Esso 97 - anyone use(d) it?
 

Earlier this week, as I was driving on fumes (of Shell V-power) I put some Esso 97 in at my nearest fuel outlet; never used it before.

And I don't think I will ever again; starting has been awful ever since!

I've used it a couple of times and not been pleased with how the car ran on it. The pump was also very slow and 'pulsed'. When I mentioned this to the guy on the tills he said "Crap petrol, crap pumps. What do you expect?"

Not been back again!

The pump pulsing is the vapour recovery process on a little-used pump. Quite normal. Till man obviously knows nothing. :tuttut:
(The Esso 97 pump actually had a little notice on it about vapour recovery, never seen one before)

Filled up today with V-power. +++

Me too! :)

I'll need to consult with you Northern residents about availability on the West coast.
SWMBO has been in "planning mode" today and it looks like after the June meet at Tyndrum we'll be heading to Islay, Jura and Arran. Might be a bit of a ferry ramp challenge with an S8 though. :tuttut:

Mind you, if I can do the "Wee Mad Road" and Bealach na Bà in one I can do anything! +++

not being too worried about performance I just stick in some 95 [ yes I know , sacrilege ]
however my local supermarket has just given up trying to sell 95 with 10% alcohol at 5 cents /litre reduction and changed the pumps to 98 grade

is this liable to give better cost/Km , seeing as they are charging 2 cents/litre more than ordinaire ?

Not necessarily, in fact higher octane fuel usually has lower calorific value so will use more fuel to provide same amount of heat energy. But it comes down to efficiency and ignition timing. If the fuel is too low octane engine will be knocking and ECU will retard ignition timing to prevent it, this will reduce efficiency and increase fuel consumption.

If you look at measuring blocks on VCDS for knock retard under different load conditions you will see if there is any ignition retarding happening. Strangely enough my S8 runs equally good on Shell V-Power and Shell 95 with only little retardation at heavy full throttle loads but my m8tes 3.7 would knock and retard quite a lot even at part throttle on 95 and he was never ready to pay premium for better fuel. I put it down to fact that mine has always been run on V-power and it was very clean in combustion chamber when I took it apart. I can only assume that mates had significant carbon build up in combustion chamber causing pre-ignition and knock due to poor fuel used and possibly oil/servicing in the past.

I once filled with Tesco 99 while I was away from familiar territory and almost empty tank after which I had to press gas pedal quite a bit harder than usual and mpg dropped considerably. Got home, checked retard and any slightest touch to accelerator would retard ignition, I am not saying that all Tesco fuel is bad but I must have got a bad batch. Filled up with V-Power after and was back to normal.

So to summarize check measuring blocks for retard due to knock on VCDS, if you get fair amount of retard on 95 you might save some fuel by switching to 98 and reducing ignition retardation, if there is hardly any retard then you probably will not notice any improvement on mpg going for higher octane fuel.