Best Super Unleaded Fuel

[cleopatra]

I've been trying to find out the relative merits of the diffferent fuels and came a cross this bit of interesting information. It was posted Feb 06 2006.

It makes interesting reading, especially the bit about optimax!

Opinions?

Found this on the Cupra website, quite interesting:

"I work with petrol companies, so i'll let you into some lesser known secrets.

Super unleaded is a fine fuel, but only if purchased from reputable dealers. Esso SUPER, like BP are about the best you can buy. Supermarket stuff is just 4 star without the valve addictive, which itself is just 95 unleaded that has been octane boosted. AVOID AT ALL COSTS. Supermarket petrol is a very dirty fuel. Any engineer of their pumps will confirm that.
I have seen the results of their filters and you get everything from feathers to god knows what flowing through supermarket fuels. EVEN SAND.

All Super by law has to be 97 ron, but where its stable enough to hold higher octane, stations are able to advertise its octane as being higher sometimes.

Optimax has a variable octane rating, due to its structure its less stable, but leaves the refinery at 101 octiane.
Thats the equivalent to the old 5 star for those old enough to remember it.
By the time you buy it, its closer to around 97.
This is why its octane isnt always stated.

Normal 95 or 97 fuels wont lose octane, whereas optimax does, but used fresh, its the highest octane fuel you can buy.

All supermarket fuels come from either the Matex or Purfleit refineries for the south east. These only take oil from the eastern block. They are most definately NOT the same fuels as ESSO and such like.
They also remix contaminations for other companies then sell the fuel on via supermarkets as well.
On average, each 50 litres brought from a supermarket will have 8% contaminates, and 9 grams of grit.
I have got 2 test tubes sitting on my desk at work of both ESSO and Tesco regular 95 for simple comparisons when arguing these points with supermarket buyers.
There is a bead in both which on the Tesco tube floats in mid suspension due to the grittiness of its petrol.
The ESSO falls straight to the bottom.
These are random samples taken every few weeks, and the results are always the same.

Texaco is a subsidary of ESSO and both use the same petrol.

There are basically 3 companies which supply fuel to the UK. ESSO, BP, AND SHELL.

Each sells to all the other names you find.

JET, FINA, Q8 and a few other smaller outlets all use SHELL.

TEXACO and TOTAL use ESSO,

Supermarkets use Eastern Block fuels, which are primarily designed for the 91 Ron continent market.
These are upgraded in the UK to UK specs by using Butane gas.
Hence to avoid.

BP Ultimate is just its old Super grade cleaned up a bit.
IE. It goes through another filter at the refinery.
Not a bad fuel though, second only to ESSO in quality.
Its Diesel is the best in the world for all you Diesel owners.

OPTICRAP. Need i say more. All grades supplied by Shell.
Might as well fill from your local FINA station and pop a bottle of Halfarts octane super duper booster plus in.

ESSO 95 and 97 = If you want every pennies worth in quality petrol, look no further.
Get it at your local TOTAL, TEXACO or ESSO now

[Kieran]

Interesting. Not sure how much I believe though. Okay, let's assume 'eastern bloc' oil is a bit more manky than the Liquid gold from the Middle east. Surely that would be taken care of at the refinery? Surely during the refining process, the crap is removed?

[Beastlee]

That's all fine but what about Tesco 99? We wouldn't use anything less than that or Optimax.

Plus we only have the choice of Tesco 99 or Esso 97 here and I'm not paying £1.069 for Esso 97 no matter what claims are made.

[cleopatra]

I'm going to try the new Tesco 99 fuel and the Esso super and compare. It's pretty daming stuff for the Shell fuels including opimax so I'm steering clear of these. From my research most people are impressed with the Tesco 99 fuel but fill up every 3rd or 4th tank with a branded fuel to keep the engine clean.

Views anyone?

