What do Tesco do to their fuel??

Iceweasel

I agree that the fuel all comes from the same few refinieries and holding tanks but .......

The required additives (or no additives in some cases) are added at the point of filling the delivery tanker - depending upon which filling station it's going to deliver to.

No way will anyone be adding 'anti-waxing' additives yet though.

Some engines do respond differently so it's quite possible that the OP's car just doesn't work that well on fuel that just meets the minimum UK requirements.

Many supermarket's diesel (especially Morrisons) provoke extra smoke for example, on some types of engine.

I'm not really up for a debate on this as I've proved it to myself several times.

When Tescos had a cumulative voucher offer on giving up to 50p off per litre, even I couldn't resist and had a week of cheap fuel and plenty smoke. Next fill was Shell and the car was back to normal.

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

I used emporium diesel in my ford focus and averaged about 45 to a gallon. I now pay 1p a litre more at a brand garage and get 49 to a gallon.

OddballJamie

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

It's not just the last 5 years that the evil DPFs have been around for.
I had a 2004 04 reg 307 with a DPF.

jase1

Lovelyjoolz wrote: »

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

Meh. An engine that reacts badly to fuel that passes the relevant European standard is a bad engine. Maybe you should indeed contact VW.

Joe_Horner

For all those who take the "supermarket fuel just meets the standards" line on this, a little thought:

The fuel standards in this country are what they are (ie: they're a standard), and all car manufacturers know them. If they design products (engines) which need something higher than that standard then it's them at fault.

It would be like designing a TV that needs 275 volt mains when the standard is 230v, then trying to blame the electricity supply when it doesn't work properly!

Moto2

Lovelyjoolz wrote: »

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

Thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of cars run happily every day on Tesco fuel.
Barring a one-off contamination, I'd too be looking at your own car rather than Tesco for the answer.
Mine gets whatever the next station on the road sells when I need it, I'm sure I must have had Tesco's in the past without issue.

Iceweasel

Rather like buying a bottle of whisky then?

There are minimum standards - they are all made by the same method - so apart from the label branding they are all the same.

Cheers.

:rotfl:

Moto2

Iceweasel wrote: »

Rather like buying a bottle of whisky then?

There are minimum standards - they are all made by the same method - so apart from the label branding they are all the same.

Cheers.

:rotfl:

The minimum standard for road diesel is [I think] EN 590:2009
What is it for whisky?

WTFH

There's no standard for whisky, that's why most of it is rough, although the regulation for it runs to 24 pages.

Now, Whiskey, on the other hand, only requires about 24 lines, that's because it's pure, unadulterated, simple and heavenly...
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/1980/en/act/pub/0033/print.html

Joe_Horner

Iceweasel wrote: »

Rather like buying a bottle of whisky then?

There are minimum standards - they are all made by the same method - so apart from the label branding they are all the same.

Cheers.

:rotfl:

No, more like whisky drinkers really.

A good drinker can drink just about anything, a bad drinker will have a couple of sips and fall over. That's not the fault of the whisky, it's a flaw in the drinker.

Give the good drinker a drink that doesn't meet the minimum standard for whisky (say, 40% isopropyl alcohol flavoured as whisky) and they'll also fall over.

Similarly, an engine that's unable to run properly on the standard fuel that's available is a bad engine, at least for general use.



eta: That's not to say that all fuels (or whiskys) are the same - some may well bbe "better" than others, depending how you measure "better". But an engine designed and sold to run on the available standard fuel shouldn't throw a fit when it's fed that fuel. If it does then that's a design flaw.