More Bang for your £

[Stevey Y]

Hello Ladies and Gents.

I had just dropped a fare at the local Asda the other day when I saw one of my fellow drivers who now owns a cracking 19 plate A6 saloon filling up with good old City Diesel, sacrilege I thought,  which drew me back many years to a fare I had from Heathrow, it was the usual carnage on a Friday rush hour and we got caught on the way back by the usual accident at the Holmesdale tunnel therefore an hour later we were still in a queue of static traffic so I sparked up a conversation by asking what he did for a living, he replied that he was a blending chemist for Shell at which point most others would have shut up, but I just had to ask what that involved he then proceeded to tell me all about it and was quite proud of the fact he had quite a large role in developing V power petrol/diesel which was reasonably new to the market.

He asked me what fuel I used in the taxi, supermarket fuel I replied, he pulled a face and went on to explain that most supermarket fuel was bought on the spot markets and then shipped in to the country and after weights and measures had tested it to make sure it was diesel/petrol they were allowed to blend down by twenty percent, this is how they make more from less and a profit margin, blending down involved using a light paraffin and detergents, the by product of this was that the fuel still achieved the B.S. cetane rating but rather than burn slowly and efficiently it basically just goes bang.

The V Power apparently burns more slowly and leaves less unburnt fuel in the cylinders, the deal was he invited me to fill up with V Power when possible and if I was not happy with the results after a hundred miles I could present him with the receipt and without quibbling he would give me the price of the tank back, I tried it a couple of weeks later when I got near a Shell garage in Southend, twenty miles later the car was running like a steam train after emitting a large cloud of smoke at the half way point, needless to say I never did go back and see him and I was getting as promised more MPG a quieter engine and less oil contamination, the last two cars I had did 570,000 between them and never had new injectors or fuel pumps run on either Shell/Esso standard fuel or the premium of both.

I am convinced that if I run my Audi on the same I can expect the same longevity from the fuel system, especially as most Euro 5/6 engines have piezo injectors which to be honest are about as highly strung as it gets, the injection Venturi are about four microns which if you consider a human hair is six microns, that is very small and won't take a lot to block up and destroy the spray pattern, so if you consider the ten pence extra per gallon that will still not come to the same price during ownership as a new fuel pump and injectors plus fitting.

[dalswinton]

Hi,

That's interesting, as a couple of years ago, i was in my friends garage, & he showed me 2 fuel filters,

one from his own car, (a vw golf diesel) & one from a taxi, ( another diesel) which they had just serviced,

the contents of the  filter from the taxi was nearly black in colour, where as the filter from the golf was  quite 

clear, the taxi had always filled up at Tesco's, but my friend always went to Shell, Esso, or BP to fillup.

I have owned vw & Audi cars for the past 30 years, & have always avoided Tesco's etc.

to date i have had no fuel problems with any of my cars.

[Stevey Y]

Hi Brian,

Thank you for describing your experience, I have no doubt that a lot of people would think my post was a deranged rambling, but it is based on solid research based on what the customer had told me, the only thing I have ever put in with the fuel on my cars is a product from a company called Hydra, its an additive that contains an upper cylinder  lubricant and a mild cleaner for the fuel system as well as a cetane booster, it seems to work well especially during the winter.

When I first used my Audi in very cold conditions I found it took ages for the temperature gauge to rise despite having driven two or three miles, the additive seems to help with that as it makes the fuel burn a tad hotter, the mystery of it all was finally solved by a Ford engineer who I was talking to at a barbecue in between lockdowns he explained that diesel and petrol engines work far better at higher temperatures but the downside of that is they produce far more Nox and Hydrocarbons, this did not please the friends of the earth so with the constant race to produce low emissions the only way they could do this was make the engines especially the diesels run a lot cooler this was achieved by putting in massive radiators, liquid cooled EGR valves and in the case of Audi quite complex thermostatic control of the engine coolant, oh and of course Adblue. hence the auxiliary cabin heater because of the cold factor.

Regards Steve

[audia4b5kev]

tesco fuel  is pants   make  car  run ruff  as  ffff    some  jet fuel   c  r a p to

[Stevey Y]

Hi Kev, it all comes down to the old saying, cheap aint necessarily good, and you are bang on with the Jet fuel its another spot market purchasing company, there is always the element who will say I always use supermarket fuel and have not had any problems, these fall into two categories they either have a car thats about ten years old and done about 30k or they hand it back to the lease company every two years..

I see from your list you like an Audi or two, good luck to you.