[Closed] The truth about supermarket petrol?

I pretty much always get shell fuel for both my cars, at the moment I've been getting 3% cashback on it all which was a bonus but certainly around here (Sheffield) there is no difference between the supermarket and brand prices so I'll always have the better fuel.

A friend of mine worked at the shell refinery near ellsmere port for a while and said that the supermarket fuels were a couple of generations behind the branded ones. So they still have additives etc in them but just not the latest ones.

Hora's post above about Tesco raises a question

If all petrol/diesel is born equal why was the dodgy fuel fiasco confined to Tesco/Morrison's/Asda?

Because it was probably sent to a depot that had sh!te in their tanks

Ah OK - so the fuel could leave the refinery bound for a storage depot exclusively used by one group of retailers? [supermarkets in this case]

Yes then sent out from there to wherever

What I don't get about all this is, if the traditional petrol stations (esso, shell et al) have a product that is better than the supermarkets in terms of additives etc, why don't the publicise it?

(I know they advertise for their premium fuels, but from what people are saying above their standard fuels are also better)

I think this is a bit of a placebo effect personally. People have a preconception that supermarket fuel is of "lesser" quality so they then think they notice a difference in their cars performance/fuel consumption (the two are related, if they think their car is performing worse they might rev higher before changing gear, thus affecting consumption).

better than the supermarkets in terms of additives etc, why don't the publicise it?

Errr...see shell V-power, BPs ultimate.... Did you miss the adverts? Unless you mean the "basic" fuel, which I suspect has some base additives different to the supermarkets but why would you publicise your "budget" range fuel when it would compete with your premium fuel if it used teh same taglines?

I think this is a bit of a placebo effect personally. People have a preconception that supermarket fuel is of "lesser" quality so they then think they notice a difference in their cars performance/fuel consumption (the two are related, if they think their car is performing worse they might rev higher before changing gear, thus affecting consumption).

Certainly on some cars, but some of us are just as sceptical as you but attempt to do real world testing over long periods and with more detail than just "it feels a bit nippier".

I think the TV programme 5th Gear tested [rolling road/dyno etc]the Shell stuff & concluded that it certainly gave a significant performance increase

uplink - to more modern cars and cars with ECU's capable of "using" the better fuels, yup. My personal "performance" petrol list goes:
V-power
Ultimate
Normal shell
Normal BP
Supermarket/Texaco.

I rarely see any MPG improvements as they're negated by me actually using the extra oomph during acceleration, but on long runs it might make 4-5% difference to mpg, as well as that can be assessed by the brim fillup - use- brim fillup method from teh same pump.

My performance fuel and ignition maps work fine on v-power, some more noticable knock on Ultimate and I have to switch to cheap-fuel maps for anything else. This is confirmed by other owners of the same car with different equipment for actual knock measurement.

On my commonrail D I see almost no difference with any fuel other than v-power which seems to give 1mpg difference only on a long run, confirmed by blind tests (if the missus filled up with it without telling me).

What people struggle to rationalise is whether their car is *likely* to see an improvement with better fuel. I'd say in 90% of cases any supermarket or standard fuel will work just the same. In 10% of cars a better fuel will see improvements. The rest of the time its a placebo effect!

samuri - Member

Call me crazy but I just wait till the light on my dash starts flashing and then I look for a petrol station. I don't give a toss who owns it.

coffeeking - Member

better than the supermarkets in terms of additives etc, why don't the publicise it?

Errr...see shell V-power, BPs ultimate.... Did you miss the adverts? Unless you mean the "basic" fuel, which I suspect has some base additives different to the supermarkets but why would you publicise your "budget" range fuel when it would compete with your premium fuel if it used teh same taglines?

But the thing under discussion here is the comparison between the "budget" fuel ranges! I don't doubt that vpower etc provide a performance enhancement. People on this thread have been saying that there is a difference between the budget fuel ranges.

People on this thread have been saying that there is a difference between the budget fuel ranges.

