Can the brand of petrol I use affect the mileage I get out of my car?
I always used to use the same brand of petrol and thought nothing more about it until three fills ago I switched to a different brand and seem to be getting better performance and considerably more MPG from my car. Can this be possible? Someone once told me all petrol is the same as it comes from the same refineries?
Thanks.
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This is pretty much the same question asked in the posting entitled "Shell Optimax" a few topics ago. I think the answer (or otherwise!) may be found there.
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i have been driving company cars diesel and petrol for about 30 years covering some 30 -40000 miles per year,loging my fuel consumption there is definately a difference from make to make of fuel both diesel and petrol regarding fuel consumption.buying cheap supermarket fuel is abit hit and miss sometimes i get better consumption doing the same journey filling up at the same supermarket,it seems supermarkets buy the cheapest for best profit margins.cheapest is not always the most economic.however a lot of factors determine fuel consumption ie tyre make,tyre inflation, weather, trafic congestion and a whole lot more so it is not easy to determine which fuel make is best.
chris
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Chris
what brands have you found the best for petrol i use asda and have no problems but am willing to try another brand if it will improve mpg
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jud
i use to use asda diesel and found fuel consumption was prety poor so i tend to stay clear of asda, i have a volvo v40 petrol now and find i get better consumption using total or shell unleaded even if you take into acount any discount vouchers or other loyalty gimmicks from supermarkets i find it more economical.i only go into supermarkets if i have no other choice, as i said before its pot luck from delivery to delivery what fuel consumption you end up with from these supermarkets.
chris
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ps. the only good thing about supermarkets is that it usually forces the local petrol stations to hold their prices down.
chris
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For the last few years I have almost exclusively used Tesco petrol, mainly for convenience after shopping and the Clubcard points. A few weeks ago I switched to Shell and noticed a difference in increased MPG. I thought I was mistaken and have tried Shell a for the last few fills and I am definately getting better MPG. Great!
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Like most folk, I buy petrol by the £. The cheaper the petrol, the longer it seems to last.
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I fill up until the first click of the filler nozzle (as instructed in the car's manual), then set the trip meter to zero.
When using Tesco fuel the needle always stayed at 'FULL' until I'd done 50 miles then gradually started dropping. Since using Shell I've been going ~80+ miles before the needle moves. Which seems to be quite an inprovement, although I haven't worked it out accurately I think I'm getting ~100 miles more out of a full tank (60lt).
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From the comments made i will give Shell a go.
I check my mpg on every fill up and have never noticed one fuel being better than another, only using different fuels when on holiday and then always buying on price, on occasion paying very high prices than i would pay locally, and again with no noticeable improvement.
I feel it is very difficult to make conclusive comments on consumption. For example i have just had a service, before the service i was running at 28mpg round town, which i was happy with, now I'm running at 26.5mpg the only change is from semi to full synthetic oil, perhaps the old oil had thinned?
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Mr Mark,
It occurs to me that the reason that the petrol from your new service-station takes you so much further before the gauge moves, has nothing to do with who refined the fuel, and everything to do with the different nozzle sensitivity / speed of delivery compared to the pumps at your supermarché - and reading between the lines it seems you too are having doubts about the first click method. hth.
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Yes I agree with you to a certain extent but I have used various petrol stations over the course of my 'trial', so I should be getting an average of them all. Unless of course Shell's pump nozzles are different to the others?
Also I'm intrigued by your comment "...and reading between the lines it seems you too are having doubts about the first click method. hth." Can you let me know more? Has there been some discussion on this subject? Is there some problem with the first click method?
Thanks.
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OK, if you read between the lines of what I replied, I think you will see that I am sceptical about the relatively enormous increase in mpg you are reporting.
However there is a scenario, as HJ suggested, that if Shell petrol does indeed have a special ingredient designed to keep injectors clean, and your injectors had an inaccurate spray pattern which this ingredient rectified, then this improvement is entirely possible.
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