Some people feel it is worth it, some feel that it makes a difference to their fuel economy. Others feel differently.

I use V power. My reasons are thus : I do about 15,000 miles a year, all in my own car (2013 BMW 325d touring). About 45 mpg, so that's about 1500 litres of fuel. If V power costs me 8ppl more, then that's a grand total of £120 a year, assuming I get no additional fuel economy.

If V Power makes a fractional, marginal difference to injectors, wear and tear on the engine, then it's worth it to me. Remember, I own my car outright. For the same reasons, I get my oil/filter changed every 9-10k miles, instead of the 'recommended' 18k.

The additional service and the more expensive fuel cost me £250-300 a year, out of running costs of £3000 or so (tyres, insurance, fuel, servicing, etc). In addition, I've got depreciation to allow for.

When all those sums are taken into account, the additional cost for V Power is minimal, really lost in the general 'noise' of running a car.

Those are my reasons. Others will justify using it (or not) in their own manner.

Short answer: try it and see how you feel the car responds to the premium fuel.

Long answer: In my previous car, a 2011 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 (this was 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 46.29mpg on V-Power compared with 45.12 on Fuelsave. This was measured at the pump, not on the computer.

Or, to express it in percentages, I got a 2.6% improvement in economy for spending the extra 5.7% cost of V-Power (V-Power was 8p per litre more expensive at that 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. 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.

At current prices, premium diesel is 13p more (or nearly 10%) more expensive than the ordinary stuff, so you pays your money and you makes your choice.

However, the TV programme Fifth Gear tested ordinary diesel versus BP Ultimate and Shell V-Power on a dyno, using a Citroen C5 2.2HDi as the test car. Between each run on the different fuels, the tank was drained, lines flushed and then the car dyno'd on the new fuel. Both of the premium diesels gave an extra 6bhp compared with the ordinary stuff.

So the effects may well vary from engine to engine, and car to car.

On my Saab 9-3 Aero 2.0T (petrol turbo with a Maptun tune to 260hp/360Nm), I can measure a 14hp improvement at the wheels using VPower compared to standard Tesco.

Apart from 1 tank a month to take advantage of Tesco fuel save (with Momentum 99 - 20p a litre can't be ignored) I run her on VPower exclusively.

Like a correspondent above I own my car outright. I have done 45k in it and expect to keep it for another 10 years at least. Using an endoscope I can see the engine is cleaner inside than when I bought it. I intend to keep it that way because I want it to last and wish to maintain the performance.

On top of this, VP, M99 & Ultimate are the only fuels that enable the boost to remain at 16+psi on warm days. As intake temps rise past 45C any other fuels let the boost go as they start to knock. Of the three fuels VPower is the best in this respect allowing repeated overtakes in 6th without flinching. (I'm still running the standard intercooler).