Supermarket Fuel

[SouperChris]

This is a funny thread. If there were massive difference between fuels, as some claim, it would be obvious. It is not obvious. If there is any benefit to any type of fuel it is minor otherwise they would only have one type of fuel, so get whatever is best for you; ideally, the marginally more environmentally friendly of the options.

[Roy124]

2 hours ago, SouperChris said:

ideally, the marginally more environmentally friendly of the options.

And that opens up a new can of worms.

Assume you pay more and get better mpg,  you create less CO2 (do you?).

Does the production of your more expensive fuel create the same or less CO?

There are so many imponderables.

[Mjolinor]

It is not about how much co/co2. Ethanol was co2 last year, petrol was co2 thousands of years ago when the earth was a hot fireball. Releasing that co2 will make the earth a hot fireball again. 🙂

So we are told.

[CPN]

17 minutes ago, Mjolinor said:

So we are told.

...and thereby hangs the conundrum...😉

[MikeSh]

4 hours ago, anchorman said:

why do you put 0W/8 in your engine at £70 a gallon when there’s “no noticeable difference” if you put 15W30 in at £20 a gallon?  

If Toyota said 15W30 was OK for your car and climate (and was the correct spec in other ways) why not use it?

If it's not to Toyota's specs then obviously you shouldn't use it.

But if the car manufacturer specifies E5 & E10 fuels as being suitable why would we not feel OK to use them. You talk about science but we are not privy to what the petrol suppliers are doing regarding that, only what their publicity says, and subjective reports on internet forums, etc.

Does anyone know if someone like Which? has done any 'scientific' testing of different fuels?

[skidlid]

5 hours ago, dcweather said:

As a scientist I tend to go on the facts. Without doing a lot of research the RAC (who probably have) say that there is about a 3% drop in mpg between E5 and E10. So ~2 mpg.

Not in my experience. if you look at a post from me above you will see the exact figures my spreadsheet has calculated with 95 RON E5 (pre Sept 2021) and 95 RON E10 (post September 2021. Our mpg in the Fabia has dropped from 48.45 mpg to 47.72 mpg, a 1.5% drop. But our use has also dropped (even though the mix has not changed) so that could also be a factor.

What really made me laugh when I saw those adverts showing how wonder brand X super duper fuel was compared to brand Y was all those actors walking around a pretend lab wearing white coats. They must think we are stupid believing all this nonsense just because a pretend scientist in a white coat says its true.

[dcweather]

1 hour ago, skidlid said:

Not in my experience. if you look at a post from me above you will see the exact figures my spreadsheet has calculated with 95 RON E5 (pre Sept 2021) and 95 RON E10 (post September 2021. Our mpg in the Fabia has dropped from 48.45 mpg to 47.72 mpg, a 1.5% drop. But our use has also dropped (even though the mix has not changed) so that could also be a factor.

What really made me laugh when I saw those adverts showing how wonder brand X super duper fuel was compared to brand Y was all those actors walking around a pretend lab wearing white coats. They must think we are stupid believing all this nonsense just because a pretend scientist in a white coat says its true.

I'll take your spreadsheet any day over anecdotes 🙂 Your figures seem to be in line with the RAC figures not contradict them given the likely number of other variables. If the differences were obvious, as you allude to and somebody else said, people and especially the advertisers would be jumping all over it.

[dcweather]

2 hours ago, Roy124 said:

And that opens up a new can of worms.

Assume you pay more and get better mpg,  you create less CO2 (do you?).

Does the production of your more expensive fuel create the same or less CO?

There are so many imponderables.

Ethanol is not a fossil fuel. It is plant produced. Plants absorb CO2 from the atmosphere. The additional number of plants grown to produce the ethanol content apparently have been demonstrated to absorb more CO2 than the pro rata amount of CO2 released on burning it. That is the basis for the environmetally beneficial case.

[dcweather]

18 hours ago, anchorman said:

God I’m bored of closet experts telling me that premium fuel doesn’t make any difference to none Euro 6 cars and for those with Euro 6 cars, I’m bored of them saying they can’t tell any difference.  🥱🥱🥱

All these fuel companies clearly don’t have a clue what they’re doing and are just bobbing rastards.  They should have asked for help on car forums instead of spending a small fortune on development.  

