I fill up when I need at the nearest possible station. Don't care about the logo above the till. Petrol is petrol IMO
Travelling across Germany last year my brother insisted on filling up with Shell V-power Racing (at nigh on £2 a litre). We'd pull up together and fill both bikes at the same time, then take it in turns to pay. When it was my turn to fill up I just picked normal unleaded. At the end of the trip my brother had to concede that there was no difference at all in performance or economy, and no longer bothers with premium fuel. Strangely though, back in the day my Fizzie ran far better on 3 star...
Was speaking to an engineer at one of the big oil firms (was in the labs doing in-process analysis), and he put it in basic terms that the fuel is all the same (octane vs octane), but the supermarkets get it straight from distillation, then slightly more and better additives are included as the premium brand tankers are filled. should give cleaner engine, less deposits, etc, so is likely to be a long term benefit. the ethanol argument seems a reasonably valid point, we are yet to see the true fallout from increasing ethanol content (legend or actual).
For the extra £50 a year I pay for the higher grade I dont think its worth the risk and if its an urban myth its bugger all to waste.
It really isn't urban myth. The evidence is out there, just Google it. The whole ethanol thing is a giant con. The government likes it coz it means fossil fuels will last a while longer. The oil companies really like it as they can claim it's not their fault, they were forced to do it by the government and the green lobby, all the while making higher profits by cutting down on the expensive stuff and substituting it with cheaper material. And its going to get worse. We currently have around 5% ethanol and there's talk of it going up to 15 gradually.
Adding 5% ethanol will indeed stretch the fossil fuels 5% further, so how is that a "con" exactly? And why do you suggest ethanol is cheaper - I thought it was more expensive. There have been numerous threads about ethanol in petrol, in fact the topic has been almost done to death. I anyone has experienced problems (and I mean real actual problems, not just speculative waffle) with their petrol tanks, pumps, pipes or injectors caused by ethanol - I would be very interested to hear about them. As far as I know there aren't any at least not yet.
There have been several claims in america for Ducati tanks (as claimed on forums like multistrada.net, ducati.ms, etc), but then they have a higher percentage of ethanol in their fuel, and I know of no-one in the UK that's had problems.
Worked in the oil industry, down stream, for the last 15 years. And the above is correct, apart from I can't say about at which point Super market fuel is drawn. All fuel, supermarket and branded stations, all complies to a British Standard specification. As with all specifications, there is a tolerance allowed. Generally, supermarket fuel will just meet the lower tolerance of the BS spec, branded fuels will be in the higher end of the tolerance. Branded fuels do carry more of the expensive additives, hence part of the reason for branded fuels costing more than supermarket. This is a fact. The subjective element, is if you can feel a genuine difference in the real world.
There's plenty of cases. You just need to look for them. There have been issues on some cars with just the pipe that connects from the filler to the tank deteriorating, and that doesn't even come in to contact for long.
i think that unless your engine is either designed or set up to take advantage of higher octane fuel then youre just wasting money..ive owned performance cars that were super unleaded only and noticed a big difference when using regular fuel (essentially rough running and pinking)...however the other way around ive never noticed any difference..in actual fact i had to fill my 916 with super the other day...guess how many miles i got out of an entire tank? no..it was 80!!!! by that estimation, if one filled a 1098 with super you'd probably get about 60 miles!
not maybe relevant in this discussion but with regard to diesels premium fuels are meant to be higher in cetane. my hdi sounds quieter on premium. one area they do seem alot better than supermarket fuels is cold weather performance. a driving instructor friend used cheap cheap diesel and the car chugged it last cold winter we had. citroen ds3, citroen dealer fixed it and said it waxed up or something. he still uses cheap diesel but the slightest cold snap of weather and hes on premium lol. it cost him lost revenue.