[stuartturbo]

that the struggle i get when traverling the a12 to
game is how far away is the BP garage since nowt really in lowerstoft

[g6acb]

Not running a VR4 here, and I'm not particulary fussy about what fuel I use 'cause it only lasts 5 days /rally but tend to avoid supermarket fuels (except Tesco 99 when they do the money off thing with your shopping)

But my car hates Esso petrol with a noticible drop in economy and performance.... my previous Galant was the same :thinking:

[psbarham]

But my car hates Esso petrol with a noticible drop in economy and performance.... my previous Galant was the same :thinking:

i've only used esso once , and i managed 120 miles to a tank , and that was just pottering about , i wouldn't touch it again /Grrr

[Nick Mann]

I have had good results from Shell and Esso. Tesco 99 works well too, but isn't available anywhere near me. I seem to lose a bit of performance with BP, although how to measure that accurately is beyond me.

To be frank, Tesco fuel comes from a major fuel supplier, but not a household name. I think that they are bigger than most household fuel names. IMO they should be capable of supplying good fuel. Also, the article is a bit dated as Optimax no longer exists - Shell super is now V-Power. And having said that Tesco 99 is good, I ought to say that Tesco 97 is absolute rubbish.

Texaco round me charge far too much extra for super petrol, and they aren't cheap in the first place. Total seems to be okay, but I haven't used it enough to say exactly. I don't use anything else.

[vanhorne]

I use chip oil!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Wouter]

Being a Shell employee.... I am don't really like the last bit of that article....

I am unfortunatly not a Petro-chemical engineer, but I doubt that was written by one, so I question the accuracy of the article.

The one thing that I know to be true is the quality of the Supermarket fuels, with Tesco 99 being the exception! Tesco 99 is made by Green Fuels and is not bad. (The car loves it!)

[ANTHONY]

I use chip oil!!!!!!!!!!!!!well you would your from up north

[g6acb]

well you would your from up north

So how exactly do you squeeze 280 bhp out of jellied eels then????

[psbarham]

So how exactly do you squeeze 280 bhp out of jellied eels then????
with an eel juicer /pan tut , some people :thinking:

[tig202]

BP 98 RON always was good for my girl in NZ, the only fuel that has even got close in the UK (in the same car) is Shell V Power.

[cleopatra]

Now I'm more confused then ever:vogel:

I'm still going to try Tesco 99 if anyone is interested here's a list of where to find it:

http://www.greenergy.com/tesco_99_octane/where_to_buy.html

[ianturbo]

i think you might need top get out more !!

[TAR]

I use Tesco 99 in my car and my motocross bikes. I think its great and I've never had a problem with it.

[thecustomer]

... so he's an Esso employee, and he rates Esso fuel as best

yeah, ok, so he's not biased then

/pan

Will

[cleopatra]

Filled up with Tesco 99 and I can't tell any difference! Well that was a waste of time!!!

[Beastlee]

You need to disconnect the battery for 20 minutes to reset the ECU. Then take it out for a drive and wait until it has adapted for the better fuel. You probably won't notice as much difference until you have run a few tanks through as you will still have some of the old fuel mixed in.

Even if you don't physically notice any difference your engine will be much happier inside.

[cleopatra]

Thanks for that. I'll give it a go.

[sunny sr]

i use tesco 99 when i can other then that i use bp super stuff
dont realy notice a differance and i only get around 170 miles to 40 quid (nealy full tank) so i have to fill up every 2 days but when i use normal 95 there is a slight differance
the artical must of been wrote by a esso worker they are the most expencive around here so i wont be trying them

[cleopatra]

F**k me! What a difference!

It feels like I have another 20Bhp! And totally smooth no blips or rough spots!

Thanks everyone. I'm going to use Tesco from now on and never touch "Jet" super petrol again.

[Beastlee]

/haz I take it you did the ECU reset then?

The ECU would have made adjustments to stp the engine blowing itself apart withthe lower grade fuel. Now you're giving it some decent stuff it has less need to do it.

I much prefer the way SAAB gets the ECU to adapt though, you stick it a gear (normally 3rd at first) then floor it from 2000rpm until 5000rpm on an slight uphill, graident if possible, and repeat 3 or 4 times, usually into 4th and 5th gears (all on a private road of course 5000rpm and 5th gear = 130+mph). The ECU automatically adapts to the fuel it is using after this and is so much easier than disconnecting the battery.

