Audi A4 Avant Diesel MY12 - BP Ultimate or Shell V power

Honest John Back Room » Motoring discussion
What is life like with your car? Let us know and win £500 in John Lewis vouchers | No thanks
View Threaded
Fri 29 Jan 2016 12:16
Audi A4 Avant Diesel MY12 - BP Ultimate or Shell V power - Tally

I have been using Millers eco max power as an additive since i got the car now 4 years old 38k , thinking of using Shell V power that HJ reccomends but i havn't got a Shell station near me but i have a BP so i can get BP Ultimate

but is the BP Ultimate as good as Shell or shall i keep using Millers Eco Max power.

Thanks

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Fri 29 Jan 2016 13:02
Audi A4 Avant Diesel MY12 - BP Ultimate or Shell V power - FP

You will get as many different answers as there are people with preferences.

The Millers stuff raises the octane level by two whole numbers, which, if added to standard unleaded petrol (95 RON) is still lower than BP Ultimate's specified 98-100 RON. Shell V Power is rated at 99 RON.

Millers also has its own detergent "package", which is of course in addition to any petrol you use it with, since all petrol contains some kind of additives.

Personally, I would say there's not much difference between the three options. I haven't done the maths, but it might be interesting to calculate the cost of using Millers with standard unleaded compared with the BP/Shell alternatives. As for any difference between BP and Shell - who knows?

If you continue to use Millers, shop around. You can get it online much cheaper than elsewhere. (E.g. £10.30 with free postage on Ebay; £12.99 in Halfords.)

Some will say it's not worth using anything but bog-standard supermarket petrol. The difference is in the detergent package and whether you believe that is important.

Edit: Sorry - my answer is as for petrol, but probably most of the arguments also stand for diesel.

Edited by FP on 29/01/2016 at 13:06

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Fri 29 Jan 2016 13:11
Audi A4 Avant Diesel MY12 - BP Ultimate or Shell V power - slkfanboy

You can feal the difference between 95RON and 97-99RON no question about it. Can you tell the difference between BP & Shell prenium fuels no. So basically i would use once a month or millers.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Fri 29 Jan 2016 21:01
Audi A4 Avant Diesel MY12 - BP Ultimate or Shell V power - Avant

As FP says, you'll get lots of different answers. But my impression is that more people see a difference between regular and premium petrol than between regular and premium diesel.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Fri 29 Jan 2016 21:21
Audi A4 Avant Diesel MY12 - BP Ultimate or Shell V power - craig-pd130

In my 2011 Volvo V60 D3 (163bhp). I actually did a test of 10 consecutive tankfuls of Shell V-Power (i.e. about 6000 miles over 6 months using no other fuel than V-Power), and compared with the 10 previous tankfuls of Shell's ordinary Fuelsave (easy for me to do, as Shell is my nearest filling station and the same price as the local supermarkets).

I got a brim-to-brim average of 46.29 on V-Power compared with 45.12 on Fuelsave. The V60 at that time was a thoroughly modern common-rail turbodiesel with DPF, etc.

To express it in percentages, I got a 2.6% improvement in economy for spending the extra 5.7% cost of V-Power (it was 8p per litre more than the standard stuff at the time).

I reckon that the 10 tanks / 6000 miles on each fuel was sufficient to reduce the influence of variables like ambient temperatures, type of journey etc.

There was no detectable difference in performance at all between the two fuels. I concluded that while V-Power made a small difference to economy, it wasn't worth paying the extra for, compared with the ordinary, cheaper Fuelsave diesel.

Your choice at the end of the day, but this little experiment I did convinced me that premium diesel wasn't really worth the marginal benefits.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Fri 29 Jan 2016 22:16
Audi A4 Avant Diesel MY12 - BP Ultimate or Shell V power - alan1302

Your choice at the end of the day, but this little experiment I did convinced me that premium diesel wasn't really worth the marginal benefits.

From an economy point of view that is true but I winder if the supposed etter cleaning additives that the premium fuels have would help keep the engine running longer and with less chance of repairs needed.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Fri 29 Jan 2016 22:52
Audi A4 Avant Diesel MY12 - BP Ultimate or Shell V power - craig-pd130

From an economy point of view that is true but I winder if the supposed etter cleaning additives that the premium fuels have would help keep the engine running longer and with less chance of repairs needed.

Maybe, maybe not. I suspect a good Italian tune up once in a while is just as effective from a cleanliness point of view.

Also, as my car's a company car, I'm not bothered about longevity, as it goes back after 3 years :)

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sat 30 Jan 2016 19:08
Audi A4 Avant Diesel MY12 - BP Ultimate or Shell V power - balleballe

With petrol shell V power always felt better and returned 2-3mpg better economy. With my diesel it makes no real difference (8 tanks of both fuels used).

What I find strange is that Esso's standard diesel returns better economy in my car. Shell returns 46.3 mpg and the Esso stuff gets me 49.1 (7 tanks worth). No BP near me so can't offer a comparison to that.

Was speaking to a chap that owned 2 large Shell garages locally and he thinks Shell has the best petrol and BP has the best diesel. He said that Shell's diesel economy went slightly downhill a couple of years ago as they introduced a 'scent' into the fuel to make it smell nicer for "female motorists" and less like diesel. As far as he is aware only Shell have done that from the big companies

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sun 31 Jan 2016 17:22
Audi A4 Avant Diesel MY12 - BP Ultimate or Shell V power - brum

**** BEWARE OF MILLERS ECOMAX PETROL ADDITIVE ****

As I have found through bitter experience, the magic octane booster ingredient of millers ecomax petrol arrive is MMT - Methylcyclopentadienyl manganese tricarbonyl

This is a discredited additive actually banned in the petrol supply chain in the western world. The problem as I discovered is that MMT breaks down on the combustion process to coat everything in the long term in Manganese oxide, a red, hard ceramic type coating. Pull your spark plugs and you will see it is coated in the stuff. It will also coat your lambda sensors, ruining their calibration and your fuel consumption. It also accumulates on the cat eventually blocking it completely.

See here what vw engineers think and why its banned

www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j...Q

www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j...Q

I foolishly used the stuff long term from new, as I had been (and still am) of millers ecomax diesel additive, but that's a totally different story. The 3 cars in question I used it on now have mediocre fuel consumption (worse than when new) probably due to lambda probe poisoning. Unfortunately once deposited, its impossible to remove, its rock hard stuff.

Edited by brum on 31/01/2016 at 17:32

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sun 31 Jan 2016 20:12
Audi A4 Avant Diesel MY12 - BP Ultimate or Shell V power - xtrailman

My car manual states "use no fuel additives as these can damage the emissions system."

And i nearly always use supermarket diesel.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sun 31 Jan 2016 23:09
Audi A4 Avant Diesel MY12 - BP Ultimate or Shell V power - balleballe

My previous 2 cars (petrols) did not like Asda fuel. Poorer economy and seemed like less eager (could be placebo though). It doesn't seem to make much difference with diesel in the civic. Filled up today with Asda as tank was empty and seemed much the same on my 60 mile commute home. I might do a few tanks and see how the economy compares

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Mon 1 Feb 2016 12:38
Audi A4 Avant Diesel MY12 - BP Ultimate or Shell V power - Wackyracer
I have enquired with Millers and they have said "I can confirm that we do not put Manganese in our Petrol Power Ecomax Treatment" so it should be safe to use.
Reply | Report as offensive | Link