Scirocco Central

Hi all,
Was talking to a guy at the weekend , he reckons fuel (diesel) from supermarkets is of a poor quality, compared to fuel from regular petrol stations, he says supermarket fuel can cause log term damage to the injectors and fuel pump.......... Has anyone else heard of this?......... The guy was a minibus driver BTW!!!

Yes, I've heard this but don't believe it.

Supermarkets spend millions on their branding, they are not goiing to risk any potential bad press by selling below standard fuel.

All the fuel in the UK comes from a small number of refineries.

I do 30k miles a year and have been using Tesco petrol and diesel for the last 7 years without any issue.

Just buy whatever brand and variant that makes you happy.

Agree with Cuprabob. Heard this as well and find it very hard to believe. Bit of an old wives tale I reckon...or old minibus drivers tale?!

Given EU Standards on fuels I can't see there being difference between supermarket and 'brand' to the stage where it would damage a car.

And how "long term" was he suggesting and how would you know at that point the route cause was the fuel used?

I had a diesel BMW 118 before my Roc......tried both the supermarket fuel and the Shell V Power.....

There were slight improvements in performance with the V power (quieter running noise.....slightly quicker pick up) but not worth the 10p extra a litre IMHO!!

Never had any issue with supermarket stuff

One thing I will say though, of any fuel I would put any money on the Shell being most tested. I'm old enough to remember the fiasco in tje 80s when they launched Formula Shell petrol and it was burning holes in the valves of many cars. They denied it at first until the police got involved as they saw the problem with their fleet.

Shell will never want to go through that again

I have heard this many times. There was a forum I browsed a few years ago (can't remember which), that spoke about supermarket fuel being pumped with additives to increase the Octane number of the fuel.
The chemistry of it all sounds plausible, there was no claim it could damage your engine, just that you are likely to get lower MPGs during your journey.

I don't buy fuel from Supermarkets, and I stopped at about 2005 during that dodgy fuel saga ASDA had - when the fuel damaged catalytic converters (I think it was the Cat it got). I try to buy fuel from shell 99% of the time (personal preference)

I read an article regarding a test that was done with "supermarket" diesel and "branded diesel, they took V6 TDI Audi and three cylinders on one side running on supermarket fuel and the three on the other side running on branded fuel and ran the car for about 12,000 miles then stripped the engine. The side which ran on supermarket diesel was much dirtier than the side which was running on branded fuel. They put this down to the branded fuel having much more in the way of detergents in them, as opposed to the supermarket stuff which has little detergent added due to the cost. So based on that I only use branded fuel cos if your keeping the car a long time, it probably means less probs in the distant future! Maybe! I do know without doubt that my A4 TDI would start smoking on start up once it had been filled a couple of times at the supermarket, then once you put branded fuel in, it would eventually stop smoking on start up. The EGR valve also suffered due to this and needed cleaning. I then used branded fuel for the rest of the time I had the car and it stayed nice and clean, so, personally, I will always use branded fuel, as long as I can afford it! So as the the comment of old wives tales, it is not an old wives tale, it just that supermarket stuff does not have as much detergent in it.

Friend at work told me about this a couple of years ago, he only uses shell now he wont go near supermarket fuel. Up untill he told me , I was just using supermarket fuel in my old car. but i never sufferd from any problems whatsoever. But to be on the safe side Iv avoided it since I got my roc.

Honest John in the daily telegraph motoring section always recommends shell ultimate petrol and diesel!, especially where people have encountered poor performance, so I stick with shell!

There is the point though that vw master techs, and deisel system trainers ( who I've dealt with) all say that the cr engine should not use bio diel fuel at all and super market fuel has at least 8% bio in their fuel. I know whom I'm listening to.
Dave

Interesting comments guys, definitely something to think about, I do 50k a year in my merc vito van at work, and always fill up at Morrisons, and never had a fuel system problem, but will think twice about filling my beloved rocc up there now..

alanstead wrote: ...... it just that supermarket stuff does not have as much detergent in it.

I'm sorry alan but that detergent line just doesn't wash

I've had several derv cars & run them on both regular supermarket & vpower/ultimate & TBH, I couldn't tell the difference, other than the cost.

I ran my last car, a lupo gti on sainsbury super & v-power, the v-power made it less economical !, now when i fill my TSi its on tesco 99ron stuff, that goes quite well & I get about 370 to a tank too.

A bottle of injector cleaner every once in a while does the job I'd say.

Don't forget you can get points with shell fuel card now and cash them in for more fuel or other "rewards". Eases the pain of shelling out on V-Power somewhat

Cuprabob wrote:Supermarkets spend millions on their branding, they are not goiing to risk any potential bad press by selling below standard fuel.

Could say the same about their food brands.. didn't stop horsemeat from showing up though

cakebandit wrote:

Cuprabob wrote:Supermarkets spend millions on their branding, they are not goiing to risk any potential bad press by selling below standard fuel.

Could say the same about their food brands.. didn't stop horsemeat from showing up though

Once they found out about it, they fixed it very quickly.

cakebandit wrote:Don't forget you can get points with shell fuel card now and cash them in for more fuel or other "rewards". Eases the pain of shelling out on V-Power somewhat

Although a V-power addict myself and a rewards collector I can't argue with the wife when she points out that using a 5p per litre coupon from the checkout at Tesco, on top of already cheap fuel, saves you a lot more than any Shell points deal could

I've got the 1.4 TSi 160 and apart from its first 3 months I've run it exclusively and high octane petrol, almost always Shell V-power. Only once in that time did I have to fill up with Asda 4 star - and it was only during that following week that I had a couple of misfires / hesitation. Never had any before, never had any since.
Barring emergencies I won't be using cheap petrol again.

Do people think that supermarkets have their own wells and refineries? Or that the refineries that supply their fuel do a different batch for them than for the big brand fuel stations? Refining isn't a batch process, its continuous.

Maybe there are different additives like detergents but that’s all.

If I had seen an peer reviewed paper on the benefits or pitfalls of cheap supermarket fuel I would credit that, not subjective "seat of the pants" analysis.

I just searched Google Scholar for "Supermarket Fuel" and there is no such paper.

I work for BP.

...But surely they come from different refineries (supermarket v brands)? There must be some differences: e.g. BP and tesco don't have the same fuel in their pumps. If they do, someone is losing money, or perhaps making a smaller profit margin.

dimexi wrote:...But surely they come from different refineries (supermarket v brands)? There must be some differences: e.g. BP and tesco don't have the same fuel in their pumps. If they do, someone is losing money, or perhaps making a smaller profit margin.

Have you ever heard of a Sainsbury's, Tesco or Morrisons refinery?

The oil majors sell the same fuel to everyone. The retailers market it differently. Retail is a mugs game.

They play on emotions. People have an emotional attachment to their cars so they want to treat them well which they think they are doing by putting branded fuel in them.