Best fuel re. Miles per gallon

Colonel Sanders

Not sure if this is the right place but here it goes anyhow

Used to always fill up at Tesco. There's one close by, was usually 1 or 2c per litre cheaper on diesel, club card points etc etc

However I filled up in a different garage a while back and automatically noticed that I got WAY more miles out of a tank. Have since tried more brands other than Tesco and have noticed the same

Has anyone else noticed something similar (not just in relation to tesco) and what brand of petrol/diesel do you think gives best mpg?

My car is a 03 Golf 1.9TDI and I find Topaz good but there are some brands I haven't tried since its not long since I noticed how bad the mpg I was getting with Tesco diesel

Tech3

There was a thread on the motors forum recently regarding the concern of how much less milage people are getting from tesco petrol compared to other petrol stations. Not too sure about diesel but heres the link

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055436025&highlight=petrol

Thomas_S_Hunterson

Using a lower grade petrol would be a very easy way for tesco to be able to offer 'cheaper' prices.

randomer

I thought Tesco sell Topaz fuel?

TGi666

tesco's supplyer can vary but the bast fuel i have used is topaz I used to thing the better mpg they advertised was a gimmic but must say the car ran better and got better mpg

Davy

Tesco's petrol is delivered by the same transport company that topaz use, doesnt mean its the same fuel.

Topaz has a new type fuel since september, its branded as 'Clean' it has an additive to make it more efficient. I have heard that tesco leave another additive out of their fuel to make it cheaper but that its not as good to the car as other brands.

311

Best thing to do when filling up is buy fuel by litre and not by euro. It's much easier to compare like for like with the same measurement.

I put down lower mileage on my last trip to belfast on the new front tyres I got. They needed to be a good bit softer than the last ones I had.

Colonel Sanders

311 wrote: »

Best thing to do when filling up is buy fuel by litre and not by euro. It's much easier to compare like for like with the same measurement.

This is what I do. I set the counter to zero whenever I fill up and then note how many litres go in next time i.e. how many miles I've driven on x number of litres

david

I've also noticed this. Over the past 6 months I find 'Top' petrol to get best MPG. Tesco is dire. Gives me 70% the Top mpg on average. Pity I only noticed this as prices are evening out with distributors

derry

I was doing reseach for this to get best MPG from my car .

I noted my MPG for a few months usualy buying topaz petrol.
I then switched with no modifications to using the E85 petrol in my non flex fuel 98 era suziki swift 1000cc and went with that for a few months .
The price of petrol came down and i switched back to petrol which before this gave me maybe 10% better milage than E85

This time I went for tesco as it seemed to be the cheapest most of the time .However my MPG seemed to be similar to E85 and not as good as the previos fuel.

Petrrol since then I found out is diferent mixxes of different stuff. Simply adding more Ethanol from say 5% what most fuel has to 7% will reduce MPG .
Also many other ingredients some more expensive than others .Naphtha the good stuff is about 40% of the petrol. reducing this to 30% will return less MPG .

I will try switching to other fuels to see if there is a real difference .Tesco fuel is on serious suspicion list


Derry

Thomas_S_Hunterson

derry wrote: »

Petrrol since then I found out is diferent mixxes of different stuff. Simply adding more Ethanol from say 5% what most fuel has to 7% will reduce MPG .

I'm no expert on fuels but I believe that adding ethanol will increase octane number, increase power output and result in a much cleaner burning fuel. It would make sense that it may reduce MPG.

Some fuels will give higher MPG while others will be more powerful and others will be cleaner. It's a case of a trade-off.

It would be beneficial if the garages were more open with consumers so that they could make up their own mind on what they want to run. A fuel that gives more MPG may be reducing the life of your engine.

Biro

derry wrote: »

I was doing reseach for this to get best MPG from my car .

I noted my MPG for a few months usualy buying topaz petrol.
I then switched with no modifications to using the E85 petrol in my non flex fuel 98 era suziki swift 1000cc and went with that for a few months .
The price of petrol came down and i switched back to petrol which before this gave me maybe 10% better milage than E85

This time I went for tesco as it seemed to be the cheapest most of the time .However my MPG seemed to be similar to E85 and not as good as the previos fuel.

Petrrol since then I found out is diferent mixxes of different stuff. Simply adding more Ethanol from say 5% what most fuel has to 7% will reduce MPG .
Also many other ingredients some more expensive than others .Naphtha the good stuff is about 40% of the petrol. reducing this to 30% will return less MPG .

I will try switching to other fuels to see if there is a real difference .Tesco fuel is on serious suspicion list


Derry

You put E85 in your non-flexifuel car? Do you mean E5?

derry

Biro wrote: »

You put E85 in your non-flexifuel car? Do you mean E5?

