might just do that next week on the wife's car.

This^
Speak as ya find. Either way, for or against.

bigjl

Ultrasonic wrote: »

Absolutely. Unless cars are sold with manuals that explicitly state that supermarket fuel should not be used (which would obviously never happen) then this comes back to the engine not being fit for purpose argument above. (Or dealers just making up excuses for something totally unrelated .)

Let's not forget that some people have seen excess smoke when using supermarket fuels, myself included.

Luckily I have so far made sure I have mainly non Dpf equipped vehicles.

What would this excess smoke do to a Dpf? Not help it if you ask me.

During the Olympics I worked for a large minicab company in London alongside my bit of work with the Olympic preparation.

Now that was an 11 plate Galaxy, Powershift auto with the 2.0 diesel lump and a Dpf.

In similar running round London during evenings and overnight it would usually regenerate once every day or so, you could tell regen by the extra vibrations and change in exhaust note, but on Tesco it regenerated two or three times a shift.

I was going through three tanks of diesel a week, usually starting off the shift at Stanstead in late afternoon early evening.

Broadly similar levels of traffic etc.

Not scientific I grant you, but something that is factual and evidence based not just opinion, more soot must have been produced by the Tesco fuel, though perhaps I should just say supermarket fuel as I don't think it is just Tesco.

If I could find a cheap additive that would counteract what I have seen that still meant Supermarket diesel was cheaper I would happily do so.

But would I put it in a Dpf equipped vehicle I was responsible in servicing? No I wouldn't.

Just because the evidence is anecdotal doesn't mean it is wrong or inaccurate.

On the subject of vehicle manuals, don't they usually have some kind of vague statement saying that only good quality fuels should be used.

And let's not forget that the vehicles do still work, just not as well as on name branded fuels. So saying vehicles are not fit for purpose is inaccurate, they have just sensed lower fuel quality and adjusted the way the vehicle runs to protect the engine.

Unlike an old mechanical injected diesel which would just keep running till it couldn't run any longer.

As an aside the vehicle I used at work several years ago had a reputation for being unreliable, Dpf lights, limp mode etc.

I used to solely use BP Ultimate rather than standard and tried to never switch off when a regen was taking place, after a few weeks when I was the only user it ceased having issues.

When it was then used by others during my rest days it started to play up a bit during these periods when I assume normal BP was again added.

Totally anecdotal but it did lead to the fitted asking what I was doing different. I just wanted to keep it as it was an early model with the comfy recaro type seats rather than the later half leather recovered normal seat. (Vauxhall Zafira Design mk2)

I wouldn't be surprised at anything a main dealer gets up to.

My work used to use Vauxhall main dealers for more involved stuff when they had a backlog, things were never fixed that well to be honest, same problems time after time.

Who actually started fixing long term issues?

The Saab dealer on The Highway, sorted things out first try with several vehicles, the only advantage to the 1.9 cdti lump with a Dpf being fitted to Saabs aswell as Alfas, Fiats and Vauxhalls.

Pity they are now defunct.

Joe_Horner

The only probem with "speak as you find", without anything objective to back it up, is that mistakes do happen but that doesn't mean all the fuel from that company is "bad".

My only fuelling problem in over 25 years of driving was a couple of years ago when I filled up at an Esso station and got a good dose of water in my tank. having only just done maor work on the car, including draining and flushing the tank, I know for a fact that's where the water came from. Fortunately, being an old carburettor engine, no harm done and it even managed to limp to safety (spluttering like crazy) off the M5 so I could sort it at the next services.

So should "I find" that Esso fuel is all crap and kills you car on a motorway? I'll never use that junk again!

If I took that attitude you'd think I was nuts. We have no way of knowing how many people each day have similar problems from "big brand" fuel because they probably do what I did, accept that mistakes can happen, and get on with it - it wasn't even worth the extra fuel to drive back and complain!. Yet, it had been a supermarket pump that I'd filled at then no-one would have thought twice if I'd come online saying how bad the fuel was and I'd only be using branded from now on.

That's almost certainly why you hear far more reports of bad supermarket fuel than bad branded fuel - the people with bad braned fuel just don't shout so loud about it so you never get to hear.

Even if they did, everyone would be quick to tell them how carefully standards are monitored and that it must be a one-off fault at that particular filling station.

Paradigm

bigjl wrote: »

And let's not forget that the vehicles do still work, just not as well as on name branded fuels. So saying vehicles are not fit for purpose is inaccurate, they have just sensed lower fuel quality and adjusted the way the vehicle runs to protect the engine.

If you read the OP....

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.

