Tesco Fuel - Inferior?

GreeBo

DublinWriter wrote: »

The car went like a rocket. Even the missus commented that the car seemed to be going a lot faster, and I didn't even tell her that I filled up at Maxol.

How do you mean it was going faster?
Your top speed was faster or you had less rev's for the same speed or what?
"car seemed to be going faster" to me means that you were driving faster. 60kph is 60kph regardless of what petrol you are using...

ironclaw

GreeBo wrote: »

"car seemed to be going faster" to me means that you were driving faster. 60kph is 60kph regardless of what petrol you are using...

+1 on that one. We're talking such small tolerances here. How well serviced your car is etc would have a much bigger effect. Unless your driving a top spec car I really wouldn't be worried. And your tank draining faster? You do realise that would require a fairly noticable change in Octane Number?

PaulBrewer

MYOB wrote: »

To increase fuel quality / efficiency / cleanliness (in theory, for all three).

So why wouldn't it be added then? Cost?

I thank all posters for some interesting points - but it's still all conjecture or, at very best circumstantial !

Is there no one who can give an definitive post?

MarkN

I've been running a 300+ bhp car on Tesco petrol the last week and haven't noticed an awful lot of difference (including fuel burning quicker) between it and Maxol's 99 stuff.

ironclaw

PaulBrewer wrote: »

So why wouldn't it be added then?

They are expensive to add. But must be added to meet EU guidelines I believe. Their concentration varys based on the fuel sample itself / season.

IMHO, I'd be very surprised if their was any difference between the fuels. Customs & Excise have standards for the fuel industry.

PaulBrewer

ironclaw wrote: »

+1 on that one. We're talking such small tolerances here. How well serviced your car is etc would have a much bigger effect. Unless your driving a top spec car I really wouldn't be worried. And your tank draining faster? You do realise that would require a fairly noticable change in Octane Number?

What's brought on the query is both my cars - a 94 Merc E220 Cabriolet (low miles) and a 97 E230 Estate's performance (hi miles) has changed a bit over the last few months.

PaulBrewer

MarkN wrote: »

I've been running a 300+ bhp car on Tesco petrol the last week and haven't noticed an awful lot of difference (including fuel burning quicker) between it and Maxol's 99 stuff.

We're not really coming to a conclusion here are we!?;)

scottledeuce

ironclaw wrote: »

+1 on that one. We're talking such small tolerances here. How well serviced your car is etc would have a much bigger effect. Unless your driving a top spec car I really wouldn't be worried. And your tank draining faster? You do realise that would require a fairly noticable change in Octane Number?

GreeBo wrote: »

How do you mean it was going faster?
Your top speed was faster or you had less rev's for the same speed or what?
"car seemed to be going faster" to me means that you were driving faster. 60kph is 60kph regardless of what petrol you are using...

The pair of ye :rolleyes:
If you've never heard a ladyperson refer to better acceleration as "being faster" I don't know where you've been hiding.

On topic though I like to think I notice the smallest things and I always thought there was something about Tesco petrol but figured that they cant be allowed to sell inferior petrol.

What someone said earlier about it maybe lacking additives could make sense as I know for sure texaco have that "techron" stuff added to all their fuel and I think Shell have something similar as well so maybe that can account for a difference.
I used to drive on V -power and I would always notice the extra mileage i'd get form a tank.

Just my opinion but I think the exhaust fume's from my de cat'ed V6 smell a bit more petrolish when I use Texaco Maxol etc:D

blackbox

PaulBrewer wrote: »

There's a body of circumstantial evidence forming ....

But can we get facts, fact that could stand up in court, or even harder again, in front of Boards.ie Posters?;)

Here's your proof - skeptic...

scottledeuce wrote:

Just my opinion but I think the exhaust fume's from my de cat'ed V6 smell a bit more petrolish when I use Texaco Maxol etc ?

PaulBrewer

blackbox wrote: »

Here's your proof - skeptic...

That's that then....:rolleyes:

Yez are supposed to be the motor experts, I'm only askin!

PaulBrewer

scottledeuce wrote: »

What someone said earlier about it maybe lacking additives could make sense as I know for sure texaco have that "techron" stuff added to all their fuel and I think Shell have something similar as well so maybe that can account for a difference.

I heard Tesco put in handfuls of ball bearings to help the fuel get through the engine better, that might explain why it goes quicker ....

ArthurGuinness

I have never had any problems with it personally. I fill up there once every two weeks and get 690-700 miles out off a full tank of diesel.

ironclaw

I heard that those techron etc additives were just Silicone based. They actually did NOTHING for the engine. I'm pretty sure it was in the papers a while back, some case in England regarding false advertising. Not the problem a year back that caused engines to cease working because of silicone ,it was different case.

jonnner

Don't engines perform better when the weather is colder?
I don't know about economy but maybe some peoples experiences in this thread could be explained by the recent cold snap.

ironclaw

jonnner wrote: »

Don't engines perform better when the weather is colder?

yes, very advanced chemistry. If the intake air temp is lower than the output, the greater the difference the more efficent the burn. Would be a very good explanation actually.

pred racer

Still purely anecdotal, but several people I work with who do the same fairly long commute every day (and are not normally bullsh1t artists) do not use tesco petrol, due to bad mpg. I use the diesel myself with no issues.
considering my workplace is right beside Tesco, its hard to see why these people would travel to buy more expensive petrol for no reason?

niceirishfella

I've used the Diesel a fair bit and never had any issue's either.
The petrol I can't offer any comment on and tbh, its none the cheaper than rival stations around anyways.