Yes, it seems ridiculous to waste all that money using qualified scientists and engineers when they could have just gone on a forum or asked a bloke down the pub what he thought!

[dcweather]

6 hours ago, anchorman said:

I’ll repeat for the umpteenth time. It’s not about what you can see, it’s about what you can’t see.  As a scientist I thought you might appreciate that.  If we apply this stubborn logic to engine oil, why do you put 0W/8 in your engine at £70 a gallon when there’s “no noticeable difference” if you put 15W30 in at £20 a gallon?   Scientifically speaking, you f it up with time but you won’t notice it doing it.  Crack on.  

As a scientist I can assure you it is about what you can see (i.e measure) and not what you can't see!  I've no doubt if I had the time to do a literature search of peer approved papers I would find some results based on testing evidence. Hopefully it would involve the use of a control which none of us here have the time or money to do. But it would no doubt take the form of a large number of runs with two identical cars following the same routes at the same time, one with E5 and one with E10. Then it would be repeated several times with subtle changes to the variables such as ambient temperature, inclines, road surfaces etc. etc. The data from that would be analysed statistically to see if there were any advantages or not in fuel consumption.
As for engine noise, acceleration etc.  they can also be objectively measured. And I can pretty much guarantee that the oil companies have done all of this ........ the question as to whether they divulge it all of course is another matter.

[SouperChris]

2 hours ago, Roy124 said:

And that opens up a new can of worms.

Assume you pay more and get better mpg,  you create less CO2 (do you?).

Does the production of your more expensive fuel create the same or less CO?

There are so many imponderables.

The purpose of E10 is that it produces less co2 during its production, not when used

[Cyker]

Just to add more fuel to the fire (hihi), it should be noted E5 and E10 are not 'pure', so E10 won't necessarily have 1.5% less calorific content than E5.

They both have a lot of other additives added to the base stock fuel, and the 'super' fuels especially tend to have more detergents and such, which likely means there is less fuel per volume - Shell liked to boast its V-Power had 4x more detergent compounds than its previous formulation when I was using it.

It's been interesting watching the change in attitude to super tho' - In the pure unleaded days, the general wisdom was super unleaded was wasted on normal cars, and the only people that used it tended to be Subaru owners and kids convinced it would give their Corsa 20 more HP.

Back then, Super was literally just higher octane, but now they have added a lot more stuff - cleaning additives, lubricity enhancers etc. - so it can have some benefit for normal cars, but it depends on the car...

But you shouldn't *need* it for the engine to run properly.

[anchorman]

6 minutes ago, dcweather said:

As a scientist I can assure you it is about what you can see (i.e measure) and not what you can't see!  I've no doubt if I had the time to do a literature search of peer approved papers I would find some results based on testing evidence. Hopefully it would involve the use of a control which none of us here have the time or money to do. But it would no doubt take the form of a large number of runs with two identical cars following the same routes at the same time, one with E5 and one with E10. Then it would be repeated several times with subtle changes to the variables such as ambient temperature, inclines, road surfaces etc. etc. The data from that would be analysed statistically to see if there were any advantages or not in fuel consumption.
As for engine noise, acceleration etc.  they can also be objectively measured. And I can pretty much guarantee that the oil companies have done all of this ........ the question as to whether they divulge it all of course is another matter.

The only thing you can measure without instrumentation is the fuel consumption.  You can’t see what is happening inside the engine…. Until it causes an effect.  

[MikeSh]

7 minutes ago, anchorman said:

Until it causes an effect.

If you can reliably allocate the cause of that effect to the fuel then well and good. But the number of variables involved in the use and maintenance of private cars makes that nigh on impossible. (A bus or haulage company with more defined circumstances might have more chance.)

[FROSTYBALLS]

At the end of the day, it is the choice of individuals as to which fuel they use. 

