Is it my imagination

[canis]

In my experience, ASDA outperforms Tesco. Shell is good, but not better than ASDA. The worst of all is BP, with which the car hardly moves, not joking.

[DaveNP]

Personally I use Tesco petrol which I can't really tell a significant difference to Shell standard petrol.
Yes all petrol on sale in the UK will meet the minimum standard but as with a lot of other motoring things the minimum is pathetically low, - you can legally have 1.6mm of tread across just 75% of your tyre but I'd advise you not to expect too much grip in the wet. Last night discussing Morrisons generally with a work colleague who used to work for them and is still in contact with a number of people still there, he pointed out that they are frankly the weakest of the supermarket chains and are at the back of the queue for everything. Tesco has a lot of clout when it comes to buying and a lot of image to protect, I'd venture that their petrol exceeds the minimum by quite a way and is pretty close to the petrol company brands, Morrisons regrettably are struggling and end up buying the cheapest leftovers, and that's what ends up in your tank. Morrisons are apparently reviving the Safeway name to use in the mini supermarkets at petrol stations as they reckon hanging a Morrisons sign on the petrol station will kill the petrol sales.
Yeas ago we used to have this debate about different petrol company brands, Shell, BP, Esso were good, Jet was the iffy budget brand that you bought either because you were on a tight budget or you were stuck in the middle of nowhere with an empty tank.

[360beast]

I use Texaco Supreme, Shell V power and BP Ultimate in my remapped Fabia VRS. I have done so for a couple months, the engine is smoother and I do get better mpg.

I thought I would try normal BP diesel last week and it instantly made the engine idle less smooth, when I put my foot down it blew about three times as much soot out as when running on the premium stuff and it definitely didn't last as long as premium.

[christheancient]

Who remembers the 'good old days' of a shot of Redex for each gallon of petrol?

I remember that once I put a 'shot' straight into the carburettor with the engine running (apparently quite a common trick). Smoke absolutely everywhere; but I did reckon that the car ran smoother for a while.

[60041]

I can’t say I have really seen much difference between fuels but, saying that, I try to avoid the supermarket stuff as I know people who have had problems with it.
My son in law keeps a careful eye on his Miles per tank and has long maintained that he gets 40 miles more from a tank full of Costco diesel than he does from a fill of branded standard fuel; given that it is the cheapest fuel for miles around, it’s a win win situation.

[Tony427]

Years ago I used to sell fuel in the UK to dealers, ie those forecourt owners who owned their own sites. Biggest individual sale I ever did was for £65million worth of product. Annual sales was in the 100's of £Millions.

All fuel of each grade of whatever brand is the same until it hits the distribution depot. It's then when the magic herbs and spices so beloved of marketing men get added.

Most regions have a main distribution terminal. Each distribution terminal or tank farm is fed either by pipeline or by rail. The product in homogeneous at that time, satisfying the trading standards and legal aspects of fuel quality. There is one pipeline or one train. There is not an Esso train, or BP train carrying their own branded product or a Shell pipeline or an Esso pipeline doing the same. The terminal itself is likely to be owned either wholly or jointly by one or two oil companies.

Each distribution terminal is owned by a oil company or distributor that supplies its own fuel to each brand on a bunkering/ exchange basis. For example BP in Scotland will supply the fuel for all other brands, including supermarkets, as long as those brands in turn supply those BP sites throughout the country that are not supplied by a BP Terminal.

It would be ruinously expensive and a huge duplication if each fuel brand had its own distribution terminal in every region.

This is why at each terminal you will see lots of different brands tankers all filling up together. And also because you will see lots of unbranded , white normally, tankers filling up also.

The addition of brand specific additives takes place either at the tanker manifold filling station or in sprcific branded tanks at the terminal.