Is that a car running correctly & because it isn't it's automatically the fuel to blame?

bigjl wrote: »

I used to solely use BP Ultimate rather than standard and tried to never switch off when a regen was taking place, after a few weeks when I was the only user it ceased having issues.

When it was then used by others during my rest days it started to play up a bit during these periods when I assume normal BP was again added.

So now not only is it about avoiding supermarket fuels but even the basic BP diesel isn't good enough, it has to be the more expensive Ultimate? That's one finicky car if you don't mind me saying

goonarmy

Joe_Horner wrote: »

The only probem with "speak as you find", without anything objective to back it up, is that mistakes do happen but that doesn't mean all the fuel from that company is "bad".

My only fuelling problem in over 25 years of driving was a couple of years ago when I filled up at an Esso station and got a good dose of water in my tank. having only just done maor work on the car, including draining and flushing the tank, I know for a fact that's where the water came from. Fortunately, being an old carburettor engine, no harm done and it even managed to limp to safety (spluttering like crazy) off the M5 so I could sort it at the next services.

So should "I find" that Esso fuel is all crap and kills you car on a motorway? I'll never use that junk again!

If I took that attitude you'd think I was nuts. We have no way of knowing how many people each day have similar problems from "big brand" fuel because they probably do what I did, accept that mistakes can happen, and get on with it - it wasn't even worth the extra fuel to drive back and complain!. Yet, it had been a supermarket pump that I'd filled at then no-one would have thought twice if I'd come online saying how bad the fuel was and I'd only be using branded from now on.

That's almost certainly why you hear far more reports of bad supermarket fuel than bad branded fuel - the people with bad braned fuel just don't shout so loud about it so you never get to hear.

Even if they did, everyone would be quick to tell them how carefully standards are monitored and that it must be a one-off fault at that particular filling station.

Whilst what your saying is right its an over analysis of what has been said. No brand has been mentioned in my posts even though the thread is specific.
The anecdotal evidence is exatly that. The story originates from some real life senarios out side of "lab conditions". It may be the fault of the drivers, maybe it was conincedence etc etc but a generalisation is that it seems to be lower in quality. If that additives or fuel its self is irrelevant as the end product appears not to be as good.
Thats it all. Remember its the internet.

Ultrasonic

I've always been a little sceptical about the 'more smoke with supermarket fuels' argument, in part since I never seen any smoke from my car to start with, and partly as it seems a pretty hard thing to judge. But if different fuels are affecting DPF regeneration rates there must be something to it.

cardinalbiggles

Paradigm wrote: »

Just for comparison, here's a link to a Greenergy (who supply Tesco) data sheet from July this year... http://www.greenergy.com/Products_services/test_results/diesel/ulsd_2013.07.pdf

There is very little difference & what differences there are could simply be down to the fuel being from different refineries.

Interesting, I never realised Tesco had their own supplier these days, they used to buy whatever they could get their hands on from the other brands.

Iceweasel

cardinalbiggles wrote: »

Interesting, I never realised Tesco had their own supplier these days, they used to buy whatever they could get their hands on from the other brands.

I think you are incorrect.

Tesco do not have their 'own' supplier.

I don't think they ever bought fuel from 'other brands'.

AFAIK here is how it works -

There are less than 10 oil refineries in the UK:

England
Coryton Refinery, (Petroplus),idle, 208,000 bbl/d (33,100 m3/d)
Fawley Refinery, (ExxonMobil), 330,000 bbl/d (52,000 m3/d)
Humber Refinery, (Phillips 66), 221,000 bbl/d (35,100 m3/d)
Lindsey Oil Refinery, (Total), 223,000 bbl/d (35,500 m3/d)
Teesside Refinery, (ConocoPhillips), 280,000 bbl/d (45,000 m3/d)
Stanlow Refinery, (Essar Oil)

Scotland
Grangemouth Refinery, (Ineos), 205,000 bbl/d (32,600 m3/d)

Wales
Milford Haven Refinery (Murco),108,000 bbl/d (17,200 m3/d)
Pembroke Refinery, (Valero), 215,000 bbl/d (34,200 m3/d)

This list needs updating - it's less than this now.

But just look at the names - some are conspicuous with their absence - where is Shell, where is BP?

Greenergy simply own fuel terminals and storage tanks:

http://www.greenergy.com/Our_business/fuel_terminals.html

Paradigm

Iceweasel wrote: »

I think you are incorrect.

Tesco do not have their 'own' supplier.

Tesco have a stake in Greenergy..... http://www.fasttrack.co.uk/fasttrack/leagues/dbtop100Details.asp?siteID=4&compID=1735&yr=2012 so it's reasonable to assume that Tesco receive their fuel from Greenergy.