V Power - Tesco 99. My 2 cents.

What fuel are you using by choice?

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Welly

Welly

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I am aware this has been discussed many times, and that there are articles out there where cars have been tested on dynos with various fuel types etc.

BUT - none of these are personal experience, so I thought I'd share my 'moment of clarity' over the last few days.

I've been a religious Tesco shopper for years, and when Tesco brought their 99 Octane fuel out, I couldn't of been happier. This was many years ago now, long before I had made my move to the 4 rings brand of transport.

I've used it ever since to be fair, I spend a lot of time on the road, especially around Gloucestershire, where there are a great many Tescos in pretty much all directions. That combined with getting clubcard points for fuel, and it generally being cheaper than Shell, just said 'Yes' to me.

And that is how it has remained for many years now.

The other day, was out of fuel and in need. Badly. Stopped in at the nearest garage which was Shell, and slapped £40 worth of V Power in. Didn't think anything more about it.

The very same thing happened again when it came time to fill up once more. In went V Power as it was convenient, and to be fair, is about the same price as Tesco 99 at the moment.

So, two tanks of V Power on the bounce.

Things then returned to normal with Tesco 99, which I now notice has been renamed to 'Momentum' for some stupid reason. After this, I really did notice a dip in performance. Others didn't notice it when they drove it, but when you drive a car every day, you get used to it's quirks.

After 2 tanks of 'Momentum', I was still thinking the very same thing, that the car seemed to be under performing. Not by much, but noticeable to me. I put this, eventually after hunting through the engine bay for split hoses (again), down to the heat that we've been having over the last few days.

Filled up with V Power last night again, and pottered to work this morning. Now I've just been out to the bank, and took the S3 with me, and with V Power in it, power is back to how it was before. Feels like it's performing in A1 condition.

So, it must be the fuel. I never have noticed a difference before, I must admit. But there deffo has been once recently. I wonder if the batch of 99 floating around at the moment is a bit sub-par when compared to others. Who knows.

But what I do know is, I am sticking with V Power for the foreseeable future, cost regardless.

Any one else have experiences with this?

Sorry for the epic post....
 
I agree and am quite religous about the Shell Fuel. If I can't find any, I will fill up with enough to get me to the nearest one.
 
Up until about 5 months ago I'd been slapping any old 97/98 unleaded in my car and then switched to Tesco 99 where I obviously noticed a difference. I used to alway put V power in ALL my cars until the garage shut down near me and my nearest Shell is miles away. I might try and find another Shell garage and test the theory.
 
Westle said:
I used to alway put V power in ALL my cars until the garage shut down near me and my nearest Shell is miles away. I might try and find another Shell garage and test the theory.
Click to expand...

If you wouldn't mind, that would be good. I'd like to get other's experiences of the same thing, i.e. going from T99 to V Power.
 
Always use V Power in the car, if the worst comes to the worst, I will put normal unleaded in from Shell, I got the car and the previous owner just used standard anything, when i did change to V Power, i noticed the difference, it was alot more responsive and since that day I have not changed back :)
 
I always ran my A3 on V-power and as soon as I've sold the thing the S3 will be run on V-power too. especially now my V-power card came in the post :rockwoot:
 
The ECU will adapt to the higher Octane fuel after a few tanks and wont need to pull timing as much. When I go over to Europe they do Shell 100 which I wish they'd get over here.

Welly I'll get a tank of shell when I next fill up next week, I only fill up once every 2 weeks so I wont be able to give any real feedback for about a month!

I may even break out the laptop for some VCDS logging..... you never know what that might show!

EDIT: Just found out that my nearest Shell garage is 8 miles out of my way :mad:
 
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i always put in v-power and about a year ago when they ran out or something i had to put in bp ultimate which made my car run like dog poo! everyone thought i was imagining it untill my brother drove it ( he knows nothing about cars!) and said that even he thought something was up with it as it just didnt feel as good as it normally does.
 
I have been using Tesco 99 for the past couple of tanks and feel my car is not as perky as before.... Not too fussed atm as I am prob gonna use it all up on the trip to the Inters this Saturday but I think I will be back on V-Power after this lot is used up...

<tuffty/>
 
I HAD to put a bit of nasty fuel in my car at the weekend as i needed to make a trip on very short notice... Ive done a few miles on it now and... its shocking the drop off when compaired to V power
 
So what sort of differences are you seeing guys?? I have always used normal unleaded fuel as i thought it was all a big Con..

So do you see a noticable difference in performance e.g is it much Quicker?? and do you get better MPG or roughly the same??
 
I too often have to switch between Shell and Tesco (our Shell runs out of vpower pretty quick..) so if i cant get vpower i head to tesco and use their 99ron. I too feel the vpower is better, i think its slightly 'cleaner' that the tesco fuel if i remember right?
 
Jimmy Parko said:
So what sort of differences are you seeing guys?? I have always used normal unleaded fuel as i thought it was all a big Con..

