Supermarket fuel

[Jolie Fleur]

Is supermarket fuel in France as good as the big brand names? I found my car became sluggish and on the verge of stalling after filling it at Le Clerc. It seems fine now since returning to the UK and filling with Texaco fuel.

[Ron Avery]

Is supermarket fuel in France as good as the big brand names?  

  Yes, but it pays to change  supplier from time to time, it all comes from the same refineries, its how its stored that matters.

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

Use supermarket fuel 90% of the time, never had a problem with it.

[Val_2]

Been using it all the time here,refuse to pay a higher price from brand name and never had a problem with it.Once the local Super U filled ALL their tanks with diesel by mistake and had to pay for all the petrol engines to be sorted out but that was a once off.

[Baz]

Whilst my comments refer to the UK, I have no reason to believe that it is any different in France.

 

There is nothing wrong with supermarket fuel and on the surface it would appear to be to be cheaper than the branded suppliers. However, the branded companies add additives to their fuel that make it different from the unbranded suppliers. The additives are supposed to be better for the engines and produce more miles to a tank full.

 

 I have in the past checked my mileage in a newish car filling up with BP and as they advertise you do get more miles to each tank full. Over a number of fillings I found that I was getting between 35 and 40 miles more with their petrol against the supermarket brands. This equates to a saving at today’s prices of about £5.30 per filling, so is buying the supermarket petrol cheaper and are the additives better for your vehicle?

 

Baz

[Beemer1150]

Interesting...  I used supermarket 98 octane in the UK because the car definately ran better than on the 95 octane. It seemed to have more torque at low revs and was smoother at higher revs but I was never able to detect any mileage difference.

Retiring over here cost became more important, and so we switched back to the recommended 95 from (mainly) Super-U... and the car seems to run better here on 95 than it did on 98 in the UK!

Subjective, maybe, but there's a 2 - 3 mpg improvement too. Could it be the climate, the 90kph limit or the flatter countryside in 17 than in Devon? No idea, but it certainly saves money!

I recall a motorcycle magazine (Bike?) running comparative tests on 95/98 a few years back - as I recall they found no difference on carb-fed bikes, virtually nothing on earlier injected ones and a more noticeable change with later, more adaptive engine management systems. Perhaps the same holds true for the difference between suppliers - the more sophisticated engine management systems can make better use of a particular fuel?

[Sunday Driver]

[quote user="Beemer1150"]

Could it be the climate, the 90kph limit or the flatter countryside in 17 than in Devon?

[/quote]

When I were a lad, the quoted optimum speed for fuel consumption in all the car brochures was a steady 56mph = 90kph.

Plus France has a more fluid traffic management infrastructure (more traffic blending slip roads, less traffic lights, less stop-starts), less congestion, ....

 

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

[quote user="Sunday Driver"][quote user="Beemer1150"]

Could it be the climate, the 90kph limit or the flatter countryside in 17 than in Devon?

[/quote]

When I were a lad, the quoted optimum speed for fuel consumption in all the car brochures was a steady 56mph = 90kph.

Plus France has a more fluid traffic management infrastructure (more traffic blending slip roads, less traffic lights, less stop-starts), less congestion, ....

 

[/quote]

Could never understand that. Surely going at a constant 30mph has to use less fuel than going at a higher speed? The more work something does, the more energy it uses. Basic physics.

[Brilec]

[quote user="LyndaandRichard"]Surely going at a constant 30mph has to use less fuel than going at a higher speed? The more work something does, the more energy it uses. Basic physics.
[/quote]

That also depends on which gear you have to use at 30mph/50kph.

My car will only run in third gear at best at that speed. It is far more economic to run in 5th at 55mph.

[Beemer1150]

... and when mpg was quoted at 56mph I bought a new 1100cc Fiat Uno that couldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding, let alone the small trailer tent I wanted to tow!

I went to my main dealer: 'They all do that sir! It's so they can get stupid official economy figures at 56mph... I can't tell you this officially, but go to Bloggs and Co, carb specialists, and ask Jim...'

Jim at Bloggs and Co: 'Put this richer jet in the second choke of your carb... £2.50, thank you.'

