Which Fuel Big 4 or supermarket

[marlinleg]

Hi which petrol do you use ? I had this conversation with a Vw service manager when I was running a Vw Tiguan diesel last year  , he was telling me supermarket fuel we advise fuel injector clean every year, big four shell/bp/ ect injector clean every 3 years .picking up a new RAV4 Excel awd Wednesday. What do you use 

thanks again 

[FROSTYBALLS]

We have BP, Shell and Tesco local to us. Tend to use BP or Shell. Sometimes use Tesco fuel, but if I do, I use Tesco Momentum premium grade which has their best additive package.

Toyota owners manuals state a minimum requirement of EN228, 95RON or higher.

[Catlover]

I always use supermarket petrol, and some times Costco, BUT I always add Archoil  AR6200 Fuel Modification Complex from Powerenhancer. Check it out.

[Avalon]

Let's consider how fuel is refined, the base stock in (almost) all cases is exactly the same no matter what brand you buy. Imagine you have a single jug of water and you make 3 glasses of squash using Asda value, Kiora and Robinsons squash, but you only put 20ml of each concentrate in each glass. The Asda stuff is less concentrated, it tastes weak, but it's drinkable, the Kiora tastes OK as does the Robinsons. This is essentially the same as the UK fuel market, brands don't generally own a refinery and supply it's own stations, multiple brands are distributed from the same refinery, the difference between BP, Shell, Asda, Sainsbury's and everyone else is simply down to the blend and amount of additives dispensed as the tanker is filled, this used to be controlled by the tanker driver swiping a card prior to being filled.

Generally, supermarket fuels have lower levels of detergent in them, one in particular is reputed to have less in than it's peers, it still meets the standard, but it's not likely to burn as cleanly and that will usually manifest in the exhaust side of things, BP have produced several examples of running engines on premium fuel and showing before/after photo's and in one case ran two different tanks fo fuel, one to each half of the engine, so when you buy a branded fuel, you are buying the additional additive package, the base stock doesn't change*.

The exception(s): Shell Vpower or whatever they rebranded it to this time is bunkered separately, it uses a different base stock and therefore is not the same fuel with octane enhancers added like most premium petrol. Shell have also begun experimenting with gas to liquid (GTL), they blended it into the premium diesel and rolled out 100% fleet tests at Liverpool docks about a year ago from memory.

What do I use? Costco Premium diesel, it's cheaper than Asda locally and seems to prevent the dreaded variable vane system clogging up, I recently resorted to supermarket fuel for 2,000 miles and the issue came back after several years without any problems. I also rate Shell/BP standard diesel, petrol is a very similar story, on the car's I have that were mapped for 97+ RON I got better results with Shell, though i've nit really tested Costco's premium which has apparently reverted from 99RON to 97 recently.

[marlinleg]

thank you for that Alex. Very interesting and informative