L1011

Tesco is further away than other 99.9 stations (seems to be the price floor locally) and I at least THINK my car runs like a bag of hammers on their petrol. The station is filthy, dark and dingy. You freeze your bollox off queuing to pay... all reasons I wouldn't use it even if the petrol was 100% exactly equal to what the Esso across the road has.

GreeBo

pred racer wrote: »

Still purely anecdotal, but several people I work with who do the same fairly long commute every day (and are not normally bullsh1t artists) do not use tesco petrol, due to bad mpg. I use the diesel myself with no issues.

Without a controlled test using only the different types of fuel as variants there is no way to state that one is better or worse than the other. There are *far* too many other variables involved during a commute for example to determine fuel/engine performance.

pred racer wrote: »

considering my workplace is right beside Tesco, its hard to see why these people would travel to buy more expensive petrol for no reason?

You will find that, in general, most people are thick.and sheeplike. Its the same reason why they wont shop in Aldi/Lidl for the exact same products.

DublinWriter

PaulKK wrote: »

I noticed that using the tesco diesel in my TDI that it caused it to idle rough and be down on power and the consumption was also poor. After filling up in Maxol all was well again, so I would definately say it is of a lower standard from my experience.

Yes - I did notice that exact same thing today. Car didn't sound like a Massey-Ferguson when idling today after filling up with Maxol last night from near empty previous fill of Tesco diesel.

To those who asked me what I meant by the car going 'faster', I was of course referring to acceleration and just 'torque'-ness in general. If you have a problem with my description, take it up with the missus!

The car is serviced religiously at a main stealer every 10K.

I had also been noticing that if I applied the boot, I'd leave behind a noticable cloud of smoke (car passed NCT a couple of months back, before you ask). I tried the same today and it wasn't as much with Maxol diesel, but I'll have to experiment a little more before I can be 100% sure that this is the case.

I think I'm seriously going to avoid Tesco for fuel from now on.

DublinWriter

pink fluffy bunny wrote: »

i stop going there because the staff were so rude and it could take 10 mins for them to reset the pump but the difference in the mileage and how well my cars runs now is unbelievable.

Using my amazing powers of psychic deduction I'd say that you were using Tesco Finglas?

pred racer

GreeBo wrote: »

Without a controlled test using only the different types of fuel as variants there is no way to state that one is better or worse than the other. There are *far* too many other variables involved during a commute for example to determine fuel/engine performance.:

one individual in particular drives in from navan every morning and has tried tesco petrol on numerous occasions, his fill always lasts 2 weeks (excepting unusual extra journeys of course) the tesco petrol never does. still not a scientific test but I tend to believe him.

GreeBo wrote: »

You will find that, in general, most people are thick.and sheeplike. Its the same reason why they wont shop in Aldi/Lidl for the exact same products.

no argument there:) I regularly see people fill up at one garage when the other one down the street (which is in plain sight) is 5c cheaper.
both have the same facilities.

derry

It is tecknically possible to change the formulation of the petrol fuels to return more or less MPG

I was doing research for this to get best MPG from my car .

I noted my MPG for a few months usually buying topaz petrol.
I then switched with no modifications of any sort to using the E85 petrol in my non flex fuel 98 era suziki swift 1000cc and went with that for a few months .(most cars need modification kits costing 600 euros to run on E85 but some often older more simple cars don't )

The price of petrol came down and I switched back to petrol which before this gave me maybe 10% better milage than E85

This time I went for Tesco as it seemed to be the cheapest most of the time .However my MPG seemed to be similar to E85 and not as good as the previous petrol fuels.
I should have twigged something was up

The government in different countries somehow decides the types of fuel standards which define petrol for sale .Some third world countries allow 10% kerosene in the petrol which really carbons the engine and cats .

If you bottom end all the ingredients specs that fuel will be a vey differnt product than fuel that is speced to top specs .Ultra Pure very refined petrol is available from racing cars shop in the UK at ~5 to 10 euros a liter EEEEKKK and it has only ten chemicals in it ,It burn completly and gets better MPG and supply's extra power to the engine as less power is wasted burning other bizzare ingredients that don't burn so well and can probably pass a NCT emissions test with no cat as emissions are so low

The petrol companies cant possibly for structural reasons supply all cars this ultra pure petrol or most likely we wouldn't pay that much for it .So the government allows the refineries pass a lower quality product which has some 200 plus chemicals in it .Best I can see the bands from top petrol to sellable crap petrol are very wide .These crappy extra chemicals burn badly and reduce power to the car . Refineries then add extra chemicals to help burn up the crappy chemicals .Then the cars now need a cat to clean up these badly burnt chemicals that the engine throws out.Some of these crappy chemicals are benzene very bad for humans and nature.Those crappy chemicals go out the exhast unburnt when the car is cold started and only when the cat gets hot does the cat suppress these chemicals.