Half-an-hour's work and the next day I had the quickest 1100cc Uno in the West Country... towed the trailer like a dream too, as the second choke on the carb actually did something useful!

Fuel economy unchanged in normal use - but higher when you wanted some oomph. About 3 mpg down when pressing on and using the second choke - but still 50mpg+ touring France on the first choke!

Bikers will also have experienced the 'hole' in their torque/power curve - yep, it's at the revs where they measure the noise levels!

We're all victims of Government regs, and manufacturers' attempts to circumvent them. Thank goodness for the independant specialists!

Growing old disgracefully in 17...

 

 

[Beemer1150]

Sorry, forgot to add:

'But you're absolutley right SD - the traffic pattern in France is so different, you can drift along on a whiff of throttle, hardly touch the brakes - and very rarely get involved in a traffic light Grand Prix...!'

[Anton Redman]

But the engine is running for a lot more time if it is running at 30 rather than 55. Some years ago Autocar tested a Geek spec Ford Cortina with an 1100 cc engine versus the 1300 cc and 1500 cc. 1500 cc used less fuel averaging the same MPH in real world conditions.

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

[quote user="Brilec"]

[quote user="LyndaandRichard"]Surely going at a constant 30mph has to use less fuel than going at a higher speed? The more work something does, the more energy it uses. Basic physics.

[/quote]

That also depends on which gear you have to use at 30mph/50kph.

My car will only run in third gear at best at that speed. It is far more economic to run in 5th at 55mph.

[/quote]

What about if you run it at a speed in 3rd gear where it is comfortable for the engine, ie it's not doing so much work, or running at the same revs as it would at 56mph in 5th? It has to use less fuel as the engine is doing less work.

[inkflo]

My hubby used to work for a very large & famous petrol supplier in the UK.

He used to have a smile when people told him their preferences for the various brands of fuel because they all came from the same tank at the refinery and back at the depot, & if he had multiple deliveries the same fuel would go into different garages with different brand names!

[Beemer1150]

Inkflo, why doesn't that surprise me!

 

[inkflo]

Probably for the same reason that re cycling in the UK is a farce.

Our bin men used to tell people off if they put even a teabag in the paper & cardboard bin, then one of them quietly pointed out to us that when it got to the tip, all of the bins got tipped onto the same pile as they hadn't got the staff or the facilities to seperate it!

Not that I'm saying that happens everywhere of course, but I know it's not the only area that does it.

[andyh4]

If you think about it, BP are hardly likely to supply a BP station in Southampton from their Grangemouth refinery while Esso have to supply their Falkirk station from Fawley.  They each get their fuel from the nearest refinery irrespective of who owns it.  The same happens in France and everywhere else.  Swap deals are the daily currency of the oil industry.

 

When I was in the UK you could do a badge count of the tankers lined up at the local refinery.  BP, Shell, Esso, ICI, unbranded, Q8, etc.  Only one I never saw was the refinery owner itself - Phillips.

[Alan Zoff]

I remember reading a very technical report that said - among lots of other stuff, forgotten or more likely not understood - that there is great flexibility in way the RON (octane rating) is calculated by fuel companies. So much so that no two samples from the same pump will be the same if there has been a new delivery in between filling up, and in some cases a 98 RON fuel can be very close in practice to a 95 RON. Some engines don't much like running at the lower end of the range (and it can be difficult to retard ignition on modern computer-controlled vehicles) so they will perform consistently better if the higher grade is used. On others, it will be a waste of money to pay for the higher grade.

Might be worth writing to one of the supermarket "own brand" suppliers to ask them if they will guarantee that their petrol is in every way as good as Shell, Esso and BP and does not suffer by comparison due to an absence of the additives the main brands claim to incorporate in their fuels.

 

[Baz]

Whether or not fuel for all companies comes out the same tank at the refineries at what time are the additives added?  Last year in the UK, BP ran an advertising campaign at their petrol stations stating that up to 30 miles extra would be achieved on a tankful of their petrol. There is no way that  Advertising Standards would allow that statement if not true, so fuel delivered to say supermarkets cannot be  the same. Also some supermarkets had contaminated petrol last year that cost them millions of pounds to rectify, the branded Stations were not effected, so supplies at the refineries must have come from different holding tanks.

Baz