Supermarket Fuel

[Derek.w]

I put a additive into the E10 fuel as when I first start up you can hear that it sounds diffrent to normal in the colder climate it only last for less than 30 seconds then the engine sounds normal.

[MikeSh]

6 minutes ago, Derek.w said:

as when I first start up you can hear that it sounds diffrent to normal

But these are variable valve timing engines. The behaviour when you first start is affected by many things and isn't really a good reason to start changing fuels or adding stuff. If it runs OK after a minute or so it's sorted itself out.

[Derek.w]

10 minutes ago, MikeSh said:

But these are variable valve timing engines. The behaviour when you first start is affected by many things and isn't really a good reason to start changing fuels or adding stuff. If it runs OK after a minute or so it's sorted itself out.

It sound more normal and I prefer it that way. Yes if leave it alone it will go away by the time I move onto the main road.

[anchorman]

1 hour ago, Cyker said:

Normal cars are generally optimized for 95 so there shouldn't be any significant retarded ignition timing. The higher octane rating is of pretty much no consequence unless the car can take advantage of it, e.g. something like my buddy's old riced up Subaru Impreza, or turbo-charged engines.

The main benefit of the 'super' fuels for the likes of us is the cleaning additives and lower ethanol content.

 

I must say I find it surprising how many people here find a significant difference in their hybrids - So far I've found very little noticeable difference between the ones I've tried, with the exception of the Esso E5 super, but that's likely because it's E0 (Or at least was), and even then it was a very small difference, and only to the roughness of the engine when stationary charging. It was a much smaller difference than e.g. the difference I noticed in my Mk1 D4D between supermarket diesel and V-Power diesel, which had a noticeable change in smoothness and power delivery (There was a noticeable loss in low end torque but improvement in top end power).

I'm wondering if it's a freshness issue, e.g. if those of you that are finding significant differences don't drive much, so the increased additives in the Super are keeping it fresh for longer than the E10...?

 

They’re optimised as far as you can push 95 but you can get better by using higher octane fuel.  

[anchorman]

1 hour ago, Derek.w said:

I put a additive into the E10 fuel as when I first start up you can hear that it sounds diffrent to normal in the colder climate it only last for less than 30 seconds then the engine sounds normal.

I don’t think that is anything to do with the fuel Derek, there’s a lot happening during warm up. 

[Derek.w]

17 minutes ago, anchorman said:

I don’t think that is anything to do with the fuel Derek, there’s a lot happening during warm up. 

I had the car for nearly 3 years I know what it should sound like on start up.

Toyota will put a additive into your fuel at aditional cost to a service.

[MikeSh]

2 hours ago, Derek.w said:

I had the car for nearly 3 years I know what it should sound like on start up.

No you don't. You just know what it has sounded like for the past three years. There are three years of wear and tear to take into account among other variables.

 

2 hours ago, Derek.w said:

Toyota will put a additive into your fuel at aditional cost to a service.

And McDonald's will supersize your meal at additional cost.

Doesn't mean it's a good thing.

[TonyHSD]

The difference between engine sounds and performance is not related to octane numbers but ethanol quantity and perhaps other additives inside imo. 
Never experienced any noise like that before September 2021 and the new E10 standard with any regular 95 E5 or E0 , or whatever was the standard before that date. Since then the car simply drives unpleasant to say, like underpowered small car. Now I will run the tank down to around 10ltrs again and fill up with E5, I am positive will be a day and night difference especially in the engine noise and pull. 
 

[anchorman]

2 minutes ago, TonyHSD said:

The difference between engine sounds and performance is not related to octane numbers but ethanol quantity and perhaps other additives inside imo. 
 

It is related to octane Tony.  The octane number is a measure of volatility and I can assure you that if you go down the scale you will either introduce knocking or if you !Removed! the timing to avoid knocking (which modern cars do automatically), you will change the engine note.  You can do the same by playing with the distributor on an old car, something I’ve done literally hundreds of times in my mechanicing days.  There may be an additional effect from ethanol but if you do the comparison with ethanol free fuel, you will get very noticeable changes in engine sound.  

