Hi,
I have just joined the site...howdy all.
I am picking up a nearly new L405 SDV8 Autobiography next week.
The owners manual (which I got today) states I should fill her up with premium diesel.
Is this right or is regular diesel OK?
Thanks.

I haven't read my manual then because I haven't seen that!

I have done c 9,000m in a year on boggo diesel and haven't had a problem.

I have looked at the online Owner's Handbook. It says this:

Quote:

DIESEL ENGINED VEHICLES

Use only high quality diesel fuel in accordance with European Standard EN590 or equivalent

Do not use RME (bio-diesel) except in the case of those proprietary diesel fuels which contain a mix of up to 7%. Land Rover can accept no responsibility for damage caused by using RME in concentrations greater than 7%

The quality of diesel fuel is variable, depending on geographic location. Always use premium or the highest quality fuel available in your locality. High quality fuel promotes a longer life for your engine components. Lower grade fuel contains higher levels of sulphur, which is detrimental to engine components. If low quality fuel is used, light coloured smoke may be evident at the exhaust

Prolonged use of additives is not recommended

Do not add paraffin or petrol to diesel fuels

If you inadvertently fill your vehicle with petrol instead of diesel, do not attempt to start the engine. Contact your Dealer/ Authorised Repairer immediately

Land Rover can accept no responsibility for any damage caused by running your vehicle with fuel other than those stipulated

Thank you EM, you're a star.
Much appreciated.
Tony

Premium diesel makes a difference to the pick up and refinement, I have used standard, standard with additives and premium and notice the difference with premium.

Performance is important to me and the big V8 diesel goes better on it, mpg exactly the same though so its a pay for the privilege situation.

Subjective I know, but I can tell so have switched. It takes 2-3 tanks for the car to fully adjust so allow for that.

Who sells the premium diesel then? My local Esso garage and pretty well others I use only have 1 diesel option, i.e. each pump has an Unleaded, Super Unleaded and Diesel nozzle? I'm used to the RON rating for unleaded fuels but haven't seen a pump with 2 diesel nozzles to give me a cheap/more expensive choice. Steve

Main car : FFRR L405 Vogue SDV8
Other car : Vauxhall Lotus Carlton
Past cars : FFRR L322 Vogue TD6 SE (Sept 2006 MY07) ; LandCruiser SWB ; 4-Runner ; Supras; XJS V12 LeMans

They all sell both most places i fill up sir... Only usually small family owned outfits that don’t bother these days? Could that be why?

Esso do a supreme diesel but the proper ones that are a different manufacturing process are BP Ultimate and Shell V Power Nitro

Both a good 8p to 12p a litre more where I live but worth it I feel

charly, this past thread on premium/ branded fuel versus supermarket fuel might be of some interest to you.



http://www.fullfatrr.com/forum/topic22856....p;start=60

Thanks PLD.
Much appreciated,
Tony

I'm still unconvinced on this one - maybe I'm not sensitive enough.

I tried Shell Optimax or Nitro or whatever it was called on my mapped 3.6 TDV8 and couldn't tell the difference.

I'm off to France next week, so may treat myself to a few tank fulls in the SDV8 as it's a double win - diesel is cheaper in France & the Euro is weak at the moment - it's been a few years since I last saw 1.4 to the pound

Cheers Craig - strange , I'll check around the pumps when I put some in tomorrow, unless one of the pumps has different diesel to the others as at both the main places I go to (Esso and Tesco), there is only 1 diesel nozzle on each side of each of the pumps . There's also a BP garage a bit further away, so I may check that. Or maybe it really is 'grim up North!'  Steve

Main car : FFRR L405 Vogue SDV8
Other car : Vauxhall Lotus Carlton
Past cars : FFRR L322 Vogue TD6 SE (Sept 2006 MY07) ; LandCruiser SWB ; 4-Runner ; Supras; XJS V12 LeMans

Whenever possible I use Shell V Power or BP Ultimate super diesel, partly on the basis of "only the best for my baby" and partly because on the 4.4 petrol I found that I got noticeably better mpg and performance with their super unleaded, especially the Shell. On one occasion travelling up the A9 I had the "current mpg" display on the screen before and after filling up at a filling station that had only ordinary petrol. With the same speeds set on the cruise control the mpg was a fair bit lower after filling up than before, when the tank contained only Shell V Power. I have rarely used ordinary diesel, but when I have (Mull and Wester Ross) I found that the tank seemed to empty more quickly than usual, though stop-start driving on single track roads may have contributed to this. My RR handbook recommends that "high grade" fuel be used when towing, which also suggests that better fuel will make a difference.
A friend with a Freelander reported that his car stopped working during one of the cold winters about 4 years ago when he was at his house high up in the Cairngorm national park. The car was removed to a garage in Grantown, where several others of various makes were similarly affected. The common factor was supermarket diesel which had sludged in the cold temperatures. Only Range Rovers since 1988

I second the benefit in the 4.4, it makes a difference.

I used to fill up the petrol 4.2 SC with Shell V Power Nitro+ every time.

My perception was that the car ran velvet smooth. I didn't monitor any mpg matters.

Then, approaching 20k miles and 2 years worth of using pretty much only V Power Nitro+, the car started idling a bit rough, intermittently but regularly showed system too rich warnings.

Then, someone told me that in fact "it's too much" to use Nitro+ and the like for every fill up. I was advised that once every few fills is enough.

Anyway, I took the advice and the system rich, then system lean warnings stopped almost overnight.

As has been said to me on many occasions, I'm no rocket scientist... but make of that what you will.