97Ron Fuel or do I go higher?

I may have found some of my lack of speed has been due to running on 95ron fuel, (bad of me i know) so I have now gone from the resever to neraly full with ?25 worth of tescos finest, 97ron fuel. but would I be better trying to find their 99Ron fuel? I used to live in Milk n Beans and I was spoilt rotten as the local tescos had the full fat 99 stuff, where as now im back in Nottingham both of my local tescos only stock the semi skimmed 97 stuff  :cry: woudl i be better filling at the localish Shell place? or is that extra Ron not worth the extra pennies?

views please

I would avoid supermarket fuel, and stick with BP or Shell or whoever's 97 RON super-unleaded. I doubt you'd see any performance gains with 99 RON IMO.

HTH

Rich

Whatever you do you need to change your ignition timing to suit the new fuel as it ignites differently.

I've been using Tesco 99 in mine for ages, including several track days.
I have noticed that when running 99RON teh amount of throttle required to drive at "normal" speeds is less

mcscrew said

I would avoid supermarket fuel

Why's than then Rich?

it's cheaper for a reason

spaceace said

it's cheaper for a reason

That being….?

a mechanic once told me supermarket fuel is always the freshest..

not entirely how true this is , but can imagine they might be some of the busiest stations about , daytime all the mummy's use them to top up there suv's with the shopping

but i never fill up at them , not sure why

maybe because of this recent tesco fiasco ?

Well, the only reason I ask is because i've used supermarket fuel pretty much since they started doing it, in all types of vehicle.  Never had any sort of issues from it atall and must have covered over half a million miles.  Just wondering on peoples reasons for avoiding it.

Don't know how many of you work for tesco or worked for them.  But a few years ago i had quite close dealings with the fuel side of things at tesco and i can assure you its exactly the same fuel.  At the refineries the lorries roll in, and tesco lorries fill up with the same fuel as the Shell and BP lorries.

I know Tesco is a big company but they don't refine there own oil.

The only difference is the additive and it is in small quantaties 1Ltr for every 1000Lts of fuel.  I don't use the fuel, for my TDI but would for my Golf if it was not for the Shell being the same price around here.

ew said

mcscrew said

I would avoid supermarket fuel

Why's than then Rich?

I've heard bad things about it in general - although I'm only going by what I've heard or read.

There was a thread on here too a while back about the quality of supermarket fuel - clicky

I generally stick with branded stuff to be on the safe side, but it may make no difference at all!

Rich

hhmm interesting… well i know for a fact that Tescos fuel is supplied by Esso, so I do trust it. I have used their wiesel too in my own mk4 for about 12k miles since april and the car hasn't missed a beat and before that I have always run tescos fuel in my mini (the only time i did get a bad batch was from asda a few years back in the mini but this was from a back end of no where station)

I may look into what other agrages are selling near me

Is there any risk of running my golf on 97 or 98 octane fuel all the time?  I heard that this fuel can cause the engine to run a bit 'hotter' and there is a risk of damaging the engine if its used all the time, burn out the valves??  or something.

Ive been recommended to 'treat' my car to a tank of Ultimate or Optimax every now and then, but not all the time.  I have however noticed that the car runs and starts really well when i have Ulitimate in it.

?

I too used to work next to a refinery and we used to watch all dirrerent lorrys being filled up from the same tanks that included all supermarket lorrys so i know there fuel is safe to use.
I think alot of storys were made up about supermarkets and for some reason have stuck.

I go for shell optimax 99RON  all the way!!!

i've never had problems with supermarket fuel. tesco'c and sainsbury's have been used regularly. not noticed much difference between the teso's 99ron and optimax/ultra.

dont know if this is relevant

but put BP ultimate super unleaded stuff in mine a few months ago, and it ran absolutely horrible until it was all filtered out, ie stalling, jerking about.

Was that just a bad batch, or is it because the car is too old for this type of fuel. I only ask because isnt shell optimax the same thing?

if its a gti its ment to run on the higher grades, mines now done a good 40 odd miles on the 97 tesco stuff and it just keeps getting quicker!

As said before it will make no difference (95ron to 97 or higher) unless you advance the timing slightly to take advantage of the higher octane… I personally run only on 97ron or higher but I don't do a huge number of miles so the extra expense isn't an issue.