Esso synergy supreme or BP ultimate petrol?

[RUM4MO]

I reckon it's marketing BS.

All fuels must meet various standards and realistically almost no engines (if serviced properly!) cause cars to be scrapped in the UK - what gets them is accidents, rust, MoT failure deemed too costly to fix.

I think that some of that is correct, but it only applies to the basic spirit - and as far as I know, no fuel retailer sells their product from the filling station dispensers without first adding in their blend of additives, which get added at that brands dedicated road tanker filling stand at the regional refinery.

Modern car engines would not keep clean enough to continue running within their permitted emissions limits if their were fueled with fuel that did not have an additive package, and that is for us owners the annoying bit because exactly the minimum additive package needs to be is all smoke and mirrors - and that can't be right, there should be quality standards issued to cover different "levels" of additive packages without us needing to know the exact "make up" of these different additive packages - it is the oil and gas industry remember and no one is going to be totally honest about things and what your engine actually benefits from having in its fuel - and so lots of stories and some of us prefer brand A over brand B or brand C - and that excludes the obvious differences that come form using the minimum or above minimum recommended RON version of petrol.

 

[cupra14]

The important thing is that (with rare exceptions) engines do not fail no matter what fuel is used, so long as it meets the car's minimum specification (and with a properly serviced car).

 

[RUM4MO]

One of these rare exceptions involved Vauxhall cars + Police force in Fife + Shell petrol, that moved me away from Shell for many years. Shell never paid up, but changed their additive package, I rewarded them by staying away from all their products for many years that might have been back in roughly 1980 but it does show that these gas and oil clowns are no better than their last mess up - ie progress via taking risks/chances and letting the general public do their testing!

 

[KXL]

Well a previous flatmate of mine always used supermarket diesel on a Clio 1.5Dci. Monday to Friday she would drive to and from work, about 30 miles round trip, weekend car is not used. From full tank to red-light it would be the usual certain number of days +/- 1 day. Somedays there is unusual heavy traffic due to accidents etc. If i recalled correctly it was just over 2 weeks, but not 100% sure. Now I was pestering her to try Vpower Diesel. This was greeted with scorn and she scoffed '15p more a litre, are you crazy, can't afford that etc.' I guess the price of that was worth it so I would stop pestering her. One day she said ok, she will do 3 tanks of Shell Vpower, and that's it, no more! The usual trips, the first Vpower tank gave her 1 day extra work day communiting, the second tank another day extra. The 3rd tank...nothing more. So I asked if she would go back to said supermarket diesel, she said no way...I will pump the expensive diesel as ~ 60 miles more made it cheaper compared to supermarket fuel's lower price.
I don't know the specifics on why that happened, I can only speculate that, there is a difference and the expensive fuel gives more mpg. Or the inner bits of the engine were so dirty, that the Vpower cleaned it up nicely that it's working as efficient as it can be after the clean. I do not know how many days it would go back on supermarket diesel once cleaned though.

 

[RUM4MO]

I can easily see the logic in using "good" fuel if doing that means same or slightly less pence per mile for that car and for the way it gets used.

I only returned to Shell when my wife's 2002 9N Polo 1.416V 75PS started to "pink" when using its normal Esso UL, now eventually I worked out that the pinking was due to oil being drawn in and burned so the pre-cat Lambda sensor was doing its job and winding back slightly the quantity(duration) of petrol being injected and the RON rating of the resulting oil+petrol was lower than it should have been. Running that car on Shell V-Power UL+ sorted that pinking at a price, the MPG dropped slightly but the low rev drivability improved "quite a bit" so much so that when I replaced the oil separator my wife demanded that it was always refilled with Shell UL+ and it stayed that way until it was chopped in in August 2015 for a brand new Polo 1.2TSI 110PS - I think that I treat that Polo to a couple of tanks of either Esso UL+ or Costco UL+ once a year to try to keep as much of the engine combustion areas clean as possible, though being a GDI engine that will do nothing for the inlet valve areas!

