V Power Diesel?

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RAFC_1990

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Been talking to a guy at work and he was telling me how I should be using V Power in the A3 2.0 TDi S Line, saying that it keeps the pipes clean and delivers more power and a better drive, can anyone confirm this? Always just used to think that stuff was a con. Also that it should be given a good blast on the motorway every week or 2, just mifs or not?

Any help appreciated
 
If the car is fitted with a DPF, then it's a good idea to make sure it's getting a good run out to regenerate and empty the canister so you don't have issues with the DPF light. Fuel I'm not too sure about.
 
It's only the petrol that delivers more powerby having a higher octane, which doesn't technically give you more power it just changes it's ignition point making it easier to ignite and thus through lots more in depth stuff technically gives you more power.

However, v power diesel only has more cleaning agents in it, you don't technically need it.
 
It does make a difference and this has been proved in tests several times.

Fifth Gear - series 15 episode 4, premium diesel test - YouTube

These diesel fuels are not made the same way as normal diesel is, A good proportion of the fuel started life as gas.They convert gas to liquid GTL which is part of the reason it's more expensive.

Shell V-Power - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

They do work however I don't normally use them unless going to santa pod or the like.Most of the time I use standard Shell diesel and that I find is better that your standard supermarket stuff. That does itself contain cleaning agents etc.
As for taking the car for a run every few weeks if you only ever do short journeys at low speed thats probably as reasonable idea.

Karl.
 
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desertstorm said:
It does make a difference and this has been proved in tests several times.

Fifth Gear - series 15 episode 4, premium diesel test - YouTube

These diesel fuels are not made the same way as normal diesel is, A good proportion of the fuel started life as gas.They convert gas to liquid GTL which is part of the reason it's more expensive.

Shell V-Power - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

They do work however I don't normally use them unless going to santa pod or the like.Most of the time I use standard Shell diesel and that I find is better that your standard supermarket stuff. That does itself contain cleaning agents etc.
As for taking the car for a run every few weeks if you only ever do short journeys at low speed thats probably as reasonable idea.

Karl.

Karl.
Click to expand...


Cheers, might try £20 worth of v power, and try and avoid the supermarkets all together in future then.
 
audi upgrades
Just filled up a full tank of v power diesel. Will see how many miles I get to the tank as compared to the supermarket fuels I've been using for past couple months.
 
I get no difference in mpg at all, it's just not worth it for the massive price difference for some extra additives.
 
Iv always got fuel from wherever is cheapest but since Iv owned my a3 Iv only run v-power diesel, simple fact that Iv worked hard for it and wanna look after it! Lol don't see a great deal of difference if I'm honest!
 
V power fuel should give you an increase in mpg but only a few % . It's not massively more expensive 10p a litre on 1.37 would be about 7% more. When I have used it I have noticed small improvements in fuels economy.Maybe of the order of 3-4%, thats only 20 miles more on 500 miles.
It is more noticeable though in performance terms there is definately more go.
 
I use V-Power Diesel because iv only had the car a month and Audis arnt cheap so i want to look after it... Hopefully it reduces the carbon build up it had prior to myself owning the car and keeps it running smooth.
Cant be much more per tank can it? Only like extra 7-8p a litre
 
dannyh1991uk said:
I use V-Power Diesel because iv only had the car a month and Audis arnt cheap so i want to look after it... Hopefully it reduces the carbon build up it had prior to myself owning the car and keeps it running smooth.
Cant be much more per tank can it? Only like extra 7-8p a litre
Click to expand...


I filled mine up from empty last week and it cost about £5 extra to fill the tank with V-Power Diesel over normal fuel.

IMHO

More power - No
Quieter engine - yes
MPG - not noticed though averaged 64mpg over 200miles at weekend.
Smoother Delivery etc - yes

worth the 10p a litre extra - possibly, i fill up once a month maybe so i dont mind paying it, if i was filling up every week then i may not.
 
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Looking at the Shell site and a few other pages it looks like the difference between normal and V-Power diesels is down to the cleanliness of the burn and the additives that are supposed to keep the injectors clean. I know from my dad’s experience that his 1.9 TDI sees a gradual drop in fuel economy until he uses something like Redex to give it a cleanout and it’s like new again (in terms of economy). No doubt there will be other parts of the system that will be clogged up still and I reckon using a cleaner fuel would be a good idea if you have a DPF, in the long run anyway.

Point to note, the difference between normal and V-Power petrol is totally different. The higher octane rating means the engine can run at a higher compression ratio which gives the performance and economy gains.

Modern engines have the ability to adjust the compression ratio so they’re able to cope with various available fuel types. For example in the UK we have 95 RON for unleaded and Super is normally 97-99 RON. In Germany their unleaded is 91 RON, Super is 95 and Super Plus can be up to 100 (I used to use Shell Optimax 100 when I was over there).

Older non-performance engines will probably run at 95 RON, if they’re unable to adjust their compression ratio putting anything higher than that in is a waste of money.
 
Staz said:
Modern engines have the ability to adjust the compression ratio so they’re able to cope with various available fuel types. For example in the UK we have 95 RON for unleaded and Super is normally 97-99 RON. In Germany their unleaded is 91 RON, Super is 95 and Super Plus can be up to 100 (I used to use Shell Optimax 100 when I was over there).
Click to expand...

