Supermarket fuel v the rest

trailingspouse · 5 December 2017 at 6:46PM

I'm sure this has been asked before - apologies.

OH is adamant that supermarket diesel is poor quality and bad for the engine. More than that, he prefers to use the 'premium' variety, even at the non-supermarket filling stations. Personally I'd be happy enough to use the supermarket stuff mostly because it's a lot cheaper but also because I'm at the supermarket at least once a week, whereas I have to go out of my way to go to our nearest non-supermarket one. So cheaper, and more convenient.

Is he right? Or doesn't it make that much of a difference?

Car_54 · 5 December 2017 at 6:52PM

You won't get a sensible answer here.

This has been debated ad nauseam both here and elsewhere, and there are entrenched opinions on both sides, and not much, if any, hard evidence.

FWIW I very much doubt if there's any difference, and I'm always amazed that people who subscribe to "money-saving" would voluntarily pay more than necessary for fuel, or buy expensive snake-oil "additives".

[Lights blue touch-paper and retires to a safe distance.]

Ganga · 5 December 2017 at 7:33PM

Dont forget Sainsburies,Asda etc do not make the petrol/diesel,it is bought in from the refinery where other companies get there fuel.I used to work for a national pump/plant hire company who ran a lot of vehicles and they recomended Morrisons supermarkets to fill up the tanks as it was cheaper than Shell,BP etc and the fuel was perfect.

RichardD1970 · 5 December 2017 at 7:40PM

In 20 years of driving diesels I have only used supermarket fuel. Never had any problems.

Aretnap · 5 December 2017 at 7:58PM

trailingspouse · 5 December 2017 at 8:53PM

Thanks Car54 - I thought that might be the way of it.

Aretnap - enjoy.

OH is not to be swayed - but as it's me that fills the cars up, it's not really up to him, is it??

BeenThroughItAll · 5 December 2017 at 8:54PM

Car_54 wrote: »

You won't get a sensible answer here.

This has been debated ad nauseam both here and elsewhere, and there are entrenched opinions on both sides, and not much, if any, hard evidence.

FWIW I very much doubt if there's any difference, and I'm always amazed that people who subscribe to "money-saving" would voluntarily pay more than necessary for fuel, or buy expensive snake-oil "additives".

[Lights blue touch-paper and retires to a safe distance.]

You will get a sensible answer, but it will be lost in all the unfounded drivel about how you get an extra million miles to a tank out of Shell fuel vs Tesco, or how a bloke down the pub once looked after a cat belonging to a woman whose ex-husband's new wife's cousin had their engine fail after filling up at Morrisons once so they must sell contaminated diesel.

wongataa · 5 December 2017 at 9:06PM

trailingspouse wrote: »

OH is not to be swayed - but as it's me that fills the cars up, it's not really up to him, is it??

If you are filling up the car then you should be choosing where to go. If your OH wants fancy branded fuel he should fill up and pay for it himself.

I use supermarket fuel I have never had a problem and get good fuel economy. Branded fuel may have fancier additives that help things a bit but the price premium is likely to make any fuel economy improvements moot.

In the end all the petrol & diesel comes from the same fuel base stocks from the refineries and has to conform to the same British Standard. The fuel for every filling station is stored at a few regional storage facilities. At these facilities you will see fuel tankers with all sorts of names on including the likes of Shell, BP, and supermarket brands. The only differences can be the additive packs that are added to the fuel when tankers are loaded and these compromise a very small proportion of the what is the tanker.

trailingspouse · 5 December 2017 at 9:19PM

I'm not worried about who pays for it - as my late great mother-in-law so eloquently put it, we both p!ss in the same pot...

And the savings would benefit us both too - but I wouldn't want to be saving the money if it turned out to be a false economy. As it doesn't seem to make any difference, I'll go down the supermarket route.

Ectophile · 5 December 2017 at 9:22PM

I'm old enough to remember "New Formula Shell", probably the first petrol advertised as having additives to clean your engine, back in the 1980's.

I was lucky. I realised very quickly how badly my old Mk1 Escourt ran on the stuff, drove to another filling station, and used up a large chunk of my student grant brimming the tank with another brand of petrol. The car survived for a few more years.

Others weren't so lucky. Shell ended up withdrawing the stuff and compensating owners of cars with wrecked engines.

So forgive me if I'm cynical whenever I see adverts for wonderful new additives in expensive brand-name fuels. My cars run mostly on supermarket petrol and diesel.

photome · 5 December 2017 at 9:42PM

trailingspouse wrote: »

I'm not worried about who pays for it - as my late great mother-in-law so eloquently put it, we both p!ss in the same pot...

And the savings would benefit us both too - but I wouldn't want to be saving the money if it turned out to be a false economy. As it doesn't seem to make any difference, I'll go down the supermarket route.

Over the last 15 years I have driven about 500,000 miles exclusively on supermarket diesel in a few differnt cars and never had any issue

You could fill up with supermarket diesel and tell him it’s the expensive stuff, he wouldn’t know any different

Supermarket fuel v the rest

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