Supermarket petrol okay for our car?

Paradigm

This has been done to death & for every one motorist complaining about supermarket fuel there will be 2 or 3 who have never had a problem, me being one.

It's simple, buy whatever you feel comfortable with.... it's your money

Joe_Horner

bigjl wrote: »

The important phrase of course is "minimum standards"

Yep, which are exactly the same standards that car manufacurers design and specify their engines to run on.

So, if your car has a problem with supermarket fuels, that's an issue to take up with the car maker who's supplying engines unsuitable for the specified standard, not for the supermarkets who're supplying fuel that does meet that standard!

jase1

Absolutely.

If Sony made a TV specified to work on 230-240V, and there were a spate of power supplies in the UK which were failing due to the UK running on 240V, would you blame the National Grid?

Richard53

My experience, FWIW. I have had patches of rough running/poor performance which have started with a fill-up, and gone when the car was filled up next. I strongly suspect contaminated fuel. Each time has been after being tempted by the 5p/litre thing and filling up at Tesco. I have used Tesco at other times and not had a problem, but each time I have had a problem it has been after filling up at Tesco. My wife has a similar engine in her car and uses Tesco all the time, with no issues.

I suspect occasional poor storage issues at this particular branch of Tesco, rather than a generic 'supermarket = bad' thing, but I don't go there any more. Each to his own.

worried_jim

I've been running exclusively on Tesco fuels for 13 years now across both petrol and diesel cars and never had an issue or noticed a difference.

Joe_Horner

Paradigm wrote: »

It's simple, buy whatever you feel comfortable with.... it's your money

And this is what, to a great extent, the "big names" rely on. they know perfectly well that, even in a difficult economy, there will be plenty of people who are, and will remain, convinced that the more expensive product is "better" regardless of any evidence to the contrary.

You could sit such people in a lab and let them watch while you fully analysed a sample of each. Even if you came up with identical results they'd still swear blind that the more expensive must have something in it / refined out of it that you hadn't tested for.

It happens in all markets, not just fuel, and is central to the whole idea of "brand" marketing.

The odd thing is that, quite often, their own arguments are contradictory. Such as "They use better more expensive additives and anyway they're the same price around here". How do they sell for the same price when their product is apparently more expensive to make and the supermarkets sell greater volume so should be cheaper because of scale?

A._Badger

Joe_Horner wrote: »

The odd thing is that, quite often, their own arguments are contradictory. Such as "They use better more expensive additives and anyway they're the same price around here". How do they sell for the same price when their product is apparently more expensive to make and the supermarkets sell greater volume so should be cheaper because of scale?

Tesco is bigger than Exxon or Shell? Pull the other one!

I'm not disputing your point about fuel quality but trying to infer much at all from the major supermarket's predatory pricing policies (other than that they are rapacious bathbuns) is pointless.

Joe_Horner

A._Badger wrote: »

Tesco is bigger than Exxon or Shell? Pull the other one!
.

No, they're not "bigger" but they have a higher percentage of the uk retail fuel market. They also manage that despite having a lot fewer forecourts, so their distribution costs are reduced as well.

Latest figures I can find quickly are 2011, but afaik the situation hasn't changed much since then:

http://www.forecourttrader.co.uk/files/Fuel_Market_Review/FCT_fuel_mkt_review_2011_low.pdf

Tesco: 15.1% of sales from 471 forecourts
BP: 14.8% of sales from 1169 forecourts
Shell: 12.4% of sales from 876 forecourts
Esso: 10.6% of sales from 899 forecourts

bigjl

Joe_Horner wrote: »

Yep, which are exactly the same standards that car manufacurers design and specify their engines to run on.

So, if your car has a problem with supermarket fuels, that's an issue to take up with the car maker who's supplying engines unsuitable for the specified standard, not for the supermarkets who're supplying fuel that does meet that standard!

Same silly argument due to not being able to understand a simple concept.

They all run on it.

But cheap fuels with minimal additive packages will always be better for a vehicle long term.

Stick to your Asda/Tesco Beans if you think they are the same as Heinz then.

They are both beans after all.

And if anybody can tell the difference that you are unable to then try to divert the blame on them, eh.:rotfl:

A._Badger

Joe_Horner wrote: »

No, they're not "bigger" but they have a higher percentage of the uk retail fuel market. They also manage that despite having a lot fewer forecourts, so their distribution costs are reduced as well.

Latest figures I can find quickly are 2011, but afaik the situation hasn't changed much since then:

http://www.forecourttrader.co.uk/files/Fuel_Market_Review/FCT_fuel_mkt_review_2011_low.pdf

Tesco: 15.1% of sales from 471 forecourts
BP: 14.8% of sales from 1169 forecourts
Shell: 12.4% of sales from 876 forecourts
Esso: 10.6% of sales from 899 forecourts

Thank you for conveniently excising the second part of my comment. Tesco's business model is completely different from that of the oil companies. You can't infer anything useful about the quality of fuels from a company that makes its money by enticing people into its stores by its petrol prices.

The only way of working out whether supermarket fuel is as good as that from a major petrochemical company is to test it in a laboratory. Anything else is guesswork and that's what all these threads on this forum are.