Doesn't matter to me whether another person's car does better or worse mpg, or what the CO2 effect is - it is irrelevant and I'm just not interested. The car does what it does, and as long as it seems reasonable, that's fine. I use what, in my opinion, is the best fuel for my use. Supermarket fuel (which is what the topic is about and not just E10 vs E5) - always E5. 

There are no rights of wrongs here - people, cars and choices are different. 

So please return to the subject - Supermarket fuel.

[Rhymes with Paris]

1 hour ago, Cyker said:

kids convinced it would give their Corsa 20 more HP.

Using V power gives my Tsport an extra 45bhp at 5800 rpm, fact.

Had it on a rolling road at last Sunday's meet.

[SouperChris]

1 hour ago, FROSTYBALLS said:

At the end of the day, it is the choice of individuals as to which fuel they use. 

Doesn't matter to me whether another person's car does better or worse mpg, or what the CO2 effect is - it is irrelevant and I'm just not interested. The car does what it does, and as long as it seems reasonable, that's fine. I use what, in my opinion, is the best fuel for my use. Supermarket fuel (which is what the topic is about and not just E10 vs E5) - always E5. 

There are no rights of wrongs here - people, cars and choices are different. 

So please return to the subject - Supermarket fuel.

I use supermarket fuel; always have. Makes my car go from A to B, and back

[dcweather]

1 hour ago, FROSTYBALLS said:

At the end of the day, it is the choice of individuals as to which fuel they use. 

Doesn't matter to me whether another person's car does better or worse mpg, or what the CO2 effect is - it is irrelevant and I'm just not interested. The car does what it does, and as long as it seems reasonable, that's fine. I use what, in my opinion, is the best fuel for my use. Supermarket fuel (which is what the topic is about and not just E10 vs E5) - always E5. 

There are no rights of wrongs here - people, cars and choices are different. 

So please return to the subject - Supermarket fuel.

That was the title but the OP who started the thread was in fact predominantly comparing E5 and E10 in the main text of his first post.
 

"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."

It's made for an interesting discussion but yes, it's up to ech person to decide which fuel  to use, especially if  they have the correct facts. 🙂

 

[Mjolinor]

Can't grok those numbers at all.

Quick bit of mental number crunching and I reckon you would get more MPG from 0.95 litres of 0% ethanol than you would from 1 litre of 5% ethanol.

Meaning ethanol has a negative MPG overall. That is some feat. 🙂

 

 

 

[MikeSh]

1 hour ago, Mjolinor said:

Can't grok those numbers at all.

Quick bit of mental number crunching and I reckon you would get more MPG from 0.95 litres of 0% ethanol than you would from 1 litre of 5% ethanol.

Meaning ethanol has a negative MPG overall. That is some feat. 🙂

Which is what I pointed out in the second post in the thread.

Science has been mentioned in this thread but there is no individual. or even group of same, here that can do sufficient controlled and measured testing to give a definitive answer - and that would just be to compare fuels A and B. We are all talking (subjectively) about A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, and probably a few more beyond.

[MikeSh]

1 hour ago, dcweather said:

if  they have the correct facts.

Lots of that stuff around. Just look at facebook, twitter, tiktok or even Truth Social 🤣

[SouperChris]

I'm convinced. I will now pay more for fuel because the internet says so.

[anchorman]

1 hour ago, MikeSh said:

Which is what I pointed out in the second post in the thread.

Science has been mentioned in this thread but there is no individual. or even group of same, here that can do sufficient controlled and measured testing to give a definitive answer - and that would just be to compare fuels A and B. We are all talking (subjectively) about A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, and probably a few more beyond.

It depends what you are measuring.  If it’s mpg, that’s fairly tangible but I’ve never known anyone get the equivalent mileage to the extra cost.  If you’re talking about detergent content and keeping the internals clean, you are very badly misinformed (guessing to be precise)

 

https://www.shell.co.uk/fuels-oils-and-coolants/shell-fuels/v-power-unleaded.html

[anchorman]

https://www.bp.com/en_gb/united-kingdom/home/products-and-services/bp-ultimate-fuels/bp-ultimate-unleaded-with-active-technology.html

[anchorman]

https://www.esso.co.uk/en-gb/fuels