So do you see a noticable difference in performance e.g is it much Quicker?? and do you get better MPG or roughly the same??
Click to expand...

Well, my advice would be to try 2 tanks of V Power over what you normally use and judge the difference for yourself. It would be interesting to have the opinion of someone who hasn't used Super Unleaded religiously like many of us.

You have a currently unbiased view....

5ean said:
I too often have to switch between Shell and Tesco (our Shell runs out of vpower pretty quick..) so if i cant get vpower i head to tesco and use their 99ron. I too feel the vpower is better, i think its slightly 'cleaner' that the tesco fuel if i remember right?
Click to expand...

Yeah, V Power is a genuine 99 RON, where as Tesco 99 (Made by Greenergy - info here: http://www.greenergy.com/tesco_99_octane/Spec_Sheet_99_octane.pdf) is made up to 99 octane using additives.

Tesco fuel also has more detergents in it, which, whilst good for the engine, aren't as good for outright power.
 
I've had to use Tesco Momentum for the last two 30 quid fills. You are right though, VPower is definitely the better of the two.

An interesting read found here with real life dyno's (I know I know...) done using different fuels. BP 102....mmmm i want some.

G
 
Just a snippet taken from the page I've linked too..

In simple terms, Shell V Power is near identical to the Optimax product that it replaced, in power and &#8216;feel&#8217; terms it continued to out perform all 95 octane fuels and we&#8217;d still recommend owners of all performance cars use the highest quality fuel they can find. However the performance offered by the fuel was sometimes inconsistent.

The Tesco 99 fuel again outperformed V Power in all the tests but the differences between the two fuels were marginal and we doubt most people would tell the difference in their cars on a day to day basis. However the Tesco fuel was the most consistent.

The BP 102 fuel showed the best gains in terms of &#8216;feel&#8217; and performed better on the dyno and on initial fill up, when the fuel was fresh the power gains were noticeable even above the Tesco 99 fuel. However the gains seemed to dramatically diminish over time or with increases in engine bay temperature a feature which we are continuing to test.

The testing we have conducted deliberately concentrated purely on the performance gains offered by the premium fuels without reference to cost, cost is a financial measure not a performance one. However it would be puerile to simply ignore its reference in testing deigned for the general fuel buying public. In pure cost/performance terms its very hard to beat the Tesco product, on average the Tesco 99 fuel was 5-6% cheaper than the V Power (up to 10% cheaper when compared to some motorway fuel stations). The BP fuel at almost £2.50 a litre was obviously the most expensive and even with our £50,000 per year fuel bill it would be impossible to justify using the fuel with any degree of regularity - £147 to fill the tank of the CSL was even worthy of a picture of the pump price gauge.
 
Have been reading more on 102 and it's been stopped from end of March 2010, due to availability of the fuel.

Have tried to ring two filling stations both of which do not sell the fuel anymore.....looks like i've missed my chance.

For now i'll stick with the Tesco I think. :(

G
 
And more....

The significance of the high octane rating is that the engine's ignition can be remapped so that more power is produced without the risk of engine damage that would result if you used standard fuel. BP says that in testing it was able to remap ignitions to provide power benefits of between 4% and 7.5% without sending conrods through the walls of the test bay. In the case of a turbocharged car running higher than standard boost pressure an increase of 8.6% in maximum power was seen, with a 16% improvement elsewhere in the rev range.

Soooooo.......down to the maths.

If your S3 say has 260Hp after being remapped, theoretically you drive to the nearest BP 102 filling station of which there are only 9 (2 of which don't sell it anymore), fill up costing over £140 and drive out with 22.36Bhp more than when you went in. LOL! Thats the minimum you'd see. 16% improvement (probably not realistic) would potentially see 41.6Hp. :w00t: making an S3 with 102 fuel in around 290/300Hp! That if it's got any kind of credit is insane!

Maybe another remap would be needed to take advantage of the higher octane though??

G
 
I always use V Power in my car. I had to use Tesco 99 when V Power went up to 1.30 a month back! I used Tesco 99 on 3 tanks and i could also tell there was a dip in performance. WIth V Power i feel increased better response and the difference is definitely noticable.

My brother uses V Power all the time aswell in his E46 M3 but alot of people on the M3 forum swear by Tesco 99 instead of V Power. My brother has noticed he gets more miles out of his tank with Tesco 99 than V Power so he's using that now and then when it's cheaper than Shell.


Jay
 
This is what I am interested to hear.

G, I've read all of these articles as well, and seen the dyno plots that have been created, and they are very interesting I agree. But what I wanted was people's real world experiences to see if they tally with my own, as I really have noticed the difference.

I'm concerned that the latest batch of T99 is not as good as previous batches.

I'm adding a poll to see what people use through choice.
 
I know i'm only a lowly A3 1.8T driver, but is this going to make any sort of difference with mine?

I use v-power, as the difference between using 'standard' and v-power is about 7p a litre, and on a 30 litre fill thats 2 quid difference so no biggie.
 
