I was wondering what peoples oppinions are on fueling up your car. I have limited knowledge but i see fueling your car with good fuel as beneficial in lots of way. I admit i have limited knowledge but surely putting good fuel in will help prevent long term damage or wear and tear on the mechanics; especially in diesels. Diesels as it seems are prone to clogged EGR valves, worn out turbos, cat problems etc. The soot produced as part of the combustion process surely adds to the problems with the mechanics becoming blocked and the lubricants of the oil becoming less effective because of the soot in the oil.
Therefore since buying my new cars this years both toyotas as i'm a jap fan i now own a t180 and a rav4 xtr and they are both fueled with shell and nothing else. My t180 i'm looking after the most since the shell garage right by my work now has V-Power diesel which is suppose to contain cleaning agents for extra lubricity and soot breakdown. Whilst i maybe naive by believing in this i'm willing to pay the extra. On balance i get the same / similar miles to a tank compared to shell extra diesel and its extra cost is barely even noticeable costing no more than a beer each fill up. If it really does work its worth it.
You could say i'm a bit cautious now i own diesel cars for the first time because i do hear the horror stories. But along with fueling it well i also think its a good idea to start the car as soon as you get in allowing it to idle for 10secs whilst you put your seat belt on. Also i idle the car for about a minute after my a-road / dual carriageway commute to let to turbo oil drain / or cool down before switch off - also never driving hard or revving too much until warm. I'm hoping all these things will help in the long run. But i can't help but revisit the fueling issue; surely its very important to feed your car decent fuel, i suppose its a bit like feeding yourself.
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You have answered your own question so follow your own advice because there are those who will tell you it makes no difference or they will tell you the fuel all comes out the same tanker but having been involved with fuel companies its a little more involved than that & they do have a few tricks up there sleeve so stick to what you know.
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Regarding OP's post, in what way could the quality of diesel fuel used in a car "Wear out the turbo"?
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As with everything else, with fuel you get what you pay for.
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L\'escargot.
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I was trusting my own judgment i guess. It seems logical to me and yes the fuel probably does come from the same source but it gets treated in different ways.
As for turbo's - My understanding is that the oil is used to dissipate heat when cooling down and to lubricate the bearings and spread heat evenly as the turbo is working. If the oil is full of soot particles created from the combustion process then the thermal conduction and lubrication is reduced. Good fuels have additives to break down and reduce the amount of particles getting into the oil and have added lubrication to keep the mechanics of the engine and turbo healthy.
Diesel oil is normally filthy black very quickly, running shell and no V-Power diesel as keeping my oil pretty clean not too dissimilar than petrol oil and i'm 4k miles in to my new car.
As i mentioned in my opening post my knowledge is limited so any advise or corrections from anyone with real findings i would very much like to hear.
Thanks!
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L'escargot - I suggest you read "The Undercover Economist" for an explanation of why you don't get what you pay for. Shell super-duper-ultra and their ilk are a way of finding out the punters who will pay more for their fuel. In a similar way, Starbucks offer a huge range of coffee for the same purpose. It's a way of getting more cash out of those who are prepared to pay more. Add 1/10p of flavour, charge 20p more.
Don't worry, I know this is heresy and that there really is something special in there. I also know that my Jag runs on Tesco's finest unleaded (now, Tesco Finest, there's another one) and always will.
V
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I won't use supermarket fuel since I discovered that the additives are "chucked in" by the tanker drivers rather than added in measured quantites at the refining stage. Yes, the base fuel might be the same, but what gets delivered to the pumps certainly is not.
The Mondeo, I'll risk with supermarket brew if I absolutely have to, but I wouldn't let supermarket fuel within a mile of the Renault, or any other common rail diesel. That said, the local supermarkets (Sainsbury's and Tesco) are consistently more expensive than the local Shell and Esso stations, so it would be pointless anyway.
Cheers
DP
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04 Grand Scenic 1.9 dCi Dynamique
00 Mondeo 1.8TD LX
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I'm not wishing to get into the debate about whether branded fuel is better than supermarket fuel etc, but I will admit that I do favour filling up at a branded site rather than a supermarket. By branded I mean I stick to mainly Shell, BP and Total. But I don't pay over the odds for the fuel either because I tend to fill up at these branded stations that are close to a big supermarket and hence the prices are usually the same. On the other hand though if the supermarket is significantly cheaper than anywhere else around I will fill up there without a problem. At the end of the day I don't pay more money out than necessary for fuel, but I go for the better option when faced with the same cost.