Edit:- my preference for using Esso petrol stems from a well run, on my route home, far enough out from the city centre to not be too busy and well priced filling station is an Esso branded one - and that ticks a lot of boxes for me and Esso remains my petrol brand of choice if possible when away from home - when I'm not filling up at Costco.

 

[martin j.]

One of these rare exceptions involved Vauxhall cars + Police force in Fife + Shell petrol, that moved me away from Shell for many years. Shell never paid up, but changed their additive package, I rewarded them by staying away from all their products for many years that might have been back in roughly 1980 but it does show that these gas and oil clowns are no better than their last mess up - ie progress via taking risks/chances and letting the general public do their testing!

I remember that time, cost the police and us the taxpayer a fortune.

 

[ALTEA4]

I wrote a while back on the Altea xl forum that my freetrack tfsi has been running great on Asda 95. Filled up as an emergency as I was going on a return motorway trip north and back. I really hadn’t noticed a difference using optimax or momentum over super from my local Esso. Sainsbury’s super unleaded had made the car run like a sick dog ,I’ll never use that again.
The Asda fuel has been everything the ‘best’ had promised..better economy, quick throttle response and a more throaty noise when pushed. I’ve been using it the last 3 months now.

 

[RUM4MO]

I suppose a bit off topic, but I also remember when Sainburys opened their filling station locally, and the father of one of my daughter's friends told me that sadly they had seen a massive increase in cars being handed in for decoking a few months after that brand of supermarket fuel hit the local high street. He was a service manager in a Vauxhall dealership and did not have any axe to grind over any of these emerging alternative fuel providers - and was just making a comment and it was not just Vauxhalls that they were getting handed in for decoking, though I'd hope that a lot has been learned since then in terms of "safe minimum" fuel additive packages, as to be expected when you pay less the fuel additive package included will be more basic or minimal or nothing, though I'd doubt it will be nothing.

 

[black_sheep]

I used to work in the product development labs for a large diesel engine manufacturer. The engines in the test cells had to use controlled fuel. However, when the engines were installed for magazine reviews, we used to use Sainsbury’s low sulphur fuel due to the driveability. We used to do extensive testing side-by-side for the fuel products; Esso usually had the best lubricants, whereas Shell would be better for output figures.

In terms of the coking issue, there are so many reasons why this may occur - I would say that the majority of these are operator rather than fuel related though. For example, Military vehicles that spend hours on low-idle to charge radio batteries whilst static will be heavily coked.

 

[martin j.]

I used to work in the product development labs for a large diesel engine manufacturer. The engines in the test cells had to use controlled fuel. However, when the engines were installed for magazine reviews, we used to use Sainsbury’s low sulphur fuel due to the driveability. We used to do extensive testing side-by-side for the fuel products; Esso usually had the best lubricants, whereas Shell would be better for output figures.

In terms of the coking issue, there are so many reasons why this may occur - I would say that the majority of these are operator rather than fuel related though. For example, Military vehicles that spend hours on low-idle to charge radio batteries whilst static will be heavily coked.

Long idle periods often mean black reek on vehicles like trains and buses?

 

[Jazzjames]

Some interesting points here, but a couple worth considering:

1. Your engine will clean itself most effectively when it gets a long run at decent speed. The engine etc. will get up to proper operating temperature and most deposits will burn off.

2. Whilst the additive package in V-Power is supposedly superior to others (my car definitely likes running on it), the 1.4tsi engine of the OP has direct injection only, so carbon buildup around the valves is still going to occur regardless, as the fuel simply doesn’t get to the back of the valves.

 

[RUM4MO]

My off topic comments about a sudden increase in engines needing decoked when started to be used with supermarket fuel, would typically be cars mainly used for in town driving and so short journeys, the way these comments had be given to me was, that owners who had never needed to have their car engines decoked in the past, were now needing to get that work carried out.

The GDI inlet tract needing blasted with crushed walnut shells now and again is just something that we will need to get used to I suppose - a bit annoying and something that all engine designers should have worked out would happen - GDI has been used in car engines in Europe for many years, didn't one of the Japanese makers start using it first maybe Mitsubishi .

 

[martin j.]

Yep .Mitsibishi.