Cheapest Petrol & Diesel Discussion Area

steve-L

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

The AA did this with a big Honda and a Small Ford.
At 55 mph the Ford was more economical but at 80 MPH they were both about the same.

Yep, its the 'manufacturers MPG reporting' that drives this IMHO.
I bet the smaller ford could have done better at 80 if they hadn't spent so much effort at 55!

In the same way, especially on a diesel (and insurance being another issue obviously) its especially likely for instance you do a lot of motorway miles and perhaps drive closer to 80 than 70.... that a remap can make a big difference.

What I noticed with my 330D is if you really don't care about fuel, safety or tickets its more than capable of burning it at an alarming rate.... If I floor it at 50mph (and there is no reason on earth other than fun why you'd need to) it does 100 before you can blink. In the seconds it takes it gets 15 MPG or less! Obviously you can't keep that up, its just to illustrate!

If you drive with super economy in mind it gets stupidly high MPG (I really got 68 on the M3) at not much below 70.....

In real life driving this just illustrates that a few blips on the gas really have a profound affect on average MPG on my car.
Not that I believe much Jeremy Clarkeson says but I also remember a top gear where they did the same with a Golf TDi.... and the results for that were 'not much difference'

My conclusion..... Its strongly dependent on the car how much the driver makes a difference. I was frankly gobsmacked at the 68 mpg (way above published extra urban) perhaps I had a tail wind the whole way back but its fair to say I usually get high 40's to low 50's?

My normal driving is a mix of relieving the boredom then trying to make up the MPG I lost (just being honest).

It's also true I actually felt it hard to stay concentrating at that speed for that time in my car..... probably not helped by having the AC off and windows up in summer but also it was quite hard to keep concentration ....

tj71

Morning all

I drive a bmw 525d on a y 2001 plate I seam to be getting late 45 to 55 mpg out of this on the motorway at a steady 70 mph n if i give it some beans it gives me low 40 ish

maxmiler

My son kept having his DPF warning light coming on every few weeks. Whenever he took it in to the garage, they couldn't find anything wrong. This continued for 18 months, then the service manager asked him which diesel he used. "Tesco". The service manager told him that that might be the cause of the DPF starting to clog up.
So my son started buying Shell.
Warning light has not come on since, and that has been for just over a year now.
Funny thing is that the Shell garage is less than a mile away from Tesco. Usually it is the same price, but sometimes just one penny dearer. And even on the odd occasion Tesco has been dearer.
Now, before anyone starts on about all the fuel coming from the same place - no it doesn't. It all starts off at the refinery but some fuels have additives put in at the refinery, and some fuel gets reblended by certain companies, probably the biggest being Greenergy. And if all fuels are the same why does Shell have "fuelsave", Texaco have "Excellium" etc. etc.
Fouling of EGR valves and DPF's is well known to be caused by bio-fuel.
My car had to have a new EGR valve when it was almost 2 years old. I suspected that it might be caused by the quality of the fuel, so I switched to only "proper" brands of fuel. The car is now 5 years old, so I have had 3 years without any faults. I'm glad I switched.

apwood

Another way to save on petrol is to use gift vouchers obtained at a discount via corporate and other schemes.

For example I get various gift vouchers from Countdown. The website takes individuals and company enquiries about membership. I get Countdown through the the Civil Service Sports and Social club. That club says the following people can join, as well as members of their family and up to three friends:

"Anyone who is an employee in the public sector or of Royal Mail, BT, or companies carrying out ex-civil service work; or is a past employee of one of these organisations who is retired on pension."

From countdown I get £100 of Morrisons vouchers for £96 - a saving of 4% beating the 3% cashback from Santander. I also use the vouchers in store was well since I shop at Morrisons.

I actually save more than 4%. As an extreme example, if I spend £20.01 and use three £30 vouchers, I get £9.99 change. Since I have saved £1.20 on those vouchers, it's almost a 6% saving on the £20.01. The same applies in store. Overall I probably save about 5%.

There is a small membership fee for me, but it is insignificant given the overall savings - another or which is low priced cinema tickets for Cineworld.

I-LOV-MONEY

maxmiler wrote: »

. And if all fuels are the same why does Shell have "fuelsave", Texaco have "Excellium" etc. etc.
.

I cannot comment on the quality of supermarket fuels, but over the years I have used mainly Sainsbury's, Tesco, Shell petrol (whichever is the cheaper at the time) and have had no problems.

Would 'fuelsave' etc be marketing gimmicks ?

I know there was a survey last year (can't remember who) that consider buying the premium petrol did not make any saving.

maxmiler

I-LOV-MONEY wrote: »

I cannot comment on the quality of supermarket fuels, but over the years I have used mainly Sainsbury's, Tesco, Shell petrol (whichever is the cheaper at the time) and have had no problems.

Would 'fuelsave' etc be marketing gimmicks ?

I know there was a survey last year (can't remember who) that consider buying the premium petrol did not make any saving.

But the point isn't just about saving on fuel, rather it's about keeping motoring costs down by not making false economy by using a product that causes long term issues.

MarkyM

Hmmm well I use supermarket fuel, since there's no false economy (since I shop there). It can be any of the Tesco's Sainsbury's, Morrisons, in fact will be swayed if they're running a money off coupon (fuel or groceries).

The 'trick' is to maximise the voucher, so in the case of my LPG converted car I can fill up 100 liters between the two, thus a min of £5 on 5ppl off. Once I got 50p off a liter and saved a whopping £50!

In my diesel it has an 80 liter tank so fill that and 2 x 10l cans. and despite the oil burner being a 3.0TDI AWD I've managed to eek 950 miles out of a tank and an average of 56MPG on the m'way (10MPG more than the manufacturers claim). It used to be that using cruise control was considered more economic but I only use that through average speed check areas. It's far more economic to see brake lights a mile away and coast up to it covering the brake...lovely to see that 999MPG flashing up :O)

I also use millers deisel ecomax (the only additive recommended by Honest John

Tyre pressure monitor and regular oil changes also help economy.

One thing that perplexes me is that fuel now is roughly the same price everywhere, I remember not so long ago supermarkets were naturally 5ppl cheaper than the local forecourt, however now their roughly the same?

MarkyM

Oh, anyone know why there are so few supermarket fuel vouchers these days? Had one from Tesco 3 weeks back but now't from the others in a while...grrrr

JDPower

MarkyM wrote: »

It's far more economic to see brake lights a mile away and coast up to it covering the brake...lovely to see that 999MPG flashing up :O)

Actually rolling up to the lights in gear is more economical, despite what the mpg gauge erroneously reports when rolling in neutral

cash-strapped

Recently I changed my car from a Nissan Note (58 plate) to a Note N-Tec (61 plate), both petrol fueled. Not long after getting the car I noticed a very bad smell coming from 'somewhere under the bonnet'. Cutting a long story short, after experiencing several of repeats of this vile odour, I was speaking to a mechanic friend who said the problem was caused by the addatives in the fuels, especially the cheaper brands. These were having a detrimental effect on the catalytic convertor and causing the smell.
Now I thought all fuels sold in this country had to meet certain standards (am I naive or what? please don't answer that!) but according to my friend and the advice he gave me it seems not. The advice? Stick to the big brand names like Shell, BP and Esso. I have and the outcome is NO MORE ODOUR.
As my forum name suggests, I am not one to ignore a 'bargain' but if that could lead to possibly greater expense at a later date then it may not be such a bargain after all.