Contentious topic - which petrol are you using?

[og77]

I got a 4 year old 1.2 Tsi Polo last weekend. My previous car, my first, got filled up with Tesco petrol. I don't think I ever went to Shell, BP or Esso, I needed to save my £££s to weld the thing back together every year.

This car I'm a little more precious about. What are all your thoughts on which brand of fuel to use to give your Polo the best life? Does anyone use supermarket petrol with no issues? Or would you rather go without than top up at your local Asda?

[Dink]

I solely use shell v power nitro hyper mega blaster or whatever it is called.

It's direct injected but has extra injectors to help clean the inlet valves. So the extra cleaning detergents are going to help when they are used.

That's just my opinion though.

[SRGTD]

I’ve used supermarket fuel (Tesco) 95% of the time in all the VW’s I’ve owned (3 diesel Golf’s and now a 2016 Polo GTI), and also in other non-VW cars prior to becoming a VW owner. Although my Polo GTI can run on 95 RON unleaded, I do use Tesco Momentum 99, because of its added detergents to help keep the engine internals clean. Using the Tesco filling station means I don’t have to go out of my way to buy fuel, which I would have to if I bought proprietary brands such as Shell or BP.

In 25+ years of using predominantly supermarket fuel (the last 16 years being ownership of VW’s), I’ve never had any issues, although I anticipate there will be others who’ll add to this thread who never use supermarket fuel, other than if there’s nothing else available to use.

[RUM4MO]

With my wife's current Polo, bought new in August 2015, a 1.2TSI 110PS, I had always intended to use only Esso UL, I have stuck with that until one day when we needed to get somewhere without any unnecessary delays, and so filled the car up from our local Tesco supermarket filling station, as off we went. Within the next 10 days, I had found myself causing unnecessary concern twice, due to the car letting me down when I had braked/slowed down then proceeded out onto a roundabout - ie car "going flat" and me needing to quickly recover the situation by changing down a gear - okay if roads were extremely quiet I would not have caused anyone any concerns, but roads are not very quiet. I'm not proud that I ended up doing that, first time I thought, ah bother what have I done differently from normal, but after the second time I thought, hum, is it the fuel? So I proceeded to our new local Costco store which we have a card for, and filled up with their UL+ in an attempt to boast the fuel load up to at least what it had been used to - that seemed to work very well. So, because of where we tend to be driving to/from nowadays and that seems to always avoid the Esso filling station, I've kept using Costco fuel but just UL. I've even filled my 2011 Audi S4 at Costco twice with UL+ as it is nearer and seriously cheaper.

Please note, I am not normally someone that seeks the cheapest petrol form any source, so this might just be an experiment. For the Audi S4 it is not so much of a worry as it only runs about 3.5K miles a year and when using Costco I'll keep treating it to UL+ - normally in the preCostco days it always got filled with Esso UL.

The title is extremely correct, contentious topic - absolutely!!

Edit:- just one thing to add, where I live and the Esso filling station I used to pass regularly, the prices have always been very keen when compared with Shell - and you get Tesco points at that Esso station. So of all the main brands and supermarkets, excepting our local Tesco which has poor access/exit, that Esso station worked for me and kept me away from supermarket brands for years. Tesco used to source its fuels from Europoort but now uses Greenergy like Esso and maybe Costco - okay in the end the difference is only the "conc brew" that is added when the tanker is being filled. We seem to be denied true facts over how important that "conc brew" is for engine life.

[RUM4MO]

I solely use shell v power nitro hyper mega blaster or whatever it is called.

It's direct injected but has extra injectors to help clean the inlet valves. So the extra cleaning detergents are going to help when they are used.

That's just my opinion though.

You are lucky, my cars will just enjoy coking up!

[PoloBlueGT]

I must agree with RUM4MO about using Costco for fuel. I tend to use them predominantly as I pass it too and from work and yes it is the cheapest but if you use the UL Premium it is the same as most others basic 95RON. I have used most fuels from different supermarkets and also he like of BP, Esso etc but haven’t noticed anything major between them but again this is only my opinion

[og77]

Nearest Costco is a good 20 miles from me, so not sure the saving would be worth the 40 mile round trip!

Are the additives in, say, a basic 95 Shell fuel, better than getting the higher octane Tesco stuff?

Worth noting I am only doing about 3.5k miles per year, so whatever I get doesn't necessarily have to be the most cost effective. I just want to treat the engine well! But I also don't want to pay out for Super Mega Additive++ if actually the difference is negligible.

[RUM4MO]

I suppose the lower the annual mileage, the lower the savings from using the cheapest fuel and maybe the lower the possibility of causing any issues with your engine - when you feel petrol A is best and petrol B is worse, but is cheaper.

