Since buying my 4.4 TDV8 I have used premium diesel at £1.62 per litre.
Am I throwing money away doing this and should use the cheaper grade?
What is your opinion? Dec 2011 L322 Range Rover Vogue SE TDV8 Orkney Grey/Sand leather

many, many threads re this...

some like the branded stuff saying it has more additives and some say [me] that they have used supermarket fuel all the time with no adverse affects..

your choice ... ... - .- -.




Y. O. L. O.
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You may well have opened a proverbial can of worms here Buellie!

We are gluttons for punishment and have two L322 4.4 TdV8's, both late 2010 and both bought with just over 70k (miles) on the clock. Both have been owned for over 4 years, one has 103k on the clock, the other has 115k. However, one of them (wife's) only does short journeys with the occasional longer trip (mostly 7 miles from home to work and back with cold starts at each end). The other (mine) generally does longer journeys (probably over 50 miles each way minimum with odd trip to Scotland, and the occasional short journey). I have always used premium fuel and changed oil (again premium brand) and filter every 7500 miles, neither car has ever exhibited any dpf issues in our ownership.

I have no doubt many will say that all fuel has to conform to the relevant Standard and I'm sure it does, and that therefore you can use anything generally available. I'm not so sure, there's nothing to prevent fuel exceeding the relevant Standards. Fuel stock probably starts as all the same, but I'll put pound to a penny that once branded it has different additives.

Obviously I can only speak from my experience, and this is simply what I do. But so far no issues. Drives:
2010 FFRR TdV8 Vogue - Stornoway Grey
2010 FFRR TdV8 Vogue SE - Zermatt Silver
1998 BMW E36 M3 GTII

It's arguable that choosing to own an L322 is throwing money away......
I've never seen any advantages to premium fuel nor any disadvantages to using standard fuel. For certain any small mpg gains on premium fuel never offset the extra cost of the fuel over standard. 2012 TDV8 Vogue (L322)

I've never used premium fuels since selling my S4, it never made any difference to be honest, I think I just perceived it was running better so I could justify the extra cost to myself. My E320 CDI which was chipped to the max and with no DPF was like Thomas the Tank engine when you put you floored it. No difference whatever fuel I used.

All other cars I've used supermarket fuel, Costco if I'm in the area, Sainsbury's or Morrisons. I don't know why, must have read a scare story a long time back but I've always avoided ASDA & Tesco.

I have no proof of course either way, just me doing what I do because I'm difficult I guess. But if I had very deep pockets I probably would by premium fuel just for the hell of it.

Andy Fuji White / Jet 2012 4.4 TDV8 Westminster

I have personally used branded fuel but never the plus or premium, just standard Maxol, Circle K or Texaco. I have never had an issue with any car, diesel or petrol. in my job I do meet a lot of mechanics and I have had many say that Korean cars especially suffer from lower grade fuel and that often a car comes in with an issue and they would ask where do you fill up and inevitably its some small station with a cheap low cost fuel.

One mechanic would say, fill up in circle k or similar for a couple of weeks and see how you get on and often that would fix the lumpy running. I have also worked for a company with 500 french vans filling up at low cost stations and we did have a lot of injector issues.

So Im wondering, for all that people give out about land rover, maybe they have a better fuelling system that can handle all sorts of fuel without getting damaged. The difference between a working injector and a faulty one is a few microns of materials. One of my customers is an injector specialist and he demonstrated the injectors to me in his workshop. Its amazing how small the debris has to be to mess up the fuelling system.

On a last note, in Ireland there is only one main fuelling station for all brands. By all accounts from what I have been told the budget brand gets the same fuel as the premium brand, the only difference is the truck driver add the fuel additives on loading, has anyone else heard that? Current yokes
2012 4.4 TDV8 Westminster
2006 Disco 3
Scoobie GT wagon
Mx5 G Ltd
TT S Line
Pajero JDM Exceed

I used to live in Milford Haven where a lot of refineries are, Texaco, Murco, Gulf etc. You'd be surpirsed to see who fills up their tankers there.

There are certainly differences in grade and octane / cetane levels per tank, tankers have seperate tanks internally for each grade they're carrying.

But which refinery the big suppliers source their fuel before delivering to the local forecourt gets it is all a bit suspect in my view. Fuji White / Jet 2012 4.4 TDV8 Westminster

+1 @AndtRoo
My Dad was a tanker driver, I have always used Supermarket fuel 2018 SE SDV8 4.4 Byron Blue

Just my input based on my own experience ;

Covering some 2.1million miles with 7 x diesels I never once had any issues with any fuel system components (apart from changing fuel filters during servicing).

