Good afternoon everyone,
While filling up at my local BP this morning, I noticed the price of Super Unleaded (or ultimate whatever they call it) was 7 or 8 pence more than standard RON95 a litre.
Just got me wondering, how many of the backroomers actually use Super Unleaded? If so, is because your car demands it, i.e (performance cars, Porsche, Ferrari, BMW M5 etc) or because of extra additives / extra MPG the companys claim you get? Cleaner engine?
Just curious to get peoples opinion on it? I've always thought about putting some in my car but don't think it would be of any benefit?
Thanks
Lee
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I use it in my MK V Golf with the 1.6 FSI engine as, when originally purchased, this is what was recommended (or at least very low sulphur petrol was). Now VW seemed to have changed their tune and state that 95 RON is OK to use in these engines.
Personally, I have stayed with Shell's V-power, that superseded Optimax but have steered clear of BP's offerings as it is the most expensive of the 'super' brands. In just over two years of motoring my mpg has not dropped below 40 mpg. I did try two tankfulls of 95 RON and did not particularly notice much, if any difference.
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I run a tankful of V-Power through the Fiesta every 3 or 4 fills for the cleaning properties as much as any performance benefit, although we do notice another 3 mpg or so, and slightly perkier performance. Evo magazine did borescope examinations on some of their long termers on what was then Optimax on a before and after basis, and the difference was remarkable.
I use it in the bike because it keeps better than standard Unleaded, even though with "fixed" ignition timing the bike can't take advantage of its extra octane rating. The inside of my carbs looked mint when I saw them last year though. Float bowls and needle jet were like new. I put it down to Optimax.
Cheers
DP
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Used to buy Shell Optimax most of the time.
V-Power (its replacement) is 9p / litre more expensive.
I now buy Tesco 99 ron - 5p/6p more than the standard unleaded.
MoT day tomorrow - let's hope that my faith in Tesco 99 RON has worked and it passes the emissions tests - with nearly 86,000 mls on the clock £2-£3 / week extra makes sense if you avoid the need for refurbs of engine parts. Cra runs better or at least I feel it does.
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When I had my Volvo T4 I was advised by a Volvo tech to use SUL, as he claimed the Volvo ECU was very quick at adapting to high octane fuel and could gain up to 10bhp from its use.
The owner's manual also had a wishy-washy statement along the lines of "95 octane minimum, there may be a performance benefit from using higher-octane unleaded fuels"
It always FELT quicker using SUL but extensive testing against the stopwatch showed no repeatable difference in in-gear acceleration times.
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The inside of my carbs looked mint
An interesting observation. I've owned my Hornet 600 since new in September 1998 and have covered about 2k miles pa since. Some years are much more than this (including this year, with a holiday to the South of France to come) but others are less. Either way, the bike spends all winter sat idle every year, hooked up to Optimate, tyres over pressure, resting under dust cover, and with fuel chemistry ageing.
Initially the carbs needed cleaning and balancing every couple of years to keep them in perfect fettle; without this attention, and using branded, detergent inclusive, 97 RON fuel, the 5000RPM EU drive by noise "hole" in the power curve would eventually become a gaping chasm and the mid range noticeably flatter. Since switching to Optimax when it was released, and now V-Power, the carbs have not needed touching once. They are clean, the mid range pulls hard, and the first run after winter when the tank is full of "old" fuel is just like any other. It may be coincidence, and other fuel across the market may now contain better detergent than when the bike was new, but what I write is fact none the less.
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I use V-power and used Optimax before hand. Partly for the cleaning qualities and partly for the extra Shell points. I thought on a 4-cyl Merc I had it made the car smoother, as well, but on the 6-cyl Volvo, Forester Turbo and now Outback, the difference is negligable in terms of driving.
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I use V power in both cars - mainly for the cleaning agent and increased mpg that I also get.
It does feel a little perkier as well as someone said above.
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I use it in my Octavia 2.0TFSi - Skoda say use 98 RON and a VW specialist I know is fairly adamant that the VW 2 litre petrol turbo works best or gives best performance on Shell V-Power (99.1 RON apparently) so that's what I use or Tesco 99 on occasion. I haven't run it on 95 RON fuel but owners of the same car on other web sites who have done, claim a noticeable drop in performance and smoothness. EVO did a test last year involving rolling road tests and draining and refilling tanks using higher octane fuel. Optimax (now V-Power ) produced useful power gains (more than BP Ultimate) across a range of performance cars and negligible or zero in other more "standard" cars.
