Fuel Suppliers
 

Chatting to the lads in work about fuel prices and where I get mine from.
They was shocked that I use Tesco for my fuel needs and said how bad quality supermarket fuel is and such.

I've never really paid much attention to the claims that supermarket fuels was bad cause most of my Diesels ran on biodiesel up till a year ago.

I've started paying a little bit more attention to the claims and reading a little bit more about it.

I'm wondering what's your views are on the subject of supermarket fuels vs others, what do you use and have you noticed any performance or MPG difference between the fuels?

I used to be a Shell Optimax/Nitro man for my S8 (though strangely my Fiat Coupe runs better on BP fuel… :Confused: ), but converted to Tesco Momentum about 6 months ago following an earlier fuel thread on here, and recommendations on that by Amar, amongst others, and it's as good as Shell, I think. Have a look for that thread, there's lots of useful info and opinions on there.

This one?
http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6326


Thanks.

My last two cars have both felt better to me with Tesco Momentum

99 Momentum all the way for me. So much better than any other fuel I've used before. I get on average 50-60 miles further per tank.

another vote for Momentum, and its a lot cheaper than Shell as well+++

Momentum is Petrol only though innit?

I only run mine on Tesco 95 RON. Living in sleepy dorset the town only has two petrol stations, Tesco and Esso with the Esso one being nearly 10P a litre more than Tesco. Being a small Tesco it only has standard fuels, so no momentum 99 RON.

Momentum is indeed petrol only, but all Diesel must meet minimum requirements and it is that the car is designed to run on.

Did notice a difference on the economy of my D2 and PF D3 on V-Power. Not sure on the diesels, but can't shake the niggling doubt that filling up my car on Asda diesel (it's just round the corner) a lot contributed to the DPF failure (though I'm sure 100k+ miles didn't help either).

I was almost going to try some Momentum, then I started searching online and found a few shocking articles about Tesco's past c#@k ups. I think I'll stay with v-power.

http://www.andoverandvillages.co.uk/...-damaging-cars

you think Shell never **** it up?

Over the years I've had occasional bad petrol from all sorts of petrol station brands, including Shell.

I'm not a particular fan of Tesco, but I'd expect them to resolve a problem like this pretty quickly to avoid bad publicity (which this article hints that they are doing…). They own all their stations (on supermarket sites), whereas the great majority of Shell stations are franchises, so their standards of customer management are, in my experience, much more variable.

I also have a sneaking suspicion that Shell's V-Power was a marketing response to Tesco introducing Momentum 99 in the UK (though I'm happy to be proved wrong on this…): it's the only supermarket chain offering this - the others offer only 97 RON petrol, and some (e.g. Morrisons) rarely have anything other than standard unleaded, which is probably bought on the wholesale market, and which I'd never put in my S8 or Coupe.

I still use a mix of Shell, BP, and Tesco Momentum, but would only choose between them on price these days.

Isn't BP only 97, like Esso? Shell and Tesco are 99 (ish).

Yup, as far as I'm aware anyway.

I guess they can all mess up. Who bothers to clean filling station tanks properly anyway.
I don't have a solid justification but I just don't trust Tesco additives compared to companies 'dedicated' to fuel, anything branded, Shell, BP, Esso, OMV, etc.
Octane rating is easy to bump up even I can pour some toluene in the tank, but what about other additives? Or maybe additives are just marketing hype, who knows?

Looking at a map of petrol stations around me and it looks Shell and BP is rare.
So I'm stuck with Tescos, Esso or Texaco.
I'll finish this tank off of Tesco and I'll try the other two and see what happens.

Does anyone know who supplies the supermarkets with fuel?
I can't see them making it.

Or 102 RON!

http://forums.hexus.net/automotive/7...uk-shores.html

Hadn't heard of that

old this I know, but suggests normal cooking 95 ron is the same no matter where you buy from

http://www.whatcar.com/News/Detail?t...ticleID=215240

That's good to know then.

Long gone, the link was from 2006. :tuttut:

Oh if only he had a crystal ball back then to see future fuel prices!
http://i62.tinypic.com/v2tdkw.jpg

True, but you can still get it on the Continent, esp. in Germany, but that's not much use here, sadly...:(

V-Power all the way, all my life, always.
Never liked BP for whatever reason.
Never filled my car with supermarket fuel. I'm not trying to upset any one who is filling at their local supermarket for whatever reason. But there is a reason why cheaper fuel is cheaper and thats quality. Fuel for your car is like a......cup of tea for a man, would you drink one every hour (like I do) made from a cheap tea bag (something like 100 bags for £1) ???

Once I've seen a whole program dedicated to fuel, 5 brands, 4 cars. From 1liter engine to 4liter petrol. Each car was run on each fuel (tanks emptied each time they were filled with fuel). Road test and rolling road test for BHPs increase.
Vpower topped all the tables. Best quality and most power increase (best results on the 4 liter of course)

Sorry, but it is in fact all about profit, nothing to do with quality.

Shell Nitro has been crucified on the M3 forums as it is making all our cars run like a bag of spanners, particularly hunting at tickover.

There are plenty of tests available which have shown Tesco's Momentum is as good if not better, our own member Amar posted some stuff about this a long while ago.

Sorry if it upsets you, but you're just falling for the marketing

Don't worry mate, you can't upset me of offend me so we are cool here +++

So what you are saying is that Shell is a **** fuel and Supermarket is the market leader in fuel quality??