It used to be common practice that the tanker driver would add the additives into bog standard fuel at the tanker filling manifold but following the realisation that the tanker drivers had a habit of dropping all the additives for 25,00 litres into the front 5,000 litre pot this was made an automatic function ( Anyone remember a police force using shell V power when it first came out, getting a load of engines and fuel systems replaced because of premature failure. It also rotted pipe junctions causing lots of undergrounds storage tank problems. Pesky drivers eh).

So standard diesel, u/l is the same no matter what brand you use. Same with the higher octane fuels, that used to be Super Unleaded when I was in the game. It arrived from the one refinery, down the one pipeline, into the one tank and is then distributed to its various brands, with additives if required for branding purposes, added either at the manifold or in the tank farm in specified tanks.

Talk about getting the "fuel dregs" is fantasy. The legal and reputational damage that would be caused by selling inferior fuels would be lethal to the business and besides that, there are no dregs available given the huge volumes of road fuels being pumped, railed and shipped around the country.

For my part I buy the very cheapest fuel I can for the Mrs's diesel Toyota , and presently am an afficianado of LPG for my own snotter and will be gassing up my Cobra when I have/ make time.

If I feel the need to clean the fuel injectors or spice up my fuel I stick some paint thinners into the tank. A cheap octane raising boost of Naptha, methanol, acetone and toluene. I leave the diesel Toyota well alone.

Using an higher octane than the car is designed to run on is a waste of money and unless the ecu can take advantage and pull timing and is mapped to do so the benefit the user will get is psychological.

Which is exactly what all the brand reinforcement carried out by the fuel companies aim for. And judging from this thread all that money spent on advertising is not wasted.

HTH.

Cheers,

Tony

[AndyJudge]

In the Interests of testing I'll fill up with Morrisons Derv to travel South on Saturday evening & try to keep the Cruse set to 75. I suspect most of it will be gone by the time I set off back up North so will refuel with V-Power Derv to come back & set the Cruise the same way.

Will report back on Monday.

Of course the journey being uphill on the way back may impact the results.

[S60RDesign]

Personally I've never been able to tell and I'm a petrol head having raced vehicles and karts etc. I do run mine on V Power though for the supposed cleaning benefits, but unfortunately costs a fortune filling a 70 litre tank now

[canis]

I still (twenty-odd years on) find the idea of detergents in fuel absolutely laughable. I've used petrol to clean stoves and ovens which no detergent will even scratch. Petrol cleans anything!

[Harvey1512]

Originally Posted by AndyJudge

Vpower is a better quality fuel than standard so not really comparing like with like.

When I used to have my Scooby I could tell & it was proven on a rolling road that running it on supermarket standard fuel gave less bang for my buck than running Shell Vpower, however Tesco Momentum 99 was very very close to Vpower.

Not sure on Diesel not tried it yet, maybe something to do during my 600mile round trip at the weekend.

I would add that I live nearby the Fuel depot at Jarrow & see tankers for numerous different branded & Supermarket retailers leaving & arriving. The fuel all arrives by train.

I used to work at the oil depot in Sunderland. That has now closed I believe so Jarrow supplies the whole of the NE. Yup, everyone. Shell, Esso, BP, Asda, Sainsburys, Morrisons, Murco etc. All out of the same tanks, same fuel. It used to come in by enormous barges, I suspect some still will do along with trains.

You are dead right, Vpower and equivalent is a different mix so it is not comparing like with like. There has been loads done on this. Vpower, usually takes 2-3 full fills according to Honest John to properly work, will give a better mpg but it is cancelled out by the extra cost. No negative, it cleans your engine, in using it other than to your wallet.

Loads of nonsense spouted about supermarket fuel. I mix it up between regular Shell and Morrisons as they are the two in my town. Have done for donkeys years. Predominantly Morrisons and that is giving me 52mpg in my 2.0d auto Superb. That will do for me.

I hadn't read Tony's post before posting this but I would echo his post. The idea of Morrisons or anyone, buying the dregs of fuel is pub talk.