Did you mean compression ratio or ignition timing as it's usually the latter that's retarded when the engine detects the onset of pinking due to poor fuel?
 
I think it does make a difference. the car drives smoother and i feel the pick up improves. i drive a 70 mile trip daily using the motorway. i tested the supermarket fuels and also shell and total and shell v power. in terms of miles i got from a full tank before the low petrol light came on, the v power was by far the strongest fuel. same driving style and similar weather conditions. for the sake of £5 per tank, i would go v power all the way!
 
V power diesel has a higher Cetane rating than normal diesel. Cetane is to diesel as what octane is to petrol. The performance additives that you can add to normal diesel increase the cetane rating. And as I said earlier V power diesel isn't just like normal diesel with some additives to clean the system and make it go a bit better it is actually made in a completely different way.
Normal diesel is refined from crude oil. Products such as V Power diesel start life as gas, this is then converted to liquid through complex chemical processes.
It's similar to mineral engine oil and fully synthetic.
Normal diesel is a bit like Castrol GTX which is mostly manufactured from crude oil .
V Power is like Mobil 1 0w 20 fully synthetic oil, there is very little about this oil that is natural, it's pretty much manufactured in a lab by engineering molecules to produce an oil with properties that could never be achieved with normal crude oil.

Karl
 
Staz said:
Looking at the Shell site and a few other pages it looks like the difference between normal and V-Power diesels is down to the cleanliness of the burn and the additives that are supposed to keep the injectors clean. I know from my dad’s experience that his 1.9 TDI sees a gradual drop in fuel economy until he uses something like Redex to give it a cleanout and it’s like new again (in terms of economy). No doubt there will be other parts of the system that will be clogged up still and I reckon using a cleaner fuel would be a good idea if you have a DPF, in the long run anyway.

Point to note, the difference between normal and V-Power petrol is totally different. The higher octane rating means the engine can run at a higher compression ratio which gives the performance and economy gains.

Modern engines have the ability to adjust the compression ratio so they’re able to cope with various available fuel types. For example in the UK we have 95 RON for unleaded and Super is normally 97-99 RON. In Germany their unleaded is 91 RON, Super is 95 and Super Plus can be up to 100 (I used to use Shell Optimax 100 when I was over there).

Older non-performance engines will probably run at 95 RON, if they’re unable to adjust their compression ratio putting anything higher than that in is a waste of money.
Click to expand...

Could you tell me which modern engines actually have variable compression. ? Nearly all the engines in that wiki link are experimental or are not in current production. Most hybrid engines use a modified otto cycle called the Atkinson cycle, this achieves some of the benefits of variable compression without having the mechanical complexity.
Atkinson cycle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
These are not performance engines though and they appear in a small number of cars in relation to the number of vechicles on the road.
The main advantage of the increased octane is without doubt the ability to advance the ignition timing to the point where pinking / pre ignition / knock is just happening. Any engine is more efficient if the point at which the spark occurs can be delayed. However delay it too long and you get detonation, instead of a a controlled burn.
Pretty much any petrol engine produced in the last 15-20 years has a knock sensor and this gives the ECU the ability to listen to the engine and advance ignition timing to the point where knock is just occuring and then ****** the timing fractionally.
Using fuel with a higher octane rating means that the timing will be advanced on even these older engines to give improvements.
Modern ECU's are very clever compared to those from 20 years ago though being able to adjust the timing continuously for each cylinder to optimise the combustion process.

Karl.
 
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I ran it in my 2.0 TDI, always seemed to run better!!
 
desertstorm said:
V power diesel has a higher Cetane rating than normal diesel.
Click to expand...

That's what I expected to find but their site makes no mention of a higher cetane number.

desertstorm said:
Pretty much any petrol engine produced in the last 15-20 years has a knock sensor and this gives the ECU the ability to listen to the engine and advance ignition timing to the point where knock is just occuring and then ****** the timing fractionally.
Using fuel with a higher octane rating means that the timing will be advanced on even these older engines to give improvements.
Modern ECU's are very clever compared to those from 20 years ago though being able to adjust the timing continuously for each cylinder to optimise the combustion process.
Click to expand...

Interesting, looks like I was misinformed.
 
Some useful videos:





 
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Back on thread - I ran V-power diesel for a few tanks in my previous car (A5 3.0 tdi) and tbh, never noticed much of a difference, either in performance or fuel economy.
 
nluk100 said:
Back on thread - I ran V-power diesel for a few tanks in my previous car (A5 3.0 tdi) and tbh, never noticed much of a difference, either in performance or fuel economy.
Click to expand...

Its all quite subjective regarding different fuels. Some people swear theres a difference others dont. I'm one of the latter but the difference is not really that much in performance rather in economy on a frequenly driven route.
 
hopeless said:
Its all quite subjective regarding different fuels. Some people swear theres a difference others dont. I'm one of the latter but the difference is not really that much in performance rather in economy on a frequenly driven route.
Click to expand...

I guess that also depends on whether we're talking about diesel or petrol. For a time I was stationed in a quite remote area and the petrol station I used didn't sell Super. I can assure you there was a difference in performance on my car!
 
The difference in power is likely to be around 4-5% so most people wouldn't probably notice that on a 3.0 TDI A5 with 240bhp that would be something like 9-12 bhp, most people would struggle to feel that much difference and the fuel economy difference would only add 20 miles or so to a tank on a 3.0 TDI. Easy to miss.

Karl.
 
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