Was it actually proven on the rolling road that Shell is s*it by the way??
Did any M3 owner compared them on the rolling road??
So far I've seen this sort of test proving that BP and Shell are the best, haven't seen one proving that they make our cars run like a bag of spanners :cool:

Maybe M3's are like most women, over sensitive? ;)

I'm a Nitro fan myself, made a massive difference to my D2 and I'm continuing to use it in my D3

Why would you need a rolling road to check if it's hunting on idle, it's pretty bloody obvious

To prove ''M3 theory'' ?? , because so far, surely not only me, I hear that Vpower makes cars run better not like a bag of spanners. Rolling road would be an ideal scenario to prove it with no doubts. Maybe M3s don't like to good fuel. Even here people say that Vpower made a significant or difference on their cars or at least made them run better.
Maybe there is really something to do with M3s?? Sounds maybe ridiculous but equally ridiculous as bag of spanners.

Lets just don't get angry or fight over it and have interesting conversation +++
It's not my intention and I'm sure not your either, just saying ;)

:respekt::cheers:

It's an interesting discussion, but if it was that widespread a problem with BMW's (or even just M3's) it would be all over the motoring press and web sites and it just isn't.
What I do know is that both my S8's run better and get/got better mpg on the high-octane Shell petrol, though the old one was mostly run on cooking 95.

This is just one of many threads on the same subject

http://forums.m3cutters.co.uk/showth...ighlight=shell

This post is particularly interesting:

Or this thread

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/t...Nitro%2B&mid=0

I'd say it was 'all over the internet' ;)

And loads of "happy" posts in that thread as well.
As one guy said:

It's also worth mentioning how much easier it is to find Tesco Momentum as they have a far wider distribution network of course.

Until a year ago or so, I would have a 16 miles drive to my nearest Shell station.

Sorry boys, been off for few days as my back went again so I was all drugged up laying still and flying high like a vegetable in the basket in the local market ;)

Anyway, I hear you Sarg and agree that Tesco momentum might be widely spread but this also depends on the location. Will have to google later how many tesco and shell ps is around the whole country.

I live in SE london and to get to the nearest tesco petrol station I would have to travel just over 10miles where on the way I would have at least 2 Shell stations.

In regards to Aston Martin and M technician claims, hmmm...haven't heard of such a claims before from such a reputable source such as Aston. M technician, he must know what he is talking about, surely, but is that base on experience with cars which were running Vpower from brand new until he gave them a deep check over to be certain that damage was caused by Vpower??? Or just a second hand cars with part history where you dont really know what was in that tank before filling Vpower.

Again, very strong claims but there isn't much, or at all, on the web from reputable sources. No such a test was done to prove this claims which are pretty serious I have to say. Would Ferrari put their name on it if it was such a **** fuel. I know you may its all about money, but if Tesco would pay more to advertise their fuel as best would Ferrari take the offer???

There is way much more positive feedback and actual tests done proving that Vpower is best or one of the best but not so much and no real test that it isn't or its sh@t.

I am REALLY trying to open minded here, but so far not much convincing facts.

I will actually fill Momentum next time when I'm around Tesco and I will make sure that tank is almost empty just to see if I can spot any difference my self.
I don't really care what name is on the fuel as long is the best I will fill my car with it, even if that would be Londis Super PowerV fuel +++

Since we are throwing in personal opinion posts, here are some more just for fun :)

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/t...momentum&mid=0

particularly:

"My 135i ran exclusively on momentum for 45,000 miles until it started going into Limp mode. I took it to the dealer and the injectors were failing on Cylinders 5 and 6."


"The base petrol for Tesco Momentum, as produced by the Greenergy company in the UK, is made from a cheaper fraction of distilled crude. In fact it's not really petrol to begin with, at the distillation phase it's a fraction known as naphtha. This isn't worth as much as refined petrol, however via reforming (specifically cracking), naphtha can be upgraded to high octane petrol. When married to a larger additives package by volume, you can iron out most of the problems with this approach.

The net result is a mostly comparable product, which is much much cheaper to produce."


* just to add, I agree there are probably better fuels than either discussed here to be had in Germany and most of the rest of Europe. Shame we cant get them here.

Thanks Goran, that's a very interesting post. Even though I do use Momentum, I still also use either Shell Nitro or the BP equivalent, so can't see me suffering from the same problems described here (esp. as I only do about £5k pa in my S8!)

As I'm sure you all spotted, the second guy's argument is incorrect, of course there is no single hydrocarbon distillation of crude called 'petrol', petrol is always a mixture of several different hydrocarbons distilled from crude, so it does not matter what the original raw oil is, crued, shail oil, etc.
Maybe the base mix for both fuels comes from the same UK refiery anyway.
Still, I agree with his overall point, it is very unlikely Greenergy can make a superior petrol mix and make it cheaper, having been in business for a shorter period of time.

A small surprise perhaps?
 

I do tend to fill up at Shell and normally go for Nitro as my car tends not to like the standard unleaded at 95 RON. Most of the time this is my preference although if I do get caught out, I'll sling any old crap in there. Much better to get home than be a petrol snob, in my opinion.

Yesterday I was deliberating whether to risk it with 5 miles range left and attempt a country lane excursion to Bletchingley and thought better of it and diverted to a Total (toe-tarl?) garage for quick sip of their super unleaded at Redhill. Stuck 20 quid in, and I have to admit that it's actually impressed me. I think it's still 97 RON but it does seem to have made a noticeable difference. I might go for half a tank next time at a local Total garage to see if my experience holds true.