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Oh - and I won't use BP because the price difference is too large and becuase I have heard things about it that make it clog your engine up.
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I run a tankful of V-Power through the Fiesta every 3 or 4 fills for the cleaning properties as much as any performance benefit, although we do notice another 3 mpg or so, and slightly perkier performance. Evo magazine did borescope examinations on some of their long termers on what was then Optimax on a before and after basis, and the difference was remarkable.
The car they tested was a Japanese performance turbocharged car - these benefit from Optimax because they are initially designed for 100RON fuel in Japan.
Your Fiesta, however, is not. Stop wasting your money.
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I always try and use 98RON in my car as recommended. The lack of power if I use 95RON is very noticeable but I didn't notice any positive difference on the one occasion I wasted my money filling up with (supposedly) 100RON.
Interestingly, whilst I was in the UK with my car I also stuck to 98RON fuel but I continually had problems with the engine pinking.
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Every other tankful I fill my 1.6 16V VW Bora with Tesco's 99RON - apparently its engine cleaning powers are twice as good as the Shell etc equivalents. See:
www.greenergy.com/products/99_octane.html
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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Only ever used standard 95 Ron unleaded in my 2.2 litre petrol engine in the Vectra. Most of the time supermarket petrol. Goes well enough without paying extra for super unleaded.
I once tried Esso's SU in a Mk2 Cavalier. All it did was cause an occasional misfire, and if I tanked it down a bypass or motorway, when it came to taking the foot off the loud pedal prior to slowing down for heavy traffic or exiting off a slip road, the exhaust spat out loads of sparks. Quite impressive at night, but the SU was causing something to happen that shouldn't have been happening.
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Cleaning powers are compared to 95RON not 98/99RON from Shell/BP etc:
"To ensure Tesco 99 Octane remains ?cleaner? petrol, an additive package is included with twice the protective power of typical 95 octane fuel"
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I have used Optimax/VPower in my Coupe for several years now,partly because Fiat recommend 97 octane for this engine,and partly for the cleaning properties of the fuel.
It certanly seems to work; the car had an MOT yesterday and the emissions test results were excellent. It also seems perkier on 97,but this can be very subjective in the absence of a rolling road test.
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Fair comment. However, like piggy, the Bora's MOT at the end of December revealed excellent emissions results even though it's still on its original exhaust and has hit the 60k mark.
It was registered in November, 1999...:-)
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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the Bora's MOT at the end of December revealed excellent emissions results...
My Vectra's first MOT at the end of December 2006, with equally excellent emission results - without needing to pamper the engine with branded or super unleaded fuel.
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Used the old Shell Optimax before in a couple of cars, once when there was no normal unleaded left so I had to stick it in the tank as I needed fuel, Rover K series lump gulped it down like it had a drinking problem. mpg dropped through the floor.
Ran my old Pug 405 Exec on it for a couple of months, didn't notice any difference between the Optimax & the normal unleaded other then the price.
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>>with equally excellent emission results>>
The Bora is seven years old though and still on its original exhaust...:-)
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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Mrs V's Mx5 only ever been fed on Optimax/V Power. Just cliked over 30k & approaching its 4th birthday. So when it's covered a million miles & strip the engine down, we'll see the benefits of 4k fully synthetic oil changes & higher octane 'clean' fuels!!
Omega has it too, seems smoother & maybe 7% better mpg. Shell Points are more on V Power, so not that much more expensive.
Also the Shell credit card is soon to be re-introduced , they keep teasing us with the extensive benefits it'll bring, maybe they'll encourage more poins & V Power use, too!
VB
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Jap cars seem to like the high-octane fuel. Even the humble Hyundai Alpha engine runs better with it.
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I use BP Ultimate and Shell V Power in my 1996 Suzuki Swift 993cc automatic; the extra mpg it gives me works out at half a pence per mile cheaper but obviously with that narrow a margin a single large traffic jam will wipe out the economic benefit; of more value is the extra 40 miles or so I can go between having to fill up.
