E10 fuel - what’s your opinion?

The place to discuss everything else..
User avatar
m@rk
Posts: 376
Joined: Fri Dec 11, 2020 10:06 pm
Location: Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom

Post by m@rk »

It's important to understand things vary from country to country. The statement from Volvo posted above is not for the UK (the mention of temps in excess of 38 degrees give it away)

On a modern non performance engine (that applies to the entire XC40 range), in Europe, manufacturers have to cater for various grades of fuel. The fuel you buy from say a Shell garage at the motorway service station which has a high turnover of fuel compared to the fuel sold by your local Tesco through to a small hand pump in deepest darkest Latvia where they only get a delivery every three months is huge.

The engine management systems are designed to cope with this. If the fuel is poor, more fuel is burnt to compensate so the engine drives as well as if you were buying top grade fuel from a branded filling station. But it works the other way. If you are using premium fuel (IN EUROPE) then the engine will down tune itself and burn less fuel to generate the required amount of energy to perform as per how it was intended.

So you may see a small saving in fuel economy with premium fuel however the car is designed not to perform better (e.g. 0 to 60 times or top speed). On performance cars, this can often be the other way around and some software remaps do this but if you then put in poor quality fuel on your road trip through Eastern Europe (or Slough) then your car may run like a dog or at the extreme, not at all.

In tests done over the years, it has been demonstrated over and over again that buying quality fuel from the main brands from filling stations with a high turn over yields better results all round compared to buying cheap fuel from supermarkets and the like where the quality is inconsistent. It has also shown that the difference between low grade and branded fuel is more measurable than between normal and premium fuel from a single brand.

but with all of the above, if you are a normal driver driving normally, you probably won't actually notice any of this so I expect many people to claim that they use supermarket fuel and have no issues.

Personally, I have driven the last 750,000 miles exclusively on Shell fuel (not V Power) on all sorts of cars (performance and otherwise) and never had a need to question it.
XC40 T5 Recharge Inscription Pro - Denim & Blonde

Image

Chris John
Posts: 496
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:08 pm

Post by Chris John »

All good points above. Just checked and premium Esso at my local fuel station is 13p per litre more so even if you did get a few more MPG you are paying £6.50 a full tank full more. I’ll let you work that one out.
All fuel whether bought from a supermarket or a main brand station is the same. The only difference is the additives put in.
Volvo XC40 T5 R-Drive Pro. Thunder Grey with lots of extras
Dermottdog
Posts: 768
Joined: Sat Jul 06, 2019 7:39 pm
Location: Orpington, Kent

Post by Dermottdog »

m@rk wrote: Mon Mar 01, 2021 11:59 am It's important to understand things vary from country to country. The statement from Volvo posted above is not for the UK (the mention of temps in excess of 38 degrees give it away)

On a modern non performance engine (that applies to the entire XC40 range), in Europe, manufacturers have to cater for various grades of fuel. The fuel you buy from say a Shell garage at the motorway service station which has a high turnover of fuel compared to the fuel sold by your local Tesco through to a small hand pump in deepest darkest Latvia where they only get a delivery every three months is huge.

The engine management systems are designed to cope with this. If the fuel is poor, more fuel is burnt to compensate so the engine drives as well as if you were buying top grade fuel from a branded filling station. But it works the other way. If you are using premium fuel (IN EUROPE) then the engine will down tune itself and burn less fuel to generate the required amount of energy to perform as per how it was intended.

So you may see a small saving in fuel economy with premium fuel however the car is designed not to perform better (e.g. 0 to 60 times or top speed). On performance cars, this can often be the other way around and some software remaps do this but if you then put in poor quality fuel on your road trip through Eastern Europe (or Slough) then your car may run like a dog or at the extreme, not at all.

In tests done over the years, it has been demonstrated over and over again that buying quality fuel from the main brands from filling stations with a high turn over yields better results all round compared to buying cheap fuel from supermarkets and the like where the quality is inconsistent. It has also shown that the difference between low grade and branded fuel is more measurable than between normal and premium fuel from a single brand.

but with all of the above, if you are a normal driver driving normally, you probably won't actually notice any of this so I expect many people to claim that they use supermarket fuel and have no issues.

Personally, I have driven the last 750,000 miles exclusively on Shell fuel (not V Power) on all sorts of cars (performance and otherwise) and never had a need to question it.

Interesting. Thanks. That’s good information👏
R Design Pro T5 AWD in Crystal White. Convenience Pack, Front Parking and Apple Car. Couldn’t afford anything else!! Arriving late September 2019.
User avatar
m@rk
Posts: 376
Joined: Fri Dec 11, 2020 10:06 pm
Location: Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom

Post by m@rk »

Chris John wrote: Mon Mar 01, 2021 2:03 pm
All fuel whether bought from a supermarket or a main brand station is the same. The only difference is the additives put in.
Not strictly true

It all has to meet the same minimum standard and yes many brands have various additives that they add which can differentiate them but there is a big difference between meeting the minimum standard and exceeding it although as I said above for many drivers, the difference will be unnoticeable

A big challenge with the supermarket (and other budget) brands is inconsistency. One week it could be straight out a Shell refinery and the following it could be a cheap batch that's been sat around for a while and they got a good deal on. The only thing you can know for sure is that it meets the minimum standard (or at least did when it was produced)
XC40 T5 Recharge Inscription Pro - Denim & Blonde

Image
Chris John
Posts: 496
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:08 pm

Post by Chris John »

m@rk wrote: Mon Mar 01, 2021 6:02 pm
Chris John wrote: Mon Mar 01, 2021 2:03 pm
All fuel whether bought from a supermarket or a main brand station is the same. The only difference is the additives put in.
Not strictly true

It all has to meet the same minimum standard and yes many brands have various additives that they add which can differentiate them but there is a big difference between meeting the minimum standard and exceeding it although as I said above for many drivers, the difference will be unnoticeable

A big challenge with the supermarket (and other budget) brands is inconsistency. One week it could be straight out a Shell refinery and the following it could be a cheap batch that's been sat around for a while and they got a good deal on. The only thing you can know for sure is that it meets the minimum standard (or at least did when it was produced)
Have you ever seen a supermarket fuel distribution depot and if so where is there one?
All I’ve ever seen is the supermarket tankers filling up at major brands distribution depots
Volvo XC40 T5 R-Drive Pro. Thunder Grey with lots of extras
User avatar
m@rk
Posts: 376
Joined: Fri Dec 11, 2020 10:06 pm
Location: Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom

Post by m@rk »

Chris John wrote: Mon Mar 01, 2021 6:19 pm

Have you ever seen a supermarket fuel distribution depot and if so where is there one?
All I’ve ever seen is the supermarket tankers filling up at major brands distribution depots
Yes but as I said, not always the same one every time.

So whilst your BP filling station will always get their fuel via their own network, the supermarket next door might get theirs from Shell one week, BP the next, Haltermann Carless the week after and ConocoPhillips the following. In some cases, they may also take supply from outside of the UK.

It's by trading the different suppliers against each other that they can keep costs lower.

Consistency is the difference here
XC40 T5 Recharge Inscription Pro - Denim & Blonde

Image
Post Reply