COD on Premium Unleaded (97RON+)?

[Stephen C]

Does anyone run their 1.4 TFSI COD on premium unleaded, or with fuel with an octane number above the regular 95RON?

I'm curious to see if anyone has seen any MPG or performance improvements out of this engine.

 

[cuke2u]

Supermarket fuel in mine, anything else is just like dropping pound coins into your tank. Total waste of money on a marketing exercise and no real proof of any advantages...

 

[viperfire]

Well this is bull ****. Think you need to google some tests and try it yourself. You WILL notice more mpg that's for sure!

Supermarket fuel in mine, anything else is just like dropping pound coins into your tank. Total waste of money on a marketing exercise and no real proof of any advantages...

 

[cuke2u]

There is no proof out there that says my car will benefit, only anecdotal evidence from owners who make certain 'claims'. Show me the scientific and impartial evidence that spending a whole lot more on marketing exercise fuel does anything to my car...

 

[PilotAudi]

I haven't noticed any significant difference running S 3 on higher octane fuel but do believe it should. My earlier life experiences with Minis an hot Fords indeed proved that advancing ignition settings provided better performance but required higher octane fuel to prevent pinking. Not sure if modern ecu technology works in detail or if car actually 'knows' what octane fuel is in the tank.
I would like to see some evidence or expert opinion but certainly do not 'rubbish' the theory ,

 

[BGS]

I pretty much always go for the higher octane variety, usually Momentum as there is a Tesco half a mile down the road. I couldn't tell you if it makes any real difference as I have not used lower octane optiions in the car at all. Besides, this early in the car's life small improvements in power/mpg are likely down to any number of other factors.

Quite apart from performance, Tesco claims that the additives also help maintain a clean and healthy engine. Again little scientific evidence of this though.

Whether the cost is 'whole lot more' is fairly subjective, at 5p a litre over regular thats around £2.50 on a full tank. For the price of a coffee i'll take the risk that it's all hokum

 

[Shadowman]

AutoExpress did a test a couple of years ago comparing different grades of fuel.....do a search on their web site, but I have read several impartial articles which claim the more expensive fuels do indeed have mpg, performance and cleaning advantages.

 

[JudderMan]

Try the opposite then. Once you've ran a vehicle on 91 Octane you start to believe RON's 'hocus pocus' rating.

97+ for my heap, as mentioned above, the cost per tank is worth it and with turbo cars you don't want detonation. Ever.

 

[M_D_O_London]

For what it's worth, I have a 1.8 TFSI S-Tronic and have recently started running her on Shell V-Power exclusively. Am finding that MPG is up slightly plus engine seems to run a tad smoother.

Previously, I had a 2010 VW Golf GT TSI DSG 1.4 and the difference between regular Unleaded and Super was very noticeable.

 

[cuke2u]

Try the opposite then. Once you've ran a vehicle on 91 Octane you start to believe RON's 'hocus pocus' rating.

97+ for my heap, as mentioned above, the cost per tank is worth it and with turbo cars you don't want detonation. Ever.

Still no proof that by throwing more money at the oil companies and instead using the correct approved ron with my engine makes it at anymore risk of damage. Detonation is a thing of the past...

 

[TFSI]

V power all the time !! Nearly !! MPG improves, runs better and smoother.
Class engine requires class fuel.

 

[leosayer1]

I've only filled up my cod with 95 so far but on the back of this thread the next tank will be v power as an experiment.

 

[Stephen C]

I pretty much always go for the higher octane variety, usually Momentum as there is a Tesco half a mile down the road. I couldn't tell you if it makes any real difference as I have not used lower octane optiions in the car at all. Besides, this early in the car's life small improvements in power/mpg are likely down to any number of other factors.

Quite apart from performance, Tesco claims that the additives also help maintain a clean and healthy engine. Again little scientific evidence of this though.

Whether the cost is 'whole lot more' is fairly subjective, at 5p a litre over regular thats around £2.50 on a full tank. For the price of a coffee i'll take the risk that it's all hokum

Petrol pricing is an interesting issue. People go crazy to get just 2p off per litre of fuel in promotions, yet you're saying 5p extra per litre is justified. When you put it as £2.50 per tank, it doesn't sound that significant to me! I guess everyone values it differently.

 

[stetheo]

Interesting as fifth gear also did a test on this not long ago.

It showed that the higher RON fuels are beneficial in terms of some additional ponies in performance cars but made no different on smaller engines. It also mentioned that it should be more economical due to the ignition points of the higher RON fuels, although I can't remember exactly why off the top of my head.