On a longish trip on A and M roads with these fuels I can get 40 - 45 mpg; urban cycle is around 30mpg.
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The RON number is an anti-knock rating and is not an indication of the calorific value of the fuel ~ an engine that will run on ordinary unleaded will not produce more power on super unleaded. A higher RON number fuel need only be used when the engine requires it ~ for example when the engine has an unusually high compression ratio ~ to prevent knocking. Google for "antiknock rating" and you will find umpteen websites on the subject. This one tinyurl.com/2zwnxt seems to sum it up nicely.
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L\'escargot.
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Tesco 99 RON most of the time, any other superunleaded otherwise in my Legacy Spec B. The dealer recommended it but like all cars in the UK, it can run on 95 RON. I do seem to notice the difference but that could just be in my head. MPG seems to be better though.
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My understanding was that in a modern engine which constantly adjusts its ignition timing to run on maximum advance "on the fly", a higher octane rating will allow more advanced ignition timing, and therefore a tad more power on many engines. Of course the higher cylinder temperatures from high compression ratios or forced induction demand a higher octane fuel.
On older engines with "fixed" ignition timing, there is no advantage unless you manually advance the timing using a timing strobe (remember them?), and then you have to manually reset it if you want to go back to 95RON.
My old mk2 Cavalier SRi's cylinder head was designed to cope with Unleaded (in the days of Four Star) but needed the timing manually retarding by 3° to avoid knock. They'd even helpfully marked the "Unleaded position" on the timing marks. I experimented for a few weeks and then decided Four Star was worth the extra money. Although it drove well on 95RON, there was noticeably reduced performance and increased fuel consumption.
A modern engine would do this automatically using a knock sensor, but I had to slacken the dizzy bolts and twist a bit using Tippex and a strobe to
Cheers
DP
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anyone willing to explain all the benefits (in a similar fashion to DP's excellent post above) ?
i use BP Ultimate in a 3 litre Jag and BP Ultimate diesel in a 2 litre turbo diesel Jag, but have no real technical knowledge....and therfore have no idea whether the extra cost is wise or not
the 3 litre does seem a bit quicker on the Ultimate stuuf as opposed the normal one , but i'm unsure whether or not i'm kidding myself..... the diesel doesn't seem to make a difference
the only reason i pay the extra is:
- my mechanic tells me to
- vague knowledge of differing detergents and have been told to buy 'quality fuel' (whatever that is)
- my general ethos of 'you get what you pay for'
as both cars will be/have been around a for a while i cosset them a bit to make sure they last
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Never noticed any benefit with SUL, performance or mpg. Even with VAG 2.0 FSI. Detergents? HJ has said in the past that Shell and Texaco are better in this regard. Certainly I avoid supermarket fuel.
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- my general ethos of 'you get what you pay for'
You can also pay more than you need to. For example, you can buy an expensive high fidelity stereo or television but unless your hearing is sufficiently acute to appreciate the difference it could be a waste of money.
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L\'escargot.
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I use Shell V-power in the bike. When my daughter visits from 100 miles away, I usually fill her AX up with it as well. So far no emissions issues at MoT time. The other AX which I bought off Ebay, after 10 years of being used as a runabout was transformed by a tankful of V-power and an "Italian tune-up".
Hawkeye
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Stranger in a strange land
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a runabout was transformed by a tankfulof V-power and an "Italian tune-up".
My car failed initial test on CO @ the MoT today despite running Optimax / Tesco 99 for the last year.
However an Italian Tune-up by the garage saved the day.
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My detailed tests on a Fiesta 1.6 with/without Optimax over 20k miles were quite definitive. No change in fuel consumption. To be expected beacuse - as prior stated - engine timing does not adjust for RON number.
madf
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I use Shell v-power in both our cars - it's only 5p more (at my local Shell) and the Shell station is the nearest garage to my house.
I do notice a slight mpg gain which offsets the price increase but I mainly use it for the cleaning properties.
and,
today, I'm feeling quite smug when pointing Mrs J to the news bulletins as she's always saying "It's cheaper at Tesco" !!
Jacks
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My dad tried it in his Daewoo Leganza 2.0 and went from 35mpg on the motorway to 15. Had to fill up half way.
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Madf: Is lack of adjustment to varying RON values related only to the Fiesta in question?
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