I want to look after my 1.9’jtdm in the new Alfa 159.

Becuase I’m surrounded by BP garages I’m using standard BP diesel. Would I benefit (from a cleaning perspective) in using Ultimate, or would I be better off running the odd tank of additive injector / dpf cleaner through now and again?

No

I wouldn’t bother, decent (non supermarket) fuel should be fine. I used to run super unleaded in tuned turbo jap cars to save them from blowing up (unsuccessfully).

Nice choice of motor btw.

Use Ultimate, warm engine up and acelerate hard and watch all the crap shoot out the back, best done on a quiet road.

Avoid the supermarket bio diesels.

No, the most beneficial thing you can do is make sure it gets a long drive (30 mins or more) and a bit throttle every few weeks to keep the DPF clear.

Honesty they design them to run faultlessly from the arid deserts of Africa to the Frozen wastes of the artic circle on anything you might be sold from a dirty plastic container in a Ugandan Petrol Station.

P.S. don’t believe the hype – super market fuel isn’t substandard, they don’t have special shit refineries for supermarkets or super luxury ones for Esso or BP.

Use Ultimate, warm engine up and acelerate hard and watch all the crap shoot out the back, best done on a quiet road.

I had read this elsewhere, that doing that would clean it out over the course of a tank, then reverting to the standard stuff keeps things realtively unclogged as the BP additives are quite good vs virtually no cleaning additives in supermarket fuel.

Pjay I understand the base fuels are the same.

I had a JDM (imported) Prelude, it ran fine on regular but was smoother with better mpg on BP Ultimate. It gave so much of a better return it more than made up for the price difference.

my 1.9 diesel passat is smoother on normal shell rather than supermarket fuel. I add millers to each tank.

Avoid ‘City diesel’.

I use Millers additive to clean out our cars but only as I have a couple of bottles that I picked up cheap ages ago and sorted a noisy injector on our old (RIP 🙁 ) 306 HDI. Does make a difference on the current HDI and TD4 landy but if I didn’t have it I would just run some expensive diesel for a tank every now and then.

There’s millions of posts about this. Yes most base fuel is the same for supermarkets as it is branded. However, the detergent packs are very different if used at all.. Branded will have good add packs, SM not so. Standard branded fuel is good for everyday, however when buying a car from unknown source, yes good to run a “super” for a tank or 2, cheaper than using a millers Esq after treatment. Don’t throttle the thing, what it will do is dislodge evdrything in a oner blocking filters and knackering injectors.

To contradict my point about base fuels being the same, well they are not all made equal… Shell is the only one with a unique base gasoline for vpower! Supermarkets often hunt around for cheap sources of diesel from cargoes brought in all over the gaff, especially the bio content, one particular is bad at it, it causes all manner of issues. Bio,as far as the auto industry is concerned is work of the devil.

Also, don’t just concentrate on the fuel, think about the oil, if you can be arrsed get it drained,cleaned, new filter and a high quality Fuchs, Castrol, Mobil filled in place, again, pervious advise on fuel quality, poor quality diesel (bio), has sludging tendencies, causing filter blocking, cavitation and viscosity [high].

BG244 has helped clear the crap from diesels I’ve had, usually improving the consumption as well as cleaning it up a bit for the MoT.

The fancy fuels can make a difference, based on an old work transit which used to smoke so badly it would obscure the white line from your mirrors, but a tank of BP Ultimate and you could make out the line.

Just to put some clarity around PJay’s comments. Not all vehicles are designed to run from all corners of the world. All OEMS design a region specific model and will vary the components according to the typical fuel qualities found for that region.. That’s not to say UK vs Germany, but Europe vs China vs Russia vs Africa…. What the OEMS will do is put different models through an endurance run to see its limitations, and also to programmer in a fail safe ecu setting depending on certain criteria, but agian it will be limited to individual component comparability.

Ok – I was going to run some Millers injector cleaner through, then some dpf cleaner – but the jury says just use a Ultimate?