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I think it's the case that additives aren't introduced at the refining stage but at the distribution-depot stage (e.g. Buncefield). Whether done by centrally controlled machines or by delivery drivers emptying various cans into the bowsers, I know not.
I also believe that base stock for "premium" unleaded (i.e. the normal basic stuff) is freely traded between all suppliers (including supermarkets) and that additive packages do differ between brands.
It used to be the case that Shell Optimax was the only fuel with its own non-traded base stock; I don't know whether that applies to Shell V-power these days.
HJ has always recommended Shell and Texaco (also others recently) on the basis of non-trivial anecdotal reports from his readers and, I believe, knowledge that their additives provide superior performance.
If only there were legislation to prevent the suppliers being so secretive about all this, and if only there were some definitive comparative tests (which not even Which? magazine can contemplate because of the difficulty and expense). So the whole multi-zillion bucks business remains stuck in the domain of anecdote and belief. How convenient for the suppliers.
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I mostly use "Scottish Fuels" - since it is the only brand available for miles if you live where I live.
It costs me £1.07 per litre for unleaded, so, according to L'escargot, it must be good stuff :-)
How it compares with BP, Shell, Texaco, Tesco, etc I have no idea. Scottish Fuels is a subsidiary of an Irish group called DCC, but that tells me nothing.
I also suspect that with a Ford Ka, it doesn't make a huge amount of difference.
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My memory may be wrong, but when there was a recent episode down south with contaminated fuel was it not the case that both a supermarket (Morrisons?) and a brand name (Shell?) were affected?
Which may mean that they were the same fuel from the same place?
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2007 Seat Altea XL 2.0 TDI (140) Stylance
2005 Skoda Fabia vrS
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Bobby,
If you mean the Tesco and Morrisons petrol that caused oxygen sensor failures, then I have it from a very good source that this was caused
"during shipment of bulk fuel (in a tanker) between the Vopak tank farm in Rotterdam and the UK - diesel anti-foaming compound was added to the wrong tank (whoops) - and this introduced a small amount of silicone anti-foam into the petrol. When the organic silicone compound burnt in the petrol engine, a layer of silicon dioxide (glass) formed over the engine Lambda sensor (oxygen sensor) and blocked it. And this caused the ECU to go into limp home mode."
This might well be in the public domain, I can't remember what was reported at the time.
The petroleum chemist who is the source of the above information also said that the premium fuels - V-power, BP Ultimate, and Total Excellium, are in his opinion worth the higher price. Since hearing this I have been using V-power or Ultimate diesel. I believe I am getting slightly better economy which goes some way to offsetting the cost.
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There's a thread in technical matters in which someone with a recent Mondeo diesel found out, fortunately under warranty, that all the valves were pitted (at under 35,000 miles).
I didn't think diesels pitted their valves. I thought pitted valves were a thing of the past.
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It's because the Mondeo owner wasn't adding a lead replacement additive ;-)
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I won't use supermarket fuel since I discovered that the additives are "chucked in" by >> the tanker drivers rather than added in measured quantites at the refining stage.
Don't know what evidence DP has of this but BP fuel Logistics which also carry Sainsburys fuels; the additives are completely computer controlled down to the right fuel in each tank etc. The additives are mixed in either upstream or at depot filling based on time of year grade of fuel etc and customer.
To suggest that the level of additives is uncontrolled is worry certainly in my experience as a customer buying 200,000 lts plus per month ...yes you read that correctly! I/we at work have our fuel supplier QS twice a month.
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I used to use supermarket and branded fuel interchangably with both my previous fords, but on the ST220 on several occasions after fuelling with supermarket fuel i noticed that the the car started behanving strangely. After filling with a supermarket fuel the revs would not drop when i pushed the clutch and would rise instead. I took the car to ford and they could find nothing wrong. I ran the tank down and filled with a branded fuel the car started running perfectly again. Went through a few tanks of this and then went back to a tank of supermarket fuel and the car did the same thing again. So i stopped using them on this car, i know this is not a fair test of any sort and could well be co-incidence, but is what i found with my car.
P.S this was when the problem with contaminated fuel was going on so it may have been something to do with this
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