'New' Shell Petrol !

[melinx]

I see that Shell are advertising that their new petrol will typically do 1 litres worth more mileage on a 60 litre tankfull

A worthwhile improvement; however, the only Shell station that I have seen in my locality sells at £1.20/litre; I buy regular unleaded at my local supermarket for £1.13/litre

According to my maths, that means that I would be paying 6% more for my fuel in order to get 2% more miles

Doesn't make much economic sense to me !

[Jimmy]

iv just come to realise that Shell are a better quality of petrol than supermarket jank, the price sez it all, if they selling 1.13 than they are buying it really cheap resulting in it being low quality. I always top up a shell, always, as it seems to go alot further than any other brands, and now they say you can get more from it, thats even better, and its 1.16 on average my way.

[melinx]

If I could find it at that price along my regular route I would give it a try; however, it would cost me an extra £1.75 in fuel to go out of my way to the nearest Shell station (8.5 miles round trip) that makes it doubly unattractive

[Jimmy]

shame that, there's loads ere in maidstone, 3 are within 2miles off each other, about a mile or so away from my house too  Sure there will be few popping up locally soon, as i think more and more garages are being converted, unless they are bp or esso, so finger's crossed

[stealthstylz]

I put either V power or Tesco 99 in the GSi. A few independent tests (not by me) have shown that it doesn't work out much more expensive as you do more miles to the same amount of fuel. The car is loads better with it in too, with 95ron it seems to lose a lot of low down torque.

Matt

[melinx]

The Gsi will probably benefit from higher octane fuel since I believe it has knock sensors and the ignition will be automatically advanced to take advantage of the high octane

Us lesser mortals would have to change the octane rating plug over

[stealthstylz]

Nah the 12v's just have the plug. TBH I don't think Craig ever swapped it, and when I drove it home it was on 98 and I had to use 95 fuel as that's all that was available nearby.

Matt

[Pedro]

My Omegas don't like supermarket petrol one bit - they seem to guzzle it more than normal.

Really can't tell the difference in the Carlton.

[carlton_mad]

supermarket fuel is absolutely useless in the monster i had to go from kent to carlisle a couple of years ago i filled up with sainsburys finest and didnt get a third of the way on half a tank topped up with shell and did the rest of the trip with fuel to spare

[U.D. - Omega DTM Rep]

Back in my old Opel Manta days, running Tesco's super unleaded in my best mates 2.0i 16v Manta Coupé cost him a very expensive engine rebuild! My mate Mark was one of the first in the UK to run this C20XE engine on SBD's throttle bodies with and MBE 913 ECU. Sustained high speed abuse one weekend playing with a Sierra Sapphire Cosworth resulted in it running on just 3 cylinders thanks to a melted piston and four burnt out valves inside his poor old XE lump. Poor quality fuel was the prime suspect for it running lean according to all the experts contacted during its costly rebuild.

My Misses old 1.6i 16v Zetec Escort used to pink like a twat if she filled up on her local Tesco's unleaded. This would then stop if she then used the Shell garage a bit further up the road for her next fill up. These two stories said it all for me about Supermarket fuel!

As for different fuels in GSi's/24v's, my own car runs mostly on Shell's 95 unleaded now because I'm lazy and a Shell garage is now my nearest local petrol station. When I'm over in Bristol I tend to use the same Esso petrol station on the A38 near Patchway. Years ago I used to run my Carlton exclusively on BP fuel (when my nearest pump was on a BP forecourt) and psychological or not, my own car seemed to me to be much smoother and perform a lot better on BP's normal 95 octane unleaded than it currently does on my local Shell garages fuel. The Esso fuel also seems to make tick over a bit less lumpy on my Carlton.

I've also tried what was Shell's Optimax back to back against BP's Ultimate super unleaded fuels and again my old bus seemed to prefer the BP product over Shell's. Maybe its just me but after I filled up at the BP station just outside of Billing Aquadrome this year....the old girl seemed to have a little bit more urgency available when I hit the loud pedal on the way home from that weekend away!

JM2PW!

[melinx]

I wonder if slightly 'higher quality' fuel is in many cases compensating for coke deposits raising the compression ratio

My Vectra with the X20XEV engine drinks oil on short runs even though it's only done 47,000, consequently there is a fair amount of carbon deposit observeable on the piston crown: If I was a bit sharp on the throttle in a gear slightly too high there would be a sharp rattle from the engine pinking.

A dose of fuel system cleaner with a polyether amine content has obviously removed a fair amount of coke since I no longer get pinking

There is still a fair amount observeable on the piston crown so I have some Comma Petrol De-Tox ready to attempt a radical shifting of the remaining deposits (according to the safety data sheet, it has a high content of polyether amine which I know is highly effective at removing coke deposits)

[Pedro]

In theory...........
Cheaper supermarket fuel has been sitting around in the refinery for a few days longer, and as such, it's potency (RON rating) drops off a little, so it's cheaper for them to buy. I guess they say that their 98/95 whatever RON is exactly that cos that's what they bought it as?
The refinery is chuffed to sell it cheaper so they can get more fresh fuel in.
I wouldn't say such as BP or Shell would sell 'older' fuel at premium price though - whether this happens or not is debatable!
One other note - racing petrol is guaranteed it's RON rating (and don't you pay for it too!!!), but again, over time it does tend to 'go off' - albeit a longer time as it's in sealed drums.