Assuming ive run a couple of tanks of Ultimate through before its service in May, would I or would I not benefit from paying the dealer to perform an injector clean?

Ohhh K57 bought an Alfa !!

Ace !

Gertyerbikeinintyet ??

No idea about fuel, sorry, I always use Shell, ultimate in the car, normal deisel in the Van.. In MrsBouys car we run whatever we can find whilst out in it..

Doesn’t help I know..

So, front wheel off or on ??

Stick with ultimate.

Injector cleaning, maybe depends on cost. You can get a car smoked analyzed for not a lot at a garage, run the fuel first then test it will cost peanuts..

You can gain all of that lost power and mpg back by having injectors that are spraying correctly. Believe or not, depending on all manner of variables, the spray pattern of an injector makes a massive difference to combustion characteristics.. Spray unevenly and you get a partial burn, hot spots etc etc..

using “super” diesel does make a difference on my T5 2.5ltr.

it accelerates better and MPG is improved. i was sceptical at first, but my mechanic told me to run it as it should potentially save me troubles later on. (i know faff all about the goings on of an engine).

You didn’t see it bikebouy? Yes the roadbike went in easily wheels on. The 26er goes straight on, the 29er CAN but its size and weight makes the jiggling tricky, plus I found a car with roof rails (and a removable tow bar) so im going to put my rack on for dirty MTB duties.

(Here it is. Just for you, any excuse. )

my mechanic told me to run it as it should potentially save me troubles later on. (i know faff all about the goings on of an engine).

I was to,d similar – the cleaning agents in the additives help prevent injectors clogging, deposits on the egr and er, other stuff.

I might rn Ultimate whenever work are paying 😀

252000 miles on my diesel. Never use the posh versions of fuel.

I use a mix of branded and supermarket fuels – just fill up wherever is near when I need to fill up, but probably works out slightly more branded than supermarket.

But, my car sits at motorway speeds for relatively long periods of time, rather than short, stop-start journeys…perhaps that makes a difference?

Awe mate that looks ace. I really hope you enjoy driving it and carting your bikes around in it.

I didn’t see it no, clearly missed the thread whilst working or some other nonsense like riding, anyhoo I’m very pleased for you. Took a while to decide, tough decisions but I personally think you made the right choice.

#thumbsup

😀

Thanks Bikebouy – I do too. I’ve driven over 200 miles in it since Thursday and love it to bits already. To think – I could have been contemplating super fuels in a Volvo! 😕

K57 – that is bloody lovely! Very happy with my GT at the moment, but those 159 SW always have me nipping onto autotrader to see what’s about.

Can’t wait to see what the new Guilia looks like layer in the year.

FWIW I use shell or BP standard diesel most the time on my JTDm. Posh diesel didn’t get enough extra miles per tank to warrant the extra cost. Shell / BP seems to get more miles per tank than supermarket fuel (yes I have a spreadsheet :-/)

All to do with the cetanes init!

This is quite an interesting read.
http://www.dieselcarmagazine.co.uk/features/the-extra-mile-april/

Every forth tank VPower should be enough to keep your injectors etc clean but you will notice the difference on the other three tanks in terms of engine smoothness and start up clatter and mpg!
As important is the oil changes, don’t use cheap oil, use the proper spec oil or better if you can afford it and don’t drive it like an old lady, drive it like it’s meant to driven , 3500 rpm through each gear not 1200 short shift thinking your driving economically ( like my sister, it’s bloody painful). 😆

Suggesy, I’ve seen that on the Alfaforums. It’s going to be treated at AutoLusso in May, and although I did drive it like a cab driver after collection, I did an 80 mile round trip on Saturday in the style you described and got better mpg. The forum advice is low revs/high torque thought the gearbox I have is not good for the bearings.

