RON - 1.0 litre turbo Polo ?

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hornedav
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RON - 1.0 litre turbo Polo ?

Post by hornedav »

Hello,

Re: 1.0 litre 85KW Polo Beats, with DSG

What is the preferred fuel RON for a 1.0 litre turbo Polos? Is "premium" unleaded 98 RON fuel the preference for these cars?

I recently used unleaded 91 RON fuel in my Polo - and I believe the vehicle appears to be exhibiting sounds of pre-ignition/pinging.

Thanks in advance.
phillos
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Re: RON - 1.0 litre turbo Polo ?

Post by phillos »

Says in the the filler cap. But I believe it's minimum 95. The higher the better though.

I exclusively run mine on 100 (I'm from Denmaek)
Rosinfield
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Re: RON - 1.0 litre turbo Polo ?

Post by Rosinfield »

95 is fine; higher doesn't make much sense, unless the engine software is remapped on a higher octane number
Garjen
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Re: RON - 1.0 litre turbo Polo ?

Post by Garjen »

I agree, my beats hates anything that isn't premium. I have mate with a Mustang ecoboost and he can't believe that my piddly little 1 ltr has to run on premium. I say that because the TSI it's a better engine 🤣.
I find that it's a tad louder and gruffer sounding and slower acceleration on normal fuel. I made the mistake of putting Tesco fuel in once. It became jerky on acceleration and mpg dropped. Took a couple of fill ups of posh shell to go back to normal. I recently did a run from staffs to Brighton and back on 1 tank of v power. Just over 400 miles.

Also my regular drive is a short daily commute and honest John recommends premium fuel for this type of journey due to its cleaning nature
monkeyhanger
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Re: RON - 1.0 litre turbo Polo ?

Post by monkeyhanger »

hornedav wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 7:44 am Hello,

Re: 1.0 litre 85KW Polo Beats, with DSG

What is the preferred fuel RON for a 1.0 litre turbo Polos? Is "premium" unleaded 98 RON fuel the preference for these cars?

I recently used unleaded 91 RON fuel in my Polo - and I believe the vehicle appears to be exhibiting sounds of pre-ignition/pinging.

Thanks in advance.
RON91? Where are you based to have access to RON91?

For the UK, and most, if not all of the EU, the car is set up for RON95.

For countries where the preferred fuel (generally) is unavailable, the car will be set up to run something else, with timing changes to suit.

An example of this is the Golf R for African and Australasian markets. It runs on RON 97-99 in Europe, where access to "Ultimate" fuel is easy and it tuned to 300 or 310ps. In the other markets, it is set up to run RON95 and is tuned to 285ps.

Use RON95 if you can get it, unless the sticker inside your filler cap says otherwise.

If you put RON98/99 in your tank, you are just chucking your money away. None of the Polo variants are set up to run it optimally.

RON rating is a measure of volatility and compressibility of the fuel without auto ignition (pinking). Ideally you want to compress the fuel just to the verge of pinking and spark ignite it - maximum squeeze = optimum bang = maximum expansion = more kinetic energy = more power and economy.

If you put RON98 in a car set up for RON95 (like all polo engines are), the fuel is nowhere near the point of auto ignition when it is spark ignited. It will run slightly less efficiently as a result.

I used to run my Golf R on Costco's RON99 fuel because it was set up to use it. Tried 2 tankfuls in the Polo GTI and made not one bit of difference to power, refinement or mpg.

It's a common misconception that higher RON fuels are more calorific. They aren't. Higher RON fuels have additives to make it less volatile.

Why is diesel tech 30-50% more efficient than the equivalent petrol? Diesel is only 8% more calorific than Petrol, but diesel can be squeezed so much further, at a higher temperature and pressure to give more output.

Imagine petrol combustion as holding a banger in the palm of your hand and setting it off - you might get a scorched palm.

Imagine diesel combustion as holding the same banger tightly in a fist and setting it off - you hand is going to be mangled when that banger goes off.
monkeyhanger
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Re: RON - 1.0 litre turbo Polo ?

Post by monkeyhanger »

Garjen wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 8:54 am I agree, my beats hates anything that isn't premium. I have mate with a Mustang ecoboost and he can't believe that my piddly little 1 ltr has to run on premium. I say that because the TSI it's a better engine 🤣.
I find that it's a tad louder and gruffer sounding and slower acceleration on normal fuel. I made the mistake of putting Tesco fuel in once. It became jerky on acceleration and mpg dropped. Took a couple of fill ups of posh shell to go back to normal. I recently did a run from staffs to Brighton and back on 1 tank of v power. Just over 400 miles.

Also my regular drive is a short daily commute and honest John recommends premium fuel for this type of journey due to its cleaning nature
So much placebo effect from people when it comes to fuel - they expect the dearer stuff to be better, so they convince themselves that it is. The only absolute measure here is mpg (assuming you're driving in the exact same way). Throttle response, smoothness, noise is just so subjective.

If you do a long journey - your mpg is going to improve regardless of the fuel you use. My 12 mile commute varies between 30 and 37mpg depending on volume of traffic, but can get up to 45mpg going 100.miles down the motorway, maintaining 80mph (indicated).

400 miles on one tank for a 95ps beats does not sound impressive at all for 2 long back to back journeys unless you were doing 90+mph all the way there. My GTI+ would almost match that on RON95 fuel for 2 x 200 mile journeys maintaining 80mph and would match if maintaining 70mph - assuming your definition of a tank is about 36l/8 gallons (full to warning to fill up equalling 50mpg).