No I mean I put in E85 which is 85% ethaol and 15% petrol E5

At that time petrol E5 was E1.30 euro sometimes E1.40 and E85 was E0.99c

no brainer to try out some E85 mixxed in

Lots of links on the internet about how many cars with no mods can tolerate mixes like ~50% of E85 ~50% e5 which make a hybrid ~E50

older cars like mine often find it more easy to run on 100% pure E85 with no modifications

My car ran fine on mix ratios but did like the forums suggest be happiest to add 10% petrol into the E85 fuel to make a E75 which seemed to work best and get best MPG cost ratios of that period .But it would work OK on 100% E85

Now E5 is about 0.95 per liter and last I loked E85 was the same .With a samll maybe 10% loss in MPG no milage tto stay with E85.For the motor heads wanting some extra umph mixxing in some E85 like 10% or 20% will often get the car to become all whipped up like a turbo does but you need to check what works with your own car .Other guys online have more info on what wont work .If you don't know its expermental and can wreck your engine .Turbo charged engines are very unlikly to run properly without a kit modification if you wish to get more power from adding some E85

Adding E85 will reduce MPG but improve power on average .

Derry

derry

Sean_K wrote: »

I'm no expert on fuels but I believe that adding ethanol will increase octane number, increase power output and result in a much cleaner burning fuel. It would make sense that it may reduce MPG.

Some fuels will give higher MPG while others will be more powerful and others will be cleaner. It's a case of a trade-off.

It would be beneficial if the garages were more open with consumers so that they could make up their own mind on what they want to run. A fuel that gives more MPG may be reducing the life of your engine.

If you get a modifation kit for you car ( about E600 euros )and modify it to run E85 fuel and you stick with that fuel chances are the car will last a lot longer.This is because the Ethanol fuel is a simple moliccule that tends to burn more completly .It tends to leave less crap in the engine and and less in the cat .The fuel tends to burn at a lowwer temperature for a longer time giving more tourgue and lees heat to inside of engine. However in winter the engine can take a longer time to warm up so lots of cars will add a bit of extra petrol to the fuel in winter to get engine heated up faster.
However MPG can go down from 10 to 30% depending on the lead foot and the type of car .I suffer a 5% to 10% loss in MPG but then I use a light foot

If money is no object then buy pure petrol from the UK at something like 10 euro a liter and that fuel will give max MPG.It will burn very clean but could burn a tad hotter than normal petrol which can burn the valves.Some guys mostly racing types add a bit more of Ethanol in to to cool that fuel down a tad to stop that issue .Pure fuel will give older cars less issues as they were often built to take higher naptha type fuels with lowwer compression and lower octane fuels .


If you want leaded fuel at E3 euro a liter the local airclub will have it for aircraft. Very old fashioned cars cant go with unleaded fuel for some reasons. Local airclubs might have issues to sell it for car use as I am not up to speed on the tax issues . Av gas as it is called is also a very specific fuel which does not vary much so as not to give sensitive plane engines any issues but it is mad money also.It contains lead anti knock products which will destroy a cat in a modern car meant for unleaded E5 fuels


Yes Ethanol is a higher octane fuel than E5 petrol adding E85 to E5 will increase octane .To run on E85 adavencing the ignition will help to burn fuel better and get better MPG . Ethanol fuel has 30% of the fuel as a oxygen molicule .As 30% of the fuel is for want of word not fuel but oxyegen which burn then you often need 30% more fuel to make up the loss of carbon hydrogen molicules which do burn .However now the engine gained more oxyegen to burn and you tend to get a 30% increase in power for very litte extra cost .Often a lot cheaper than buying a turbo

note a higher octane doesnt automaticaly mean more power.if you put high octane fuel in a low compression engiine meant for low octane the result will be fuel will just detonte more slowly so you are forced to advance the tiing but unlikely to improve power .
If you put low octane fuel into a high compression engine which is made for high octane the fuel will pre detonate > even retarding the spark wont often cure this problem. improving the octane of the fuel with actane additive or adding higher octane petrol fuels or ethanol fuels will eventualy raise the octane to the point that the fuel fires correctly at just before TDC

So when I add E85 to my low power lower compression older car it probably isnt working 100% as the ignition isn't advanced and the explosions are a tad retarded..The most harm this makes is the fuel might not get completly burnt up and so I might waste fuel . However if i advance the timing to adjust for this E85 fuel and then I switched to petrol E5 I would have to reset the timing as I would suffer from predetonation .I couldn't be arsed so I leave it set correctly for E5 petrol and mayby 95% to 100% set to use E85 fuels

more info post 54 in this thread

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=58423346&postcount=54

also wiki has a lot

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E85_in_standard_engines

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_refinery

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air-fuel_ratio

similar to first about engine and e85 but more detail

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E85

Then there is forums on converting cars to run on E85

very popular cheapo hop up for boy racers




Derry