Why do people buy high octane petrol?

PiKe · 23 Dec 2011 at 11:39

rossk26 said:
WOW, you purchase your petrol from Sainsbury's

Every argument you have ever had with me is void.

A long story cut short. I was once having a service done at my local garage, there was also another gentleman who was having a service done too, the mechanics at the garage showed the gentleman his fuel filter, and how it had failed.

They explained to the gentleman that the fuel was contaminated with water, upon further investigation, the amount of corrosion cause could not have possibly been down to condensation nor was there any damage to the fuel tank. It was noted by the mechanic that the fuel had probably been watered down.

I also have another story regarding Sainsbury's fuel. But I shall save this one for your inevitable reply to this post

This story makes no sense what so ever. Where is your scientific proof to back this up?

You realise you'd have far more problems than a fuel filter if there was water in the fuel right? Also, what was the mechanic showing him? What effect would water have on the fuel filter? Sounds like a back street cowboy garage to me.

NathWraith · 23 Dec 2011 at 11:39

This is all

sovietspybob · 23 Dec 2011 at 11:40

Gibbo said:
Hi there

So do people only fill with Vpower here simply for the higher Octane?

Or do some do as I do and use it even in regular cars due to the cleaning additives?

I run it in my Subaru even though its a UK model for both performance and cleaning.

We don't however run my wifes 2.0 Mk3 MX-5 on it, but perhaps we should as im sure it would benefit from it slightly being a pretty modern engine

rossk26 · 23 Dec 2011 at 11:41

Gibbo said:
Hi there

So do people only fill with Vpower here simply for the higher Octane?

Or do some do as I do and use it even in regular cars due to the cleaning additives?

I don't, as my car happily runs on normal fuel, and I prefer to have the £200 difference in cost of filling up per year in my back pocket to put towards a holiday.

LiE · 23 Dec 2011 at 11:43

ross doing some serious trollin here.

rossk26 · 23 Dec 2011 at 11:43

PiKe said:
This story makes no sense what so ever. Where is your scientific proof to back this up?

You realise you'd have far more problems than a fuel filter if there was water in the fuel right? Also, what was the mechanic showing him? What effect would water have on the fuel filter? Sounds like a back street cowboy garage to me.

Was a Ford garage.

They showed him the residue in a beaker left from his fuel filter. 50% was water lying on top of a lot of rust at the bottom. Mixed in with dark particles which I assume was a bit of fuel.

Granted not a full scientific investigation, but enough proof to put me off ever going to a Sainsbury's petrol station. Also my other story is a better one to put me off to. But I'm on the edge of my seat waiting for Fox's response.

PiKe · 23 Dec 2011 at 11:44

rossk26 said:
I don't, as my car happily runs on normal fuel, and I prefer to have the £200 difference in cost of filling up per year in my back pocket to put towards a holiday.

But the improved economy on 97RON might mean that it doesn't actually end up costing you any more...

rossk26 · 23 Dec 2011 at 11:44

LiE said:
ross doing some serious trollin here.

Haters gonna hate

rossk26 · 23 Dec 2011 at 11:46

PiKe said:
But the improved economy on 97RON might mean that it doesn't actually end up costing you any more...

I couldn't measure if the higher octane fuel is giving me more MPG though. I could have a trial. Fill 3 tanks with V Power and use my RoadTrip app to see the results compared to my previous fill ups using normal fuel.

This won't be accurate though.

rjk · 23 Dec 2011 at 11:48

rossk26 said:
Haters gonna hate

nobody is hating on you ross.

just simply asking you to back up your claims, which you are failing to do :confused:

rossk26 · 23 Dec 2011 at 11:52

rjkoneill said:
nobody is hating on you ross.

just simply asking you to back up your claims, which you are failing to do

I am also wishing for others to back up their claims too. Of which nothing has appeared so far.

Currently all comments made by myself and other so far are opinions. It's just this thread seems to have a lot of V Power buyers wanting to justify their purchase.

rossk26 · 23 Dec 2011 at 11:56

I am far from a keyboard warrior, but these forums always seem to portray this image. Every comment and opinion I make gets slammed down upon every time.

I thought we all lived in a world of free speech and all that cuddly nonsense.

I like a good debate, but as always this turns into a bickering thread, of views that are not backed up. But views that people and their sheep deem to be of 100% truth, and to argue against would be like feeding a live kitten to a snake

MOOGLEYS · 23 Dec 2011 at 11:56

There have been quite a few dyno's done by the big name tuning company's showing 97-99 Ron fuel to give a performance gain over 95 Ron especially in tuned forced induction engines.
It makes sense if a car is mapped for a higher octane fuel that there will be an advantage in using it.

Tute · 23 Dec 2011 at 11:58

Well my justification would be "The manual says so". If I was buying, for example, a £50K E90 M3 i'd be doing exactly what the manual says because in the event of a warranty claim, you don't want BMW landing you with the bill because you're running it on unsuitable fuel.

Gibbo · 23 Dec 2011 at 11:58

Also people need to remember, you can't just go and put £20-£30 of Vpower in your tank and expect an instant improvement.

It requires a good 2-3 tank fulls to get the gains and by which time you probably won't notice the improvements.

But it is worth extra horses but more so the benefit is a clean engine and a clean engine means better reliability.

loltim · 23 Dec 2011 at 11:59

i've always put 95 in my clio 182, it'll be fiiiiine

MeEsH BaKkA · 23 Dec 2011 at 12:12

rossk26 said:
I am far from a keyboard warrior, but these forums always seem to portray this image. Every comment and opinion I make gets slammed down upon every time.

I thought we all lived in a world of free speech and all that cuddly nonsense.

I like a good debate, but as always this turns into a bickering thread, of views that are not backed up. But views that people and their sheep deem to be of 100% truth, and to argue against would be like feeding a live kitten to a snake

It's science fact not a claim the 97-99RON petrol has a higher resistance to knock than 95RON petrol. As I have stated earlier higher knock resistance equates to more advance which in turn give more power. Providing your can can sense knock and adjust the ignition timing suitably.

Cleaning powers however I'm a bit less sure on. It may make the combustion chamber a little bit cleaner or help the injector spray pattern but I doubt by any appreciable difference, it's probably more noticeable to uses a branded fuel than a highly competitive supermarket.

As for sainsburys water content of fuel... Last Christmas 75 of our vans broke down last year over the space of a couple of weeks. The cause was due to water in the fuel filter freezing and cutting off the diesel to the engine. Our diesel is supplied by sainsburys. Although this was an isolated incident involving 1 garage.

Edit: I must add I don't think anyone would cut diesel with water seeing as they won't mix

Firestar_3x · 23 Dec 2011 at 12:14

Kenai said:
Got a link to this? Sounds interesting, if only to see how they set it up to deliver different fuels to each bank of the engine

Had a look last time this argument came up but i can't find the video anymore.

elmuzzy66. · 23 Dec 2011 at 12:15

Is the 'water in the fuel' at supermarkets a motoring myth? As i get people telling me not to fill up at morisons over here in gibraltar for that same reason.

Westyfield2 · 23 Dec 2011 at 12:15

Did anyone else go to Autosport International at the NEC a couple of years ago when BP had a stand? They had a remapped Turbo Porsche on a rolling road and ran it back to back on 98 and 102. The power increase varied during the day (ambient temperature etc), but every single time it made more power on 102 than 98.

Note the keypoints rossk26, it's performance tuned engine, in a performance car, with a turbocharger, and is mapped to take advantage of the better fuel.