Fuel Economy & Injector benefits Shell V power - thoughts?

[anotherv60]

Fuel Economy with V power D4 Diesel.

Just read this review on Honest John: https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/road-te...018-road-test/

"Fuel economy definitely improved on V-Power. When the car was delivered the average was sitting at around 29mpg and stayed at 29-30 on the meter for the first 200 miles. A first partial fill of V-Power improved the meter reading to around 32mpg. And, at the end of a total of 1,066 miles it was showing 35.3mpg, not far short of its NEDC 39.8 and probably bang on the EU6d TEMP / WLTP figure. At one point I pulled into Shell Barnsdale Bar on the A1 next to a TVR 350C and they’d run out of V-Power. The TVR took off, and so did I, then found myself beside him again 20 miles south at Shell Retford. “Has to be V-Power?” I asked. “Won’t run on anything else,” he replied. And that’s the point. When Volvo first developed its current range of 2.0 litre engines I was talking to one of their engineers and he told me the injectors are optimised to run on the highest Cetane and highest Ron fuels. So that explains my improvement in economy, and also why some people who run their D4 diesels on cheap supermarket fuel are reporting a bit of injector trouble. It’s not the injectors. It’s the fuel, you fool."

Has anyone else noticed an improvement in fuel economy with a Volvo D4 engine switching to V power. My V90 has gradually improved to 46.6 MPG after 5,000 miles but I have exclusively been using Sainsbury's Diesel.

[Deman77]

The other way round for me. I used V power exclusively for the first two years - main reason - it burns cleaner so it would not clog up my engine as i am low mileage, lots of cold starts and short trips. When I had to refuel once from nearly empty tank and the pump was out I filled up with standard shell. It felt noticeably more responsive and economy was marginally better. I didn’t do anything scientific as it is too difficult to control the conditions.
My understanding is v power petrol is higher octane - it has more energy - if your engine can adjust the timings to take advantage of it it will be better. With diesel there is no such thing. As long as it’s clean it will be pretty much the same. It’s important to go with good pump that is recent (they get dirty over time and diesel does go stale) and also has a lot of customer flow. Cheap discounted ones can be problematic in terms of fuel purity and freshness because they will not be looking after their fuel as much as BP and Shell do.
Vpower diesel unlike petrol is purely for additives and synthetic (or part synthetic) composition which burns cleaner. If anything it feels like those additives hold back performance but it’s just my perception. Again for someone who does longerbtrips it could be different.
The advice I came across was to put premium diesel once every few tanks to clean up the engine with good addition vests and use standard fuel otherwise but from good make and a busy pump.

[AndyV7o]

Premium diesel has higher cetane which is kinda the diesel equivalent of octane, though its not purely down to that, shell fuelsave regular diesel has higher cetane, whilst v-power has less cetane than fuelsave, it uses other methods to improve ignition/burn.
Running premium fuel will help keep an engine clean, it would take a long time indeed to clean up an encrusted engine.
There isnt as much of an effect with premium fuels as the companies would have you believe, but there is more than the 'its all the same' people say.
Octane numbers for petrol have to be able to be utilised by the engine for increased power and economy, if the timing cant be adapted or isnt set purely for it, it wont make a bean of difference other than cleaning properties from the additives.

I often use the analogy of cola for oil, fuel, etc;
Yes they all need to have a certain minimum standard to be fit for sale, and a certain recipe to be called cola, spec for oil, etc, but saying they are all the same is saying supermarket 25p value cola is the same as Coca cola, we all know that aint true, its fit for consumption, its a drink, but same they aint, its true for oil and fuel too.

[Zebster]

The more additives that are put it, the less fuel you're getting. And fuel is energy.

[Chief inspector]

Ran a fleet of 30 on Shell V Power diesel for a year as they gave us it at the same rate as the regular stuff.

They all have trackers and fuel cards so the fleet system automatically spits out the mpg’s and analyses everything.

Over the year in the same vehicles as the year before and few new ones the same model as the old ones it made no difference at all, some were up, some down, some the same, month to month fleet fuel average never changed when averaged over the year.

So went back to supermarket accounts.

[AndyV7o]

But when the additives extract more energy from the fuel by improving the burn...

I used to use millers dieselpower ecomax, at full strength I most definitely got more response/power. When money got ridiculously tight I sacrificed performance in lieu of food etc. I didnt get better economy cos I drove it harder

[AndyV7o]

Originally Posted by Chief inspector

Ran a fleet of 30 on Shell V Power diesel for a year as they gave us it at the same rate as the regular stuff.

They all have trackers and fuel cards so the fleet system automatically spits out the mpg’s and analyses everything.

Over the year in the same vehicles as the year before and few new ones the same model as the old ones it made no difference at all, some were up, some down, some the same, month to month fleet fuel average never changed when averaged over the year.

So went back to supermarket accounts.

It makes more difference in cleanliness than power/economy in the most part.
It can pay dividends long term in injector lifespan, spray pattern, etc, but it depends how long the vehicle is kept as to whether you may benefit or not.

[MaDProFF]

I am a firm believer in V Power, higher octane, less ethanol, fuel, including V Power Diesal used it for years in everything. As others have said it just runs so much cleaner as well good for engine and pollution

[Zebster]

Originally Posted by AndyV7o

But when the additives extract more energy from the fuel by improving the burn...

I used to use millers dieselpower ecomax, at full strength I most definitely got more response/power. When money got ridiculously tight I sacrificed performance in lieu of food etc. I didnt get better economy cos I drove it harder

Adding cetane boosters may help, but only up to the point where the average energy content of the fuel begins to suffer. And whether the boost you obtain from the added cetane is financially worthwhile for how you use the vehicle.

[Zebster]

I often wonder how much 99 RON petrol is wasted in vehicles which are unable to take advantage of it.