[TonyHSD]

2 minutes ago, anchorman said:

It is related to octane Tony.  The octane number is a measure of volatility and I can assure you that if you go down the scale you will either introduce knocking or if you !Removed! the timing to avoid knocking (which modern cars do automatically), you will change the engine note.  You can do the same by playing with the distributor on an old car, something I’ve done literally hundreds of times in my mechanicing days.  There may be an additional effect from ethanol but if you do the comparison with ethanol free fuel, you will get very noticeable changes in engine sound.  

You maybe right. 
I have tried premium fuel before the new standard and did not found  significant improvement in performance, noise or efficiency, however with e5 vs e10 there is real difference, that’s why I put in on the ethanol content. Either way, I like the car how drives on e5 from Tesco more than any others 95 e10, Shell, bp, esso. 
Another interesting thing, before e10 standard I was keeping most of the times a bottle of petrol additive in the boot and when fill up poor quality fuel only 95 but from different garages and noted engine lack of power, I was  adding  some into the tank and noticed immediately improvement, with new e10 95 when I add additives there is no difference, the noise is still there and engine is sluggish. I have tried also this esso 97 e0 down here and it’s very similar to the Tesco I generally use, but price is 15p more. 
 

[anchorman]

10 hours ago, anchorman said:

It is related to octane Tony.  The octane number is a measure of volatility and I can assure you that if you go down the scale you will either introduce knocking or if you !Removed! the timing to avoid knocking (which modern cars do automatically), you will change the engine note.  You can do the same by playing with the distributor on an old car, something I’ve done literally hundreds of times in my mechanicing days.  There may be an additional effect from ethanol but if you do the comparison with ethanol free fuel, you will get very noticeable changes in engine sound.  

Oh I forgot, the filter won’t let me say the opposite of advanced in case it upsets somebody 🙄

[Mastermariner]

We love our Yaris, we also have a Merc E350, a great car but not so practical as the Yaris

We run our 2020 P13 Yaris on E10. Of course with a low octane it needs a couple of extra turns on the starter, having said that we let it idle for a few minutes to get the cylinder temperature up and it drives fine. During the cold weather we add 10 litres of E95. When the Battery began to lose starting power we replaced it with an Exide extra heavy duty stop/start. 

[Mastermariner]

Correction to the above post. We run our Yaris on E85 fuel, and only add a few litres of super to aid starting if its very cold.

[Stopeter44]

I have wondered about E85, saying that if I alternate with E5 it could work, but so far have not wanted to risk it.

[Cyker]

Is that a hybrid or a normal petrol you're running on E85?

I'd not try it myself as I suspect the mpg would be horrible and it wouldn't save me any money, but I didn't think it would run very well without much higher flow injectors than what the normal car has!

 

[Stopeter44]

9 hours ago, Cyker said:

I'd not try it myself as I suspect the mpg would be horrible and it wouldn't save me any money, but I didn't think it would run very well without much higher flow injectors than what the normal car has!

E85 conversions are very popular in France. It's supposedly a remapping or extra box for the fuel injection system, I don't know the technicalities, they cost c. 700€ - 1300€. E85 50% cheaper than E10.

[Cyker]

Yeah, you need to increase the fuel injection significantly with E85 vs E5/E10. You can bodge it with a box, but without bigger injectors you will be power-limited if the original injectors don't have a large enough ceiling.

Proper 'flex-fuel' vehicles have sensors to analyse the fuel so it knows how much to inject.

With the shift to E10 they should have just required all engines to be flex-fuel compatible; With most of the component materials already made alcohol resistant, it'd only have been a small further step.

The mpg of E85 is terrible, but it's great if you want high power as the higher octane rating potential and lower AF ratio means you can get big power figures out of it.

[Mojo1010]

A little diversion, about 15 years ago when I used to occasionally fuel up at a Jet station which I think diluted the fuel. £10 of fuel usually gives my auto BMW 318 car at the time approx 60 miles, this jet station's only got 40 miles from it. Can see the fuel needle being used up quite a bit quicker than usual. 