 

[cuke2u]

Yes they did but the tests was far from objective as the conditions the tests were conducted in were very much variable. Also a ecu these days can vary the timing instantly, whether it is valve or timing, thus has a little effect upon the performance of this engine.
As this thread is about the 1.4 COD engine I am of course, keeping on topic....

 

[Joetidman]

A couple of tests that have been conducted

https://www.google.co.uk/url?q=http...twIwAA&usg=AFQjCNENLagF6eFpFS2vni6Itp2_m0LSzQ
https://www.google.co.uk/url?q=http...twIwAQ&usg=AFQjCNElfcI04wZhZQej2DY2loNj4Sfdyw

Having read through a number of articles and seen these tests, I do think it makes a small amount of difference, but mostly to higher performance engines where the % increase will be greater in absolute terms, and the tolerances in the engine are greater. I do think cuke is right that engines are much cleverer and adaptable now, but for performance engines I think you will see a small difference with vpower. I was also talking with a VW tech the other day and he did insist that the extra additives in the super brands also do help with carbon build up over time reducing chances of misfires from injectors in the medium term (although chucking some additive into your tank once every 6 months is probably just as good).

So for the 1.4 COD...I wouldn't bother, the extra cost is probably not worth it for that specific engine, for the S3, I would say it was, but personal view

 

[jongeddes]

I remember reading the article in Auto Express and seem to think that it made a bigger difference with the higher performance engines which more than covered the extra cost plus the added benefits. For the lesser powered cars the gain wasn't that much different, still enough to cover the increased cost of the fuel from memory but not the same gain as would be for the S3.

 

[BGS]

I'm no expert on how power is delivered or increased by the octane rating but I would guess you have to be pushing the engine to red line or at least going WOT to benefit from such small increase in BHP?

I would agree that any power benefits on my COD are negligable at best and not going to be used even if they are tangible. But I will continue to use it for the other benefits mentioned. After spending 30k plus on a car I'd like to think I look after it, so i keep it clean and cover it in Dodo Juice. I may as well look after the insides too.

MPG is more important to me, and I guess for others driving COD's the same is generally true. Unless I floor it i'm not going to know if max BHP is 140 or 144, for anyone in that scenario I doubt MPG is a real concern

 

[leosayer1]

I spent the £800 extra on the 140bhp COD engine over the 122bhp because of the improved performance with (in theory) no fuel economy penalty. I rarely use WOT but there is more power throughout the rev range as well which is noticeable in day to day driving.

The extra 4mpg and £10 cheaper road tax are nice to have and so is the clever tech that cuts fuel to half the cylinders, but I would never have paid extra for this without the performance benefits. By my reckoning, you only save £6.76 on fuel every 1000 miles.

The fuel flap says to use 95, so that’s what I have used so far. I have seen no evidence that using V-Power or similar will improve performance or fuel economy but I’m willing to give it a go and make up my own mind. V Power is around 5% dearer than unleaded, so I’ll only need to go 5% further on a tank of fuel for it to have been worthwhile, financially.

 

[kmacuk]

Exactly the same reasoning behind my COD purchase - more power - also the R/Tax saving over the 122 as well. Got my nice shiny new car and decided the best fuel was worth a go. I ran initially in 95 RON supermarket for several tanks then switched to 97RON Sainsbury fuel for 5 tanks and V Power Nitro for 3 tanks then returned to supermarket 95. I ran through enough tanks to eliminate weather impact and although I really wanted the expensive fuels to give results I failed to see them. In fact when I posted previously an 80 miles run giving 58mpg that was on supermarket stuff. I think if these fuels really gave better consumption the manufacturers would be shouting about it, however the adverts for Nitro are not focusing on improved economy just the benefits of "quality" fuels and how they clean the engine - if this is what you are looking for I guess the premium is worth it. I calculated with the local prices in my area I needed (15miles/tank) 4% better mpg from Sainsbury 97 and (30 miles/tank)7% from Shell Nitro. It was a hassle filling up at Sainsbury so reverted back to supermarket and have noticed no real world differences. S3/higher performance cars may well see a small noticeable benefit but don't think mine does.

 

[jbs2472]

I traded my 2011 A3 Black Edition 2.0tdi 170 in for my current COD and only use shell nitro! I always used the Nitro diesel in my previous so am seeing a significant saving anyway in fuel, tax and insurance whilst hopefully using better fuel.

Win win in my eyes and if I decided to use standard shell then even better savings.