I always drive my turbo diesels using the turbo to full efficient effect, not sure what the max torque band is on your engine but my old passat was something like 1200 rpm to 3500 rpm. I do the same in my van and get a pretty constant 55mpg plus clean injectors and no soot build up ( no dpf on it).
Yeah and don’t try caning it in 1st and 2nd……all noise lots of fuel and shortened gearbox and clutch life.

This fuel cost a tenner more. I’ll just be more gentle with loud pedal while subconsciously kidding myself on I’m taking part in a scientifically monitored, all variables standardised double blind test.

what do people think of 2 stroke oil in the diesel. not brave enough to try it myself.have read loads of positives

fallsoffalot – Member
what do people think of 2 stroke oil in the diesel. not brave enough to try it myself.have read loads of positives

don’t. Whilst you may get a smoother engine for a while, it will be doing irreparable damage to the fuel system, filters, injectors, pumps.. If you have a new car and it fails and you try to warranty it, it will be found and refused!

I have run my Alfa GT (same engine) with standard BP diesel for a couple of years with no issue. When I 1st got it I tried the shell V power and also the millers additive, but no noticeable difference in consumption or performance, about 1-2 MPG difference between all 3 over several fills.

I did have to clean the EGR soon after I got it, but I put it down to whatever the previous owner used, no problems since.

not trying that then even if its an old 2004 tdci cmax

I switched to BP Ultimate or Shell V power diesel in my 10 year old van about 18 months ago, really noticed the difference, seem to come alive again, runs smoother and better mpg. Worth the difference per litre to me.

2 stroke in diesels an old wives tail…..

dont believe in premium fuel but i do believe in non supermarket fuel – except asda – their fuel seems to not cause my car to run like a bag of shit(lumpy and hunting at idle) and get consistantly lower mpg on a brim to brim average – like tescos /sainsburys city diesel

seem to come alive again

The van or the road?

Try changing your wheels too

So – the conclusion is:

a) an older high mileage car feels the impact of a “clean” via additives, use of premium fuel or a mechanical intevention

b) Branded fuel is cleaner and likely to result in lesser build up of deposits / better running of the engine

c) Newer cars are less affected – because they aren’t as dirty at the point of intervention.

Common sense then…

sorry for the hijack but quick question to Sui….seeing as he seems to have a lot of knowledge on this…
whats the best fuel to use on a petrol engine?
most of the time we fill up using supermarket stuff as its the closets but every now and then the car will get the branded stuff (either shell or bp)

sorry for the hijack but quick question to Sui….seeing as he seems to have a lot of knowledge on this…
whats the best fuel to use on a petrol engine?
most of the time we fill up using supermarket stuff as its the closets but every now and then the car will get the branded stuff (either shell or bp)

As far as petrol is concerned are you talking about the difference between 95 and 97 RON petrol or just supermarket vrs branded. If it’s supermarket vrs branded then it makes not a jot of difference. For example neither Shell or bp have any refining capacity in the UK, the vast majority of petrol supplied in scotland comes from Grangmouth which is owned by Ineos so anyone who thinks there is difference between brands is kidding themselves. If it’s 95 vrs 97 then it could make a difference provided your car has a knock sensor as these are different fuel specifications.

I use premium deisel in my van which spends a lot of time running hard as it is only a 2.3l but weighs in at over 5 tons with a horsebox. It seems to have significantly more mid range grunt after several tanks of premium, on normal fuel it labour on the hills and often down to third gear, with premium it will normally hang in there with 4th.

There’s loads of people who’ve put 2 stroke in their diesel and are convinced they could hear a difference the next time they started it- ie, when the 2 stroke is all still in the tank and you’re running off normal fuel that was already in the pipes/pump/filter. Not to say it doesn’t make a difference at all mind (good or bad), just that the difference they report can only be imaginary.

Mine runs on supermarket diesel, it’s had 4 new injectors pretty much bang on the mileage where every other mondeo also needed new injectors. It does get better economy on posh diesel, just not enough for the difference.