The fuel type names can also confuse. In the UK and a few other countries, when we say "Super", we mean RON97-99. For most of Europe, "Super" indicates RON95.

The only real benefit to using "Premium" RON97-99 fuels is the extra detergents. If you have a shiny new engine thar is running properly and has never filled up anywhere questionable, your engine is going to be clean enough not to need a abundance of detergents.

All petrol of the same RON grade is the same stuff, from the same tankers - the only difference is the additive packs. Sainsbury fuel comes from BP, Shell supply wholly Tesco petrol stations, but Tesco Extras are usually attached to an Esso petrol station. There have been cases of fuel contamination at Shell, Texaco and BP garages, but people only seem to remember when it happened at a Tesco or Asda station.
Last edited by monkeyhanger on Fri Apr 19, 2019 10:28 am, edited 2 times in total.
Rosinfield
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Re: RON - 1.0 litre turbo Polo ?

Post by Rosinfield »

I also wonder if it's between the ears. Sometimes I feel my car driving better after a carwash;)
My GTI was filled with 95 upon delivery and when empty I filled it with 98. But I don't really feel any difference in driveability.
hornedav
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Re: RON - 1.0 litre turbo Polo ?

Post by hornedav »

Thank you all - for your tips and excellent information.

Yes, I see now on the filler cap that RON95 is recommended. Cheers.

I live in Australia, and RON91 is still available.

Thanks again. :)
Steve_2019
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Re: RON - 1.0 litre turbo Polo ?

Post by Steve_2019 »

I always use branded fuel. I’ve found with supermarket fuel I don’t get the economy from it and the car don’t feel so responsive maybe because the additive pack not added to supermarkets fuels maybe???
vc-10
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Re: RON - 1.0 litre turbo Polo ?

Post by vc-10 »

I have the 1.0 TSI 115PS in my Ibiza. Never put anything in other than regular fuel, from a variety of locations although predominantly Tesco and Sainsburys. Not given me any trouble. Got 58.1 mpg driving from Manchester down to Salisbury today!
Chungster
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Re: RON - 1.0 litre turbo Polo ?

Post by Chungster »

I think come 1st July Sainsbury’s fuel stations may well be supplied by Esso

Sainsbury’s own Nectar and Esso is replacing BP as the fuel retailer on that loyalty scheme.

I was using BP ultimate 97 and Sainsbury’s SUL 97 but after monkeyhanger’s in-depth explanation last time on another thread I’ve switched to standard premium 95 now at BP or Sainsbury’s.

Car runs fine in all honesty and getting better with mileage - coming up to 8k miles.

Overall mpg is around 45 (bought at 6 months old / 3k miles on clock) but averaging 48 on 25 mile daily round trip. Got 60 going on long 300 mile round trips.

Really happy with my SEL DSG. [emoji106]


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RUM4MO
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Re: RON - 1.0 litre turbo Polo ?

Post by RUM4MO »

Interesting as I think the Esso branding only covering the filling station end, Greenergy I think supply and so manage the stocking on most filling stations now that the exploration side of the oil business has moved on and handed the refinery operations over to someone that only does that sort of work.

Sometimes you should not look too deeply into the "who does/owns what" as it might change your ideas on your own personal brand loyality - and that is why these legacy brand names are still being licensed out for others to use.

The brand name Lucas is one that springs to mind, much abused by fly by night companies who have paid for the use of the brand name.

Edit:- by the way, I am as guilty as the next person to have favourites when it comes to brands in general.
Andy Beats
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Re: RON - 1.0 litre turbo Polo ?

Post by Andy Beats »

monkeyhanger wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 10:16 am 400 miles on one tank for a 95ps beats does not sound impressive at all for 2 long back to back journeys unless you were doing 90+mph all the way there.
Most I get is around 340-360 miles to a tank.
At around 70mph I get about 47mpg, at 80mph it drops to low 40mpg.
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giannis159
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Re: RON - 1.0 litre turbo Polo ?

Post by giannis159 »

This is from my personal vehicle what it means premium gas??? I live in Greece iused always 100 octane gas and when i used 95 i saw that fuel consumption increased from 5.5 to 6.1... I came back to 100 octane gas and all its fine but it worth it?Image

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monkeyhanger
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Re: RON - 1.0 litre turbo Polo ?

Post by monkeyhanger »

giannis159 wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2019 8:59 pm This is from my personal vehicle what it means premium gas??? I live in Greece iused always 100 octane gas and when i used 95 i saw that fuel consumption increased from 5.5 to 6.1... I came back to 100 octane gas and all its fine but it worth it?Image

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Due to crappy RON91 being standard in the USA and some other countries, RON95 is officially called "premium" in pretty much every EU country except the Netherlands and UK.

Your 1.0TSI engine isn't designed for RON97-100 fuel, it can't take advantage of high octane fuel's higher compressibilty as it doesn't have a high compression ratio. Even the Polo GTI 2.0TSI has no capability to exploit higher octane fuels with any benefits.

You seem to be experiencing better fuel consumption with it - not sure why that is - placebo effect? Driving the car differently with the higher octane stuff in? Higher Octane fuel is not appreciably more calorific than RON95, it just has additives in to make it a little less volatile, allowing it to be compressed further without pinking (pre-ignition).
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