Then in winter they change the formula to winter formula another type of petrol substansialy different to summer petrol

Pure petrol s often made for standby generators in the outbacks .This fuel will store for twenty years plus .The petrol we buy in the station should not be kept more than 3 months .If you store it a year say to run a lawnmower the fuel will often screw up the machine as the fuel goes all funny from all these crappy shemicals that is in it. The product garentee for petrol from the ROI petrol stations is only three months.If I have to long term store my car I will run it on E85 to clear as much petrol from the sytem and then drain all the fuel


Petrol since then I found out is different mixes of different stuff. Simply adding more Ethanol from say 5% what most fuel has to 7% will reduce MPG .
Also many other ingredients some more expensive than others .Naphtha the good stuff is about 40% of the petrol. reducing this to 30% will return less MPG .


I haven't bothered to figure the ROI formula for petrol fuels as its all complex crap for a non chemist

Also petrol tends to be made in batches each batch can vary somewhat from another batch so no one company will ever have the exact same fuel month to month week to week.

If you can figure which fuel has the lowest or even the highest amount of Ethanol in it that fuel is more likely to be made to a lower quality spec and return the lowest MPG

I think the band for Ethanol is from 3% to 7%. this means any fuel that contains that amount of ethanol is classed as 5% ethanol fuel which is standard petrol now .Less than 3% ethanol the engine will be unhappy as it will be more prone to knock predetonation and lower MPG .Adding lead additives like they did the past would stop the knock but that now illegal and called leaded fuel and would wreck the cat .Adding extra Ethanol would also stop knock but exceeding 7% might cause issues for some engines especialy those with turbo chargers .Adding too much Ethanol can increase power of engine but reduce MPG and the muck upthe oxyegen sensor in some modern engines . Also if not made to be flex fuel car extra ethanol for the engine might have issues to supply eneogh fuel to the engine and make it run too lean and overheat engine components like turbos .

Finding a way to figure Ethanol content in fuel might give a lot of information about the likely hood the fuel is inferior quality



I will try switching to other fuels to see if there is a real difference .Tesco fuel is on my serious suspicion list


Derry

faceman

I use a fuel card so i only refuel at topaz or texaco. Before i had the card and would occasionally use Tesco i found little or no difference. And I am anal enough to note my MPG each refill!

The MPG i get when using the same filling station fluctuates from fill to fill so i cant see how a comparison can be made with another filling station if its not a controlled experiment.

colm_mcm

mcwhirter wrote: »

There used to be a petrol staion company in GB called JET. They were always cheaper than the competition and were always rumoured to be of lower quality( a bit like tescos value apple pies!). I'm not sure if there was any official investigation mind you.

There was Jet in Ireland too, they got taken over by Statoil in the mid 90's

Bandara

colm_mcm wrote: »

There was Jet in Ireland too, they got taken over by Statoil in the mid 90's

+1

I used own a Jet Station years ago.

JackFrosty

I have tried tesco petrol and Apple green petrol,
I find i get more miles to a tank on the apple green petrol!
Also the apple green station in clonmel seems to be busy all the time, sometimes there are queues for the pumps
Cant beat tesco for shopping though

eoghanmcdonnell

my uncle is a haulier and has always warned me not to use tesco petrol, i think he said that it doesn't have some stuff in it that helps keep your engine clean. his advice to me was to always use the same petrol station to fill up if you can...

dont know if its bull**** or not but its his profession so i trust him

L1011

colm_mcm wrote: »

There was Jet in Ireland too, they got taken over by Statoil in the mid 90's

I'm currently sitting 300 meters away from a Jet station, theres no "used to" about their status in the UK (I'm in Portrush right now).

Capital Slow

pred racer wrote: »

one individual in particular drives in from navan every morning and has tried tesco petrol on numerous occasions, his fill always lasts 2 weeks (excepting unusual extra journeys of course) the tesco petrol never does. still not a scientific test but I tend to believe him.

First, I think it is commonly agreed that the fuel quality should be the same day after day in the same petrol station, so one day test should provide a good representation.

I am doing quite a bit of driving to Banbridge outlet from time to time, so I did this my own back to back test with different fuels in two days. (Not one fuel on the way there and different one on the way back, cause the latitude, wind direction, road sufface can be different)

Taking all possible factors into account, I did the test on the same time of the day, same temperature, same wind direction, same wind speed, same tyre presure, same journey time, same revs, same breakfast, wearing the same cloth, same starting point (Esso Dublin airport, for a bit more detail, I used fuel bottles to carry the Tesco fuel from Clarehall to fill it in the same Esso garage).

The return journey cost me 17 litres of Tesco petrol and 19.5 of Esso.

But you do feel, on low revs, say 1000 to 2000, Esso is more powerful, feel a bit more torque, and Tesco is a bit sluggish.

Now I am using the Texaco, the reason why, it is torquey on low revs and economy on long range driving.