From my reckoning most people on here have said fuel is fuel when it's "normal" type. I've noticed a little difference between budget brands, as I stated above. They'd not publicise it as HOW would they do so? 2 scenarios:
1) Our budget fuel is great as our additives are ace and make our fuel really good for power and economy.
FAIL - just blown your premium fuel out of the water.
2) Our budget fuel is better than supermarket cack.
FAIL - can't really abuse other peoples product like that, but then they'd have to produce a set of independant test results to show it and it quite simply isnt worth it for budget fuel that everyone buys anyway. Most people, I'm fairly convinced, dont even think about the brand they buy, so they make their brand the most prominent and hope people spot them on the road more.

Another problem is explaining the benefits of the additives would take a good bit of science, and if you dont give that science you're just making claims that everyone makes.

they could do the science in a similar way to shampoo adverts? 😉

😀

Some naked lass dousing herself in petrol and wittering on about essential organic shellfish extracts.
You might be on to something 🙂

my uncle is a pump technician and does work on supermarket and private garages

he fills up at the supermarket, reckons it all comes from the same depot

Dont think anyone is arguing over what depot it comes from. Just whether there's additional contents added in the tanker worth noting.

Dont think anyone is arguing over what depot it comes from. Just whether there's additional contents added in the tanker worth noting.

Given the remarks above that [at least some] supermarket fuel goes off to storage depots that only supply supermarkets
It's reasonable to think that some of the mainstream brands do the same & add any secret potions there

Given the remarks above that [at least some] supermarket fuel goes off to storage depots that only supply supermarkets
It's reasonable to think that some of the mainstream brands do the same & add any secret potions there

Wrong ,in the place I work the tesco gets loaded in the road loading terminal along with shell and bp and asda gets loaded in another terminal (which has a pipes ran to it from the same tanks as the refinery loading terminal).Which is also the same stuff that goes onto the coasters (ships)
that takes the fuel all round the Scottish islands

i buy shell diesel if i can, or BP.
happy with sainsbuys yellow, but wouldnt touch tesco stuff with a barge pole.

car pulls better, quieter is more comfortable at speed and gets better mpg.

or maybe i'm imagining things

I run Av-gas

It's the freekin' daddyo!

i used to run my car on tesco disel...i tried shell v-power and didnt notice a difference...but then i switched to shell fuel entirly...slowly its made it quicker and quicker...and when i put v-power in know...it makes it quicker smoother and more responsive and i get high rpm easily...i just put tesco fuel in it...its noticbly worse to drive.
so i think using decent fuel is worth it

according to american tv, i should eat more yogurt

I used to drive with supermarket petrol, then I started buying shell and other premimum brands. I didn't really notice much at the start, but after a little while I've noticed the car 'feels' faster, pulls better, I get 10mpg more, and I've been far more successful with the ladies.

Obviously I've not performed any double blind tests, and I don't believe anyone who says it comes from the same outlet at the refinary, as it must be better because i've been spending 3p a litre more on it for the last x months. Besides some adverts on TV told me that it was better so it must be.

Some viewing for you Ewan

http://fwd.five.tv/fifth-gear/videos/consumer-info/posh-diesel

there was a similar one for petrol but I can't find it

Petrol test

The best improvements seem to be with the torque figures so should be noticeable

so no one has answered my questions about mixing the additives, we all know if you just pour one liquid in to another the added liquid is not distributed evenly unless further mixing is done. example, pour orange squash into water, uneven distribution, add water to orange squash and the mixing effect created by the larger added volume gives more even distribution. So how do they mix the additives in that create these improvements?

When they pump it out the tanker it will mix in with the splashing about and turbulence etc

Tesco's bananas aren't half as tasty as Abel & Cole's bananas. That's the only fuel I'm interested in.

votchy, do you think the mixing would be questionable when the additives will be a minor fraction in the tanker (if they exist) and the tanker is filled with a huge quantity of fuel, and then both are pumped into a forecourt tank? I'd say that was pretty hefty mixing. The questionable mixing would be the fact that people rarely run their cartanks really low so claiming a difference from one tank to the next is debatable, and the improvement should show over successive tankfuls of the same stuff. Reserve capacity is normally a hefty %.

votchy the problem is that the volume of orange saquash and water are fairly similar.
That is not the case in tankers. Plus the driving itself is enough stirring to overcome fick's law.

Shell V-Power is higher octane - fact. Not all cars will be set up to appreciate it - also fact. Hence CK's messing about.