Which Fuel Do You Use?

[geoffb]

As you can see from my details, I drive a 1.6 VVTi auto. I usually pay no attention to the make of petrol (thinking, maybe incorrectly, that they are all pretty much the same) though I actually mostly use the local Tesco for convenience. I thought though that it might be worth starting a thread asking the following:

1. Does anyone with a similar engine to mine pay the extra for Super Unleaded? If you do, what benefits do you think you get? I once put some in by accident and thought the engine felt somehow smoother but maybe it was my imagination being fooled by marketing hype... .

2. If you go for a particular make of fuel (whatever the grade), why do you choose that?

So over to you guys... ;)

[The Tvis Kid]

As you can see from my details, I drive a 1.6 VVTi auto. I usually pay no attention to the make of petrol (thinking, maybe incorrectly, that they are all pretty much the same) though I actually mostly use the local Tesco for convenience. I thought though that it might be worth starting a thread asking the following:

1. Does anyone with a similar engine to mine pay the extra for Super Unleaded? If you do, what benefits do you think you get? I once put some in by accident and thought the engine felt somehow smoother but maybe it was my imagination being fooled by marketing hype... .

2. If you go for a particular make of fuel (whatever the grade), why do you choose that?

So over to you guys... ;)

To be honest unless you are running a very high powered uk car (probably 200bhp plus) there is very little point in using high octane fuel as the ecu will be mapped to run on 95octance (standard unleaded). However if you use a modded car or a Japanese import then chances are you will need the higher octane fuels to prevent early det. Some jap cars even !Removed! the timing if you put lower grade fuel in which will affect its performance.

What i have found is there is a huge variety in standard unleaded fuels, not so much in performance but in miles per gallon. For instance my aw11 would do around 240miles on a full tank of mixed driving, this was using supermarket fuel, normally tesco. If i used BP fuel i would only get 200-220 miles. Personally i prrefer to use Shell 95octance fuel (although they also do the best 'super unleaded' at 98 octane). I get good mpg and perfomance. I also run through some injector cleaner (redex) every few thousand miles to help things along.

[geoffb]

Thanks for that. A good start - a useful analysis of when Super unleaded is the one to think about and one vote for Shell ....

[Panners]

Put 95 Ron from Tesco in mine. Did use the 99 Ron for a while but the only real difference I noticed was in my pocket to be honest.

[nrgizerbunny]

dependent on your area, the fuel will come from one of 5 places.

Down South - Esso in Fawley, Chevron in milford haven,

North - BP Grangemouth, ConocoPhillips / Total Lincs

North West - Shell Stanlow

South East - BP Coryton.

Midlands - pretty much anywhere!

It doesn't really matter where you go to fill yr car up the fuel comes from the same place (in an area) the only difference is the cleaning agents. Supermarkets have the refinery's own blend and each particular oil company has its own.

I personally fill up on whatever is cheapest.

sanj