It wasn't the cheapest so only fuel there if very low on fuel. After a few times, noticed the 1/3 less miles so not again. Think a couple of more years, another company took over. Think motorists that fuel there clocked on with the dilution and stop buying. 

[RonYarisX]

11 hours ago, Mojo1010 said:

I used to occasionally fuel up at a Jet station which I think diluted the fuel. £10 of fuel usually gives my auto BMW 318 car at the time approx 60 miles, this jet station's only got 40 miles from it.

Is it April Fool's day already?

It's fuel not orange squash. If they diluted the fuel, the engine would be complaining, it wouldn't just cause less mpg. 🙄

[Mojo1010]

18 minutes ago, RonYarisX said:

Is it April Fool's day already?

It's fuel not orange squash. If they diluted the fuel, the engine would be complaining, it wouldn't just cause less mpg. 🙄

Sounds like an expert's opinion......

[SouperChris]

On 9/13/2023 at 12:17 AM, YarisHybrid2016 said:

I'm starting this thread as someone had a question about it, and wanted to post my experience here (based on Gen.3 Yaris).

First off, ethanol is evil. Normal road cars don't run well on it.

My experience with E10 has been rubbish. It causes significantly higher fuel burn/lower MPG due to the ethanol having a lower calorific value vs. the equivalent volume of petrol. The ECU compensates by injecting more fuel.

To quote Scotty from Star Trek: "Ye can'ne beat the laws of physics!"

I also found the E10 fuel to run rougher, and possibly cause cold temperature mis-fire. It also sounds more gratey under heavy acceleration.

E5 (really E2.5 at the time I used it) was an improvement, but it still hit fuel economy.

To summarize:

Fuel with zero ethanol is the best. 95 or 98 octane works very well, and the car returns best MPG.

E5 (E2.5) sees about a 5% hit to fuel economy. So 66 instead of 70 MPG.

E10 sees around a 15% hit to fuel economy, because E10 is the full 10% ethanol, and compared to E5 (2.5%) is an increase of 7.5% ethanol. The resulting loss of power due to the ethanol causes the ECU to put in even more fuel and maybe even change its timing, causing a significant loss of fuel economy. I estimate this hit to be around 15% from what the car can achieve on zero ethanol fuel (so 70 MPG becomes 60 MPG).

In terms of supermarket fuel, I use Tesco Premium E5 99 octane, and find it to be fine. I ran my last car on this for years without any problems. Texaco E5 Premium also seems to be fine.

As for the price difference between E5 premium and E10 standard, the difference isn't worth worrying about. Go with the best fuel you can.

The difference between 145 p/L and 150 p/L over 35 L tank, is £1.75 (or approx. 2%). I'm sure you can cost yourself more than that if you drive hard and fast everywhere. The fuel savings from increased MPG however, more than offset this price difference, so long-term you save.

Human nature: if you know what you put in your tank and you have a bias, your driving will change. If you want to do it right, get someone else to fill up and not tell you with what.

[MikeSh]

13 hours ago, Mojo1010 said:

I think diluted the fuel.

With what?

[Roy124]

8 hours ago, MikeSh said:

With what?

Alcohol aka ethanol 

[Roy124]

@SouperChris a good point about confirmation bias.

Many years ago I used Jet as it was always least expensive then a supermarket brand.  Recently,  with Toyota, almost exclusively Shell E10.

With the 1% reward it can be close to ASDA prices locally and sometimes cheaper.  However the most consistently low price near me is Gulf.  

Now this is 10% or more cheaper than the premium brands on the A1 and the same price as ASDA in town.

How do you rate Gulf or Texaco?

[skidlid]

Having found no difference in MPG or the way cars run on E10 since its introduction when I get the Yaris that is what it will be fuelled with. Toyota say E10 is fine. I normally get our fuel from Tesco when we are shopping but at time we use Asda as well.

When we go to our Lodge in Scotland we have to buy branded fuel from the one local garage, think its BP. The car runs no better and MPG stays the same. Would use Tesco but its a 60 mile round trip.