Associate
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 2,177
- Location
- Cardiff/Coventry
Filled my car (2009 Mazda 3 MPS) with fuel today after the gym and went to Tesco (Cardiff - St Mellons as it's nearby to the gym I use) for 45 litres of their 99 RON Super Unleaded.
Car ran OK for about 2 miles after this until it started running rough, not pulling well and essentially became undriveable in anything other than 3rd.
Managed to nurse the car home and called out the AA. Upon telling him that I'd filled up from Tesco he immediately suspected the fuel (I was the 2nd person he had seen today with dodgy Tesco fuel). Connecting a scanner to the car showed up fault codes that the engine was running lean, backing up this hypothesis. He suggested octane boost and keep on brimming the tank with VPower.
I chucked 3 bottles of octane boost into the tank and the car started running a little better. Took it out for a 100 or so mile drive and the check engine light came on (as the car still wasn't running 100% right). I figured the CEL was due to the dodgy fuel so kept on running, using up 1/3 of the tank. Then brimmed the tank with VPower and added another bottle of octane boost.
Got the car home, disconnected battery negative to clear check engine light and went out for another drive. Car now drives fine although will continue to brim the tank to water down the crap fuel.
Perhaps I was unlucky. I have never had a problem with Tesco 99 RON fuel before (when I had a remapped 1.8T Octavia vRS). Maybe it was a bad batch / old / contaminated fuel? Know I've been bitten by this experience and it's VPower only for me now (wherever possible).
Car ran OK for about 2 miles after this until it started running rough, not pulling well and essentially became undriveable in anything other than 3rd.
Managed to nurse the car home and called out the AA. Upon telling him that I'd filled up from Tesco he immediately suspected the fuel (I was the 2nd person he had seen today with dodgy Tesco fuel). Connecting a scanner to the car showed up fault codes that the engine was running lean, backing up this hypothesis. He suggested octane boost and keep on brimming the tank with VPower.
I chucked 3 bottles of octane boost into the tank and the car started running a little better. Took it out for a 100 or so mile drive and the check engine light came on (as the car still wasn't running 100% right). I figured the CEL was due to the dodgy fuel so kept on running, using up 1/3 of the tank. Then brimmed the tank with VPower and added another bottle of octane boost.
Got the car home, disconnected battery negative to clear check engine light and went out for another drive. Car now drives fine although will continue to brim the tank to water down the crap fuel.
Perhaps I was unlucky. I have never had a problem with Tesco 99 RON fuel before (when I had a remapped 1.8T Octavia vRS). Maybe it was a bad batch / old / contaminated fuel? Know I've been bitten by this experience and it's VPower only for me now (wherever possible).