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I have recently read somewhere that the addatives in the Vpower can spped up pipe degredation and clog up FPRs and the like. It seems to be common on the S's and RS's over on SRS.

I wonder if thats because they are now of age, or a massive co incedence i dont know. I myself am stuck buying super at my local station at !.25 /L for 97 Techtron stuff unless i remember to get fuel when i am out etc.

I have ran her on std stuff to get to the next station that does super( when mine runs out) and she is deffo unhappy on it, pinks more, rougher idle etc
 
maxp said:
I know i'm only a lowly A3 1.8T driver, but is this going to make any sort of difference with mine?
Click to expand...

Yes it will. Higher octane fuel provides a more powerful explosion of the same quantity of a lower octane fuel.

Everyone who is reading this, that hasn't tried super unleaded, do me a favour.

The next 2 times you fill up, fill with Super unleaded. A few extra quid, yes, but just for testing purposes. Go without the extra pint.

2 tanks will give your ECU time to adapt to the new fuel and give you the benefits.

Then come back and post here, and let us know what you think.

Go with either V Power, or Tesco 99.
 
Well I can certainly feel the difference between 99 and 97 RON as I get timing pull with 97. Although when I ran a full tank of 97 completely empty and then stuck vpower back in the car felt felt much better throughout the rev range.
 
I work in Coventry and have the option of using both T99 and VPower (1 mile distance between the two suppliers). Like some others, I dropped from using VPower when the costs became an issue but only yesterday, I decided to fill up at Shell instead of trying to drive past the Ricoh Stadium (some Boots Convention on and Pink, purple or whatever the girl is called is doing a gig there soon).

Filled the tank with VP and only this morning on my drive to work I can feel the car pull smoother, and ever so slightly stronger. I can't prove using VCDS or otherwise, all results obtained from how driving it now feels. I'm the only driver of my car, I drive about 12k miles a year and use the same route mon-fri. Even with the hotter weather, I can feel a difference so I thinks I'll be sticking to VP!

Is T99 stil 99RON or 97RON (heard rumours that it was gonna be changed to 97RON with rebranding as it is difficult to keep the RON value if the fuel sits for too long in the tanks, could be bullpoop, I wouldn't have a clue, saying that it sounds as if the rebranding has started already).

I wonder what the old '5 star leaded petrol' would have been like to use....
 
anyone logged how far it will advance the timing on the various fuels ?
 
Westle said:
I thought the timing was measured by degrees not miles ;)
Click to expand...

Smarty pants.... LOL.

OK, OK, it's at the Stage 1 Revo map's maximum, and then another 2.25 degrees on top of that.

Got to love the efficiency of the large port head. :thumbsup:
 
well im hoping to put either some gtech figures to the 20vt or just plot the output for testing, so ill have a word with the timing too whilst im out there
 
If this becomes useful, with logging info and people's experiences, might be worth 'Stickying'.
 
Always ran Optimax/V-Power, but on an off chance, filled up with Tesco's 99RON for a rolling road day @Power Engineering, didn't make any benefit on the rollers, but out on the open road, it felt more torquey at speeds between 70-90 on the motorway.

I have to add that the car would respond better if the car was custom mapped on whichever fuel you generally use.
 
Welly said:
Yes it will. Higher octane fuel provides a more powerful explosion of the same quantity of a lower octane fuel.

Everyone who is reading this, that hasn't tried super unleaded, do me a favour.

The next 2 times you fill up, fill with Super unleaded. A few extra quid, yes, but just for testing purposes. Go without the extra pint.

2 tanks will give your ECU time to adapt to the new fuel and give you the benefits.

Then come back and post here, and let us know what you think.

Go with either V Power, or Tesco 99.
Click to expand...

Once the S3 is fixed I will try it, I've been filling up with various 95ron :redface: but was on V power in the Evo & have a V-power card & points to spend :)
I always thought the Evo went better on V-power than tesco 99 TBH.
 
I always run mine on BP Ultimate but a few weeks ago I put in some regular Texaco stuff out of desperation and the car ran like a bag of *****!
 
Els said:
I always run mine on BP Ultimate but a few weeks ago I put in some regular Texaco stuff out of desperation and the car ran like a bag of *****!
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Arrrgghhh. Texaco fuel, truly the worst of the worst.

I truly believe it is watered down with camel's p*ss before being sent out to forecourts.

Acceptable out of desperation though, marginally better than walking.
 
Well without wishing to be a contraian, I was running on Shell V-Power and Tesco 99 RON, and when Shell had a supply problem a month of so ago I had to put in normal 95 RON Shell, and have to be honest I couldnt notice any drop in performance but did notice in gain in MPG so have stuck with the 95 RON stuff as doing about 18,000 miles a year it all adds up and as there was to my seat-of-the-pants dyno no drop in performance thought why not. I know it should be better on the higher octane stuff but I cant feel any difference except in my wallet
 
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