Always used branded fuel, early days with Millers Additive latter days with a dose of mineral two-stroke.

Paid a little more for day to day running but no big bills.

Your choice of course (& also your fuel system/wallet).

And I've said this before, but of 1.2mi miles, probably by now around 800K of those have been in diesels. Always run on the cheapest fuel I can find at any given time.

Not one fuel-related or fuel-system related issue on any vehicle, a number of which I've done 6-figure mileages in.

Having worked with refineries and distribution terminals including three of the largest in the country by delivered volume, the only fuel I'd pay extra for is Tesco Momentum 99 (if running a petrol vehicle with fuel-adaptive mapping) as it's the only premium fuel of either type I've seen exceed its stated specification on every single tanker load.

Bear in mind a couple of things:
- tanked fuel is blended to base specification for all retailers in tanks of hundreds of thousands of litres
- the difference in tanker loads is made by retailer-specific additive packs injected inline with the fuel flow at the filling outlets in the loading bays
- those additive packs are injected in tiny quantities (i.e. a maximum concentration of 250ml in 1000L delivered at outlet)[/list] 2012 (L322) 4.4TDV8 Vogue SE, RSE, Fuji White over Arabica.
Previous V8s: BMW 645Ci, P38 4.6, P38 4.0, Merc CL500
Previous others: Honda x1, Volvo x7, Rover x6, BMW x6, Ford x1, Mercedes x2, Skoda x3, VW x2, Renault x2, Citroen x1, Mazda x3, Nissan x1, Audi x3, Kia x1, Fiat x4, Subaru x3, Austin x2, Triumph x2, Jeep x2, Hyundai x2, Lexus x1, Mitsubishi x1, Saab x2... and some others I've forgotten!

I go for the cheapest fuel as well. Never in my 40 years of car/lorry/bike driving/riding life I've used "super" fuel for running on day to day bases.
My 2007 van gets the same diesel as the L322. Never had an engine problem because of fuel as far as I know. (come to think of it, I never had an engine blow up/lock up on me apart from a 50 year old moped and I ran that as if I'd nicked it !

Im a short journey cheap fuel man myself - never actually had any problems, although I do 6 monthly oil changes. Geoff

So basically put in whatever fuel makes YOU happy....  Pete
__________________________________________________
2014 L405 Autobiography SDV8 4.4 Loire Blue Ebony interior
2011 L322 Vogue SE 4.4 TDV8 Baltic Blue. Parchment over Navy Interior. Sold
2012 L322 Autobiography 5.0 Supercharged Ipanema Sand, Jet Interior. Sold
2002 L322 Vogue 4.4 V8 Epson Green, Ivory over Aspen Interior (Fatty Offroader) Sold
-Click for Project Fatty off roader-

I wonder is the age of the fuel station more important than the fuel itself? As in older stations having potential water ingress into the system? Or again could it be people running their cars near empty all the time and building up condensation in the tanks consistently for years and years? I try to keep the RR between half and 3/4s full as shes only used a few times a week.

Some manufacturers just had fuel system issues too. The Mk4 golf had a huge amount of injector failures and Mercedes have had a lot of issues with Ad Blue I believe. Current yokes
2012 4.4 TDV8 Westminster
2006 Disco 3
Scoobie GT wagon
Mx5 G Ltd
TT S Line
Pajero JDM Exceed

I have only recently bought my first Range Rover so can't comment on that. I have had Diesel Volvo V70 D5, and Renault Scenic 1.9dci, and done over 300,000 kms in each. Note this was in France. I mainly used Supermarket fuel as that was all I had locally. I did notice a difference when using premium fuel. Quieter and noticeable power difference.

I found that in both cars the injectors really benefited from a clean, so something was making them dirty in the first place. I service the cars twice as often as recommended, with quality oil, new filters etc, mainly to look after the turbos.

I even noticed that one particular Supermarket fuel (the cheapest) was worse than the others in terms of rougher running.

Since cleaning the injectors and running premium fuel every few tankfulls, and using injector cleaner in the tank , also every few tankfuls, both cars run better and deliver better mileage.

I'm now living in Switzerland and there seems to be only one kind of Diesel, although each brand claims theirs is best etc, but there is no normal and premium at the pumps. This is Switzerland so I'm assuming it's all "Premium". Still, after the first couple of tanks of fuel in my Range Rover, I added some injector cleaner (1 litre for around 40 litres of fuel) as a precaution. No noticeable difference in driving, so injectors were probably OK. I'll check if it makes any difference on fuel economy.