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Can I run my 1991 Scirocco on super unleaded and fuel additives?

I have a 1991 Volkswagen Scirocco GTll. At present I am filling my tank with Sainsbury's Super Unleaded and adding a Millers VSPe Power Plus fuel additive. I believe my car was converted before I bought it to run on unleaded from the old four star, but by using Super Unleaded at 97 Octane and the additive gives my car effectively a 99 Octane. Am I justified in going to this extra expense and will it help with the performance? The car is regularly maintained and serviced lovingly. I am a 67-year-old boy racer and I love to push the car.

Asked on 12 January 2013 by CH, via email

Answered by Honest John
You are probably okay, but what happened was that when unleaded came out a lot of owners had their engines retarded to run on the lower octane fuel. I ran GTIs at the time and on 95Ron unleaded they were sluggish. So I had them advanced back and ran them mostly on Texaco CleanSystem 3 97Ron (at the time) with excellent results.

My advice is, after making sure that your timing is advanced to take advantage of 97-99 Ron petrol, I would run the car on it, preferably Shell V-Power because overall that's the best these days (there's no need to advance/retard with more modern cars because the ignition advances and retards automatically).
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