Scirocco Central

Hi Guys,

Would it be better (performance & cost wise) to use the premium petrols in a 122bhp Scirocco?

I think the only difference you will notice is that your wallet will be a lot lighter.

it got 3 to 4 MPG more with Vpower in my old 2.0tsi and the car was a bit quicker, and ive only ever put vpower in the R so no idea if it makes any difference in the R

Shell's V-power hasn't been what it used to be for a while now:

http://www.shell.com/static/fin/downloa ... r_2011.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

(A typical value is RON 98,8 while the requirement is RON 98 or greater).

I filled up today and it cost me £64 for 99! Not sure if its makes any difference but once in a while doesn't do any harm!

Its worth using a busy shell garage if you must use 98 as if it doesnt sell much 98 then it sits around and looses its potency making it more like 95 !!, i use Tesco 99 which seems OK and it seems to sell quickly.

There's not a lot of point in putting V-power in every now and then. It can take a couple of tank fulls to clear our the 4 star and for your engine to adjust to the change in fuel.
I'm not sure whether it will make any difference on the 122 bhp 1.4 but on my 160 bhp I logged the mpg for a while on 4 star before starting to put in V-power (or Tesco 99) and found that the extra mpg more than offset the higher price, but not by a lot. I probably do get more power out of it too but that's harder to measure.
What Shaun says about high octane fuels loosing their potency is true but how do you rate a busy garage. I would suggest that a garage in a more affluent area would sell more V-power than a busy garage in a poorer location. I'm not sure how fast these fuels do degrade and whether it is dependant upon other factors like temperature, barometric pressure or how empty the tanks in the garage are allowed to go before they are topped up

I conducted a simple test a few years ago. On a normally aspirated 1.4L VW Golf engine I found that Shell V-Power gave a 7% improvement in fuel economy over a standard fuel, more than compensating for the higher price (then 4%).

Subsequent changes in V-Power's composition and aging degradation aside, I wouldn't say you'll be any worse off financially for using V-Power.

rococco wrote:I conducted a simple test a few years ago. On a normally aspirated 1.4L VW Golf engine I found that Shell V-Power gave a 7% improvement in fuel economy over a standard fuel, more than compensating for the higher price (then 4%).

Your test makes very interesting reading and no doubt applies to many other cars too.
However I would question whether the normally aspirated engine was actually capable of benefiting from 99RON fuel. Secondly I would think judging exactly when the fuel gauge needle is on half is subject to some degree of error. A car could easily travel 25 Km (375Km - 350Km) without any discernible movement of the needle.
But interesting reading all the same.

If your car is set up to use super u/l, after a remap for example, it can be worthwhile putting Tescos finest in. Ecus adapt to better fuel eventually, but it adapts back to standard fuel very quickly, it's part of the safety parameters in the ecu.