Cheapest Petrol & Diesel Discussion Area

I-LOV-MONEY

I wish an independent organisation could determine whether any one additive is better than another.

A._Badger

neilmcl wrote: »

Yes, every company will add their own mix of additives, etc.

We keep being told this - but only as pub lore and legend. Anecdotal evidence of the 'I get X MPG less from Asda petrol than I do from Texaco' is worthless, for all the obvious reasons.

What we need is someone inside the industry to tell us the truth, or reliable independent research to establish, once and for all, whether these additives are fairy dust or really do make a substantial difference.

PsiDOC

neilmcl wrote: »

Yes, every company will add their own mix of additives, etc.

Not quite. Some do put detergent additives in some don't that's it.

A._Badger wrote: »

We keep being told this - but only as pub lore and legend. Anecdotal evidence of the 'I get X MPG less from Asda petrol than I do from Texaco' is worthless, for all the obvious reasons.

What we need is someone inside the industry to tell us the truth, or reliable independent research to establish, once and for all, whether these additives are fairy dust or really do make a substantial difference.

It's not pub lore. Some really do. As far as fairy dust is concerned I have never seen any evidence to corroborate any difference in MPG from any testing body, internal to the company or external.

I-LOV-MONEY

Shell, for example, say wef that their (new) petrol will give better mpg or your money back. How is anyone going to prove it ?

I-LOV-MONEY

3601965 wrote: »

Here is an interesting idea to think about (and act upon?)..


Please see what you think and use it on your site if you agree with it.

Please read post #355 of this thread.

lisa83546708

3601965 wrote: »

I am sending this note to a lot of people. If all of you send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300)....and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000) ... and so on. By the time the message reaches the sixth generation of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers! If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it.....

THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!


I had this as a chain email a while ago..... I think this maybe classed as SPAM??

everett_psycho

not strictly about fuel prices but discovery had a programme that tested the air conditioning Vs Open windows myth. They found that when push came to shove air con was more economical at around 50MPH, so above that use your air con to reduce drag, below it leave the windows open

They also did another one and found driving with your bumped tucked under the back of a lorry massively reduces fuel consumption... but i wouldn't really recommend driving like that

baldmosher

darich wrote: »

Costco are correct but their reasoning is wrong

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5YsQ_a_ijA
Michelin also think so
http://www.michelinman.com/tire-care/tire-saving-tips/replacement-questions/#install-tires

Ah but it depends whether you look at driving with safety or burning off teenagers at the lights in mind, and if the latter whether your car is FWD or RWD.

baldmosher

PsiDOC wrote: »

Not quite. Some do put detergent additives in some don't that's it.

It's not pub lore. Some really do. As far as fairy dust is concerned I have never seen any evidence to corroborate any difference in MPG from any testing body, internal to the company or external.

Quite.

Detergents affect performance and engine longevity over long periods. You wouldn't notice much difference in the short term.

I only ever buy second hand cars and don't anticipate keeping them for ever, so I tend to use Shell diesel simply because they're generally the cheapest around. I have never liked their unleaded though, very very sluggish. BP I find are prohibitively expensive, so I tend to avoid using them, and I have always boycotted Exxon/Esso, which sometimes makes long journeys a bit like Russian roulette. (Our company specifically forbids staff with fuel cards from using BP stations!)

However, the science behind V-Power (petrol and diesel) in particular is very simple but very clever... the additives reduce friction in the fuel so it moves easier through the pipes and therefore efficiency increases... probably not by enough to justify the extra cost unless, you have a sports car and then you wouldn't want to use anything else.

I know it's only anectodal but I have been plotting all my fuel receipts since I switched to diesel. I've consistently done 12,000 miles a year, I tend to drive fairly consistently on each tank and I have noticed that my V40 tends to get 5mpg less if doing a lot of short distance journeys, otherwise it's pretty consistent at around 40-43mpg wherever I buy my fuel. I can tell you that according to my own limited personal experience retailers' fuels are ranked in the following order:

Texaco
Morrisons
BP
Asda
Shell
Sainsbury's
Roadchef
Tesco
Total

Shell is slap bang in the middle and as I say, I've used them more than any other. So IMO that would probably suggest the more you use any specific retailer the more the mpg tends to even out to match the others. I have noticed that Shell's mpg is getting slightly worse over time but that could be my driving style evolving. I'm going to start using the other retailers more frequently this year (especially Morrison's!) and see what happens.

everett_psycho wrote: »

They also did another one and found driving with your bumped tucked under the back of a lorry massively reduces fuel consumption... but i wouldn't really recommend driving like that

Slipstream works a treat. Keep a few yards back with cruise control set at 56mph, keep your concentration and remember that you can brake faster than a truck, should be safe enough, and will massively increase economy. But then, driving at 56mph without tailgating a truck would probably massively increase economy anyway. The new Volvo auto-braking system should help with this and soon we will be snaking along the motorways in tight convoy whilst asleep at the wheel.

darich

baldmosher wrote: »

Slipstream works a treat. Keep a few yards back with cruise control set at 56mph, keep your concentration and remember that you can brake faster than a truck, should be safe enough

A few yards?....are you serious?
If you're willing to drive a few car lengths from a lorry giving you no braking distance in order to get an extra mile or two per gallon then either you're tighter than a badger's butt.....or you're too skint to be driving a car.

Whatever ther reason....it's not sensible...it's lunacy.