Generally speaking using a car frequently on short stop start journeys - ie it does not get warmed up fully and run at operating temperatures, will probably have more of a detrimental effect on the engine than using the "poorest" supermarket petrol. As an aside, although I would view Esso as my brand of choice followed by BP - both these decisions based on nothing but gut feeling and experience of using them and others, there are many out there that consider that BP has turned itself into a brand of "not very good" petrol, now remember that BP is now just a trade name like Esso etc etc, so who ever current is paying to use that name will be controlling what "conc brew" if any is being added into the standard petrol - remember there is only one reason why "conc brews" are now added to fuels, and that is because what gets prepared at the refineries is not fit for use in a modern engine if you want to minimise a build up of nasties - until the "conc brew" is added in, that is okay as that is the way modern fuels are made.
Maybe 35+ years ago, Shell changed its "conc brew" to make a proper improvement in their fuels as sold at their filling stations etc, that caused certain cars in certain areas of UK and maybe elsewhere issues, in fact it almost took all the VX Chevettes that Fife Constabulary off the road - yes it did that much damage to that type of engine used in that area of UK on panda type work. At that time, maybe due to my route home from work, Shell was my petrol brand of choice - as soon as the word got out, I changed to Esso, soon after that, though maybe for other reasons, that filling station closed down and was replaced by private housing.

Edit:- by the way, the comments about Shell are only being made to point out that these fuel companies do get it wrong some time, in that instant, Shell did need to pay out big time, obviously that new "conc brew" was not fully tested before being brought to market.

[Dave_C]

I've googled "conc brew" but can't find a definition. What do you mean?

We don't worry what petrol we put in as long as it is 95 ron. Round here the choice is Shell, BP, Esso or Morrisons. They all seems to perform equally well.
Morrisons is typically 2p or 3p per litre cheaper than the others,

[og77]

We don't worry what petrol we put in as long as it is 95 ron. Round here the choice is Shell, BP, Esso or Morrisons. They all seems to perform equally well.
Morrisons is typically 2p or 3p per litre cheaper than the others,

I knew if I waited long enough someone would say what I wanted to hear

[RUM4MO]

I've googled "conc brew" but can't find a definition. What do you mean?

Sorry for my wording, what I am referring to is the essential additives package that converts the refined petroleum spirit and its added bio stuff etc, into a fuel suitable for modern car engines.
Remember this product has to added to the road tanker being loaded at the refinery by the driver, so each stand will have its own supply of additives, common sense dictates that outlets, not dedicated to only supplying fuel, might just be using an inferior or just less of the necessary additive package to reduce their costs.
[Small side note here, I once accidentally asked Fuchs about other brands that they supply oils to and the answer was that the other brands would normally sell for less money and that these other brands would request a cheaper lubricating oil additive package to be added to their supplies - make of that what you will.]
It can every only be the difference between the additives package that seperates one fuel being dispensed from a pump hose from the others - well that and the general way that filling station is managed wrt to tank and pump maintenance. (in my younger days, I seem to remember avoiding Jet stations as at least my local one was the "best" place to get water in your fuel!)
Remember that the straight petroleum spirit from all the UK refinaries is bound to be the same as it gets labelled by RON and has a couple of other specs declared on the dispensing pump assembly BS blah blah, which probably means that the refinary said they would manufacture it correctly, really probably only a paperwork job like most BS specs - and to avoid moving fuels from one end of the country to the other, refinary outputs are shared.

[Makepeace]

Generally speaking I use tesco for fuel (it's esso oil they use anyway isn't it??) and i'll use 95ron most of the time however about once a month i'll let the tank get near empty and put in momentum 99 or similar and it does tend to make the car idle a bit smoother but other than that no difference :

EDIT: This is on an NA car.

[RUM4MO]

Generally speaking I use tesco for fuel (it's esso oil they use anyway isn't it??) and i'll use 95ron most of the time however about once a month i'll let the tank get near empty and put in momentum 99 or similar and it does tend to make the car idle a bit smoother but other than that no difference :

EDIT: This is on an NA car.

If you mean that Tesco is supplied with Esso fuel exactly same as sold at Esso stations then no, they both use the same "fuel supplying manager" company, but if you look at what I wrote earlier you will see that it will be which ever refinery is nearest your Tesco station's fuel and Tesco's own specified additive package dumped into the delivery tanker at the filling stand by the driver.

My wife's old 2002 Polo 9N 1.4 16V BBY 75PS, alsolutely "loved" UL+, well we only used Shell UL+ with it to overcome a pinking issue probably caused by the oil seperator passing too much oil, I replaced that but left it using Shell UL+ until we traded it in as wife did not want to go back to its rather lazy performance, running low powered engine on UL+ really did improve the low down pulling effort, and it really did need that!

[maTTew]

I use in my "6R 1.4 16V" 100 octane fuel from Benzina called "Verva 100". I believe it is available only in Czech Republic and it is the best fuel you can get here (proven by independent tests). It is even better than premium fuels from OMV or Shell and also much cheaper in comparison. If it is not available on my trip I am using any 98 octane fuel I can found. I also use additive called "VIF" to stabilize fuel quality. I do not expect any power increase but engine is significantly quieter a runs much more smoothly.

[MarkoPolo]

I've had my Polo Blue GT for two weeks now, I've only put Shell V-Power Unleaded in it.

Bit expensive, but I like to spoil the car to some good fuel Plus the Shell station is right next to work so easiest for me to get too.