[bradc]

you should notice an improvement in fuel economy as well. Remember the jap cars are supposed to run on 100 octane, so 95 is actually a very big drop!

[Beastlee]

Either that or the fuel economy will stay the same and your smile will get bigger ;)

[WildCards]

Thorney Motorsport have done some long term testing of the top SUL fuels, full report here (http://www.thorneymotorsport.co.uk/tuning/Fuel_Test_Results_Update.shtml) and below is a snippet from their conclusion.

"In simple terms, Shells V Power is near identical to the Optimax product that it replaced, in power and ‘feel’ terms it continued to out perform all 95 octane fuels and we’d still recommend owners of all performance cars use the highest quality fuel they can find. However the performance offered by the fuel was sometimes inconsistent.

The Tesco 99 fuel again outperformed V Power in all the tests but the differences between the two fuels were marginal and we doubt most people would tell the difference in their cars on a day to day basis. However the Tesco fuel was the most consistent.

The BP 102 fuel showed the best gains in terms of ‘feel’ and performed better on the dyno and on initial fill up, when the fuel was fresh the power gains were noticeable even above the Tesco 99 fuel. However the gains seemed to dramatically diminish over time or with increases in engine bay temperature a feature which we are continuing to test."

[stuey]

Thorney Motorsport have done some long term testing of the top SUL fuels, full report here (http://www.thorneymotorsport.co.uk/tuning/Fuel_Test_Results_Update.shtml) and below is a snippet from their conclusion.

"In simple terms, Shells V Power is near identical to the Optimax product that it replaced, in power and ‘feel’ terms it continued to out perform all 95 octane fuels and we’d still recommend owners of all performance cars use the highest quality fuel they can find. However the performance offered by the fuel was sometimes inconsistent.

The Tesco 99 fuel again outperformed V Power in all the tests but the differences between the two fuels were marginal and we doubt most people would tell the difference in their cars on a day to day basis. However the Tesco fuel was the most consistent.

The BP 102 fuel showed the best gains in terms of ‘feel’ and performed better on the dyno and on initial fill up, when the fuel was fresh the power gains were noticeable even above the Tesco 99 fuel. However the gains seemed to dramatically diminish over time or with increases in engine bay temperature a feature which we are continuing to test."


BP102 is REALLY REALLY expensive..

[WildCards]

BP102 is REALLY REALLY expensive..

Yup, and not necessarily any better in the real worlkd than V-Power, T99 etc

[Beastlee]

Just ship in Jap fuel, at the BP 102 price it would probably be cheaper LOL

[cleopatra]

Thanks everyone. This is a very interesting subject.

I feel like i've got a new car. I can't see the tyres lasting too long this summer!!!

[Wouter]

You know it's funny, I spent a few days at Shell's Stanlow refinary, and I got ample chance to talk to people who really know what fuel is about.

I can't remember to many specifics but the one thing that stood out for me was that they never mentioned the potential power gains of their fuel (It was Optimax at the time) they did however harp on about it's cleaning ability and how long term use of it was super for any engine.

When asked about the competitor's fuels, they said that they were all ok, but stay away from Super market fuel. (Again this was before Tesco 99)

[Rambaud]

Whenever possible, I use Tesco 99 or Shell V-Power - it's the latter at the moment, as I can't find Tesco 99 down here in Devon.

I was wondering about the (alleged) better detergents in V-Power and whether this would benefit the GDI engine in particular?

Any views/comments?

[Wouter]

Shell ran the following test:

2 new engines (Ford Focus engines)

They then ran 50000 miles (not sure how they messured this as there were no wheels to measure distance...

One engine ran Optimax and one a competitors 95 ron.

After the test they stripped the engines and I saw the valves.

The valves from the Optimax engine looked clean and almost new, the valves from the other engine were black and caked in cr@p.

So versus normal 95 it's great!

However, I remember one of the chaps saying that all super had extra detergents, they thought there mix was the best, but who is to say.

I always try to buy Shell, I work for them so I figure the money comes back to me eventually. But after seeing those results I started using Optimax in the Spazda.