and dont forget the cetane index !

The refineries store the fuels in bulk . When it sits it degrades , so the major oil companies add their own additives to bring it up to spec . If it sits too long , it is sold off to the supermarkets cheaply and receives no additives since it sold by price not quality . Good fuel will keep your car in fair better shape .
The best solution by far is to add "millers diesel power ecomax" to your tank . This stuff truly is a miraculous product . Better economy , power , torque , smoothness , the list is endless . £10 gets you ten tanks of additive . My and my mate's L322 are truly transformed into different vehicles . Read the reviews on Google if you doubt me .

Do you know, and I guess this is related, how they sell beer cheap in Wetherspoons? Land Rover Addict
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Apologies if this has already been done but for those of you that don't know, you can sign up to this link quickly and for free and it will send you weekly updates via email as to where the cheapest fuel is within your specified radius to your nominated postcode.

I signed up years ago and never actualy bother looking at the incoming emails anymore but it's another tool for anyone interested I suppose.

http://www.petrolprices.com/

As above Supermarket fuel with millers diesel power ecomax or similar should be great, as is SHELL, BP. TEXACO etc - its Supermarket fuel on its own that has no additives...

I love the internet....

Quote:

I worked for a fuel terminal company. This is how it works: Fuel is delivered in a very small number of pipelines. Terminals are the giant circular tanks that get their product directly from pipelines. If you're on the east coast, it's one of two pipelines. West coast, similar situation, different lines. The lines ship Premium, Regular, Diesel, and Jet fuel. Midgrade is a mixture Regular and Premium made at the time a tanker truck fills up at a terminal.

There are a handful of tanker truck operators in a given geographic area. Some consumer fuel providers, like Exxon, may have their own fleet of trucks. In any case, here's the important part. Every time a tanker truck driver (or the dispatcher) is tasked with obtaining fuel from a terminal, they select from the lowest price available among the local terminals. It's all the same fuel. They fill up the truck, and then deliver this fuel to the gas stations they service. The gas station owner does not care where the fuel came from.

Like in other businesses, there may be competitive agreements in place where, for instance, one tanker company gets a deal if they do business with one particular terminal. That has no effect at all on the fuel - remember - it's all the same fuel. If one terminal is out of Regular at the moment, the tanker drives to the next one and get Regular there.

What about additives? One particularly popular "special gas" sold by a particular company just contains two times the amount of the normal additive. This is keyed in by the tanker truck driver before he fills up the tanker at a terminal. Though the marketing for this particular product leads you to believe it's their own additive, it's not. It's the same as everybody else's, just twice as much.

Thats a USA statement but it just confirms what 50% have been saying its all in the additives. Better to get more additives than less or none....

By the way those of you that have never added an additive try it (I suggest BG244) you can notice the difference after only a few miles.... (Don't knock it till you try it)

Yep - it's the additive, but ALL fuel must conform to the standards. I did read somewhere that the best place to buy fuel from is a busy petrol station as fuel goes 'off'. So if you think about it - well where I live at least, the supermarkets will be busier than say the expensive place next to the motorway exit.... Land Rover Addict
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I can't speak to the additives, but the advice I always got was to use a popular filling station that had a lot of customers. That meant a good turnover and fresh fuel that wasn't laying around getting contaminated.

I don't really subscribe to the 'most often used station' theory, and here's why from recent experience.

A few months ago I bought a motorhome from Germany. Typically, it needed fuel (diesel) so we stopped at a busy and large station near the dealer. It was an unknown brand to me - Raiffeisen - and we needed a full tank.

So we drove away and ran quite happily for a good 7 hours until we needed fuel again. This time a Texaco station in Belgium.

I'd say within 10 minutes of leaving that second fuel stop, I noticed a definite improvement in the engine's performance. Definitely felt more 'alive'. Better response, smoother.

It's just my experience, but it backed up what I've always believed about using fuel from 'premium' suppliers. Si. <This is my name.

I eat rat poison.

A man ain't truly been insulted until he stands buck naked in front of a woman and she didn't even notice. Or care.

DMRR wrote:

Do you know, and I guess this is related, how they sell beer cheap in Wetherspoons?

So that explains why I had to spend the next day in bed after those 10 pints of Christmas Stella. I'd assumed that I must have had a dirty glass....  2006 4.2 SC
2019 Renault Zoe Dynamique Nav

Q: Do Witherspoons sell out of date beer?

A: "No they don't, but they do sell beer very close to its use by date. By purchasing large quantities of beer very close to its use by date they get it at rock bottom prices, part of this massive saving is passed onto the consumer. There is however a big BUT! There is a difference between best before and use by! The beer can be past its best before but not past its use by so it might taste and smell a bit rubbish but it is still safe to drink."

Supermarket fuel can also be past its "Best" I guess....

unless you have documented proof i really cant see how you can claim that supermarkets supply 'near to sell by date' fuel and thats why its not as good as branded fuel...i would have thought that a small shell/bp etc garage in a village somewhere would have older fuel in its tanks because of a small customer base whereas supermarkets have a very large turnover so you always get fresh fuel.

all fuel must be supplied to british standards and is the same from branded suppliers and from supermarkets, the only difference is the additives and the fact that supermarkets sell at a smaller profit to entice you to their stores...branded suppliers charge more for their fuel and additives because of their convenient locations and that there will always be someone that buys from m&s rather than asda attitude..
if anyone thinks that theirs makes a difference then buy from them and line their already fat pockets...

for the majority of consumers , paying less for fuel does make a difference to the economics of running a car but if you can afford it and you think branded fuel is better then buy from the branded suppliers..

Having tracked my fuel for two years I can safely say it matters not where I fill up, it's just my driving style/tyres that affect my MPG. The whole 'it feels better' thing is something Main Dealers use when they service your car - anyone noticed how they make a big thing out of cleaning the vehicle for you? Land Rover Addict
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