[Jimmy]

Well anyway, did everyone get there £2 off when you buy 20litres of jank or more at shell? i did, i got 4, can only use 1 at a time and gotta be used by this friday, but i have a journey to Devon on thurs/fri, gonna fill up with 20liters when i leave, another 20litres down the road at the next shell, and mayby the shell garage on the M3 fleet services, tho from what i remember last week it was 1.19, so might fill up in Dartfords shell garage which is only 1.14, right near Murph

[melinx]

I found that the Shell station near me was selling their unleaded fuel saver at the same price as my local supermarket (£1.13) so I decided what the hell I'll give it a try.

The tank topped out at 40 litres so I've got more or less a 50/50 mix at the moment; prior to the fill up, finger and thumb on the steering wheel, you could feel the tiniest tremor at tickover, afterwards that seems to have gone !

It's early days yet and I'll give it a few more top ups before making any judgement on it

Bloody expensive fill up though because I have to go through Walsall centre and its nightmare traffic system to get there: The automatic Diplomat returned 17 mpg for the trip

[melinx]

Just done a 120 miles run to Halifax at 70 mph and saw the average mpg climb to 39.3 never seen it that high before and that's on a 50/50 mix !

I'll do another fill and see how it goes, but I'm almost convinced

[man of kent]

Dont know if its the same now but when I worked at Esso at Purfleet, delivery lorries with every name of petrol supplier filled up from the same Esso massive tank! They didn't need to get a tankful from their own company! May be different now.

I tested the claim and found no difference in mileage covered but that was on just one tankful.

I haven't seen an independent test of various petrols? Has anyone?

[carlton_mad]

i get better mpg from shell in mine than esso bp or total as for supermarket fuel it dosent come near my motor (apart from when i drive past)

[Jimmy]

Shell works wonders in my Carlton, i get the best mpg and distance with it, but it seems BP does the same in the Senator, shell was still good, but BP does it better, strange, think it must be down to the car, so shell for the Carly and BP for the Senny, which is a little bit of a bummer as BP is more expensive for a car that is alot more juicier... a few more test are in the making to see if the cheaper shell is making up for mpg compared to the price of bp with the better consumption, did you get that?? lol

[melinx]

Dont know if its the same now but when I worked at Esso at Purfleet, delivery lorries with every name of petrol supplier filled up from the same Esso massive tank! They didn't need to get a tankful from their own company! May be different now.

I tested the claim and found no difference in mileage covered but that was on just one tankful.

I haven't seen an independent test of various petrols? Has anyone?

I have no doubt that the 'base stock' is from the same source, it's the additives that differ !

Maybe Shell have developed an additive that is not available to other petrol companies

http://totalcarlton.com/forums/index.php/topic,8033.msg67112.html#msg67112

[melinx]

I did a run to Portsmouth (180 miles) fairly heavily loaded with near enough pure Shell petrol in the tank; it returned just over 38 mpg, not bad 

Since there aren't any Shell stations on the Isle of Wight, I had to revert to topping up with 50 litres of Morrison's and it dropped to 36 mpg on the way back.

Coming back, it was a somewhat warmer day than the journey down and that should have meant less hysteresis in the tyre rubber so more mpg !

I think that Shells claim is probably justified, but it is very easy to find that the 2.5% claimed improved
mpg becomes unnoticeable due to weather conditions or tyre pressure.

On balance, I would prefer to use it but I'm not going to go out of my way to do so

[DevonGSi]

How can the higher RON mean you use less petrol?

The injectors inject whatever they inject.
The engine goes around and X revs at Y mph and that cant be changed...so how does it use less?

 

[melinx]

Shell fuelsave unleaded is still 95 RON, that is the fuel I am using and referring to.

[carlton_mad]

the engine seems to have to work less hard thus giving better economy!

ive been using shell for years as my fuel of choice and its deffo better

[Jimmy]

iv been using shell for ages now, so i notice it alot, espesh when i topped my tank up the other day with supermarket shite, while doing the same run to and from work etc, and it didnt go as far, and the engine seemed to be a lil hestitant, its such a small amount, but enuff to notice something!! tho BP is good too, but its just too expensive at the moment 1.21 by me, when the nearest shell is 1.18, if i cant time it right and fill up in dartford, the shell garages are a lil bit cheaper, but shell none the less

[Pedro]

How can the higher RON mean you use less petrol?

The injectors inject whatever they inject.
The engine goes around and X revs at Y mph and that cant be changed...so how does it use less?

 

The engine will only use the fuel it needs according to the ECU.
What is not needed is returned to the tank.
OK, that's a very simplistic explanation, but that's the bare bones.