Shell V Power vs Tesco Momentum 99

Which do you swear by?

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I'm glad I found this thread. Since buying my b7 A4 2.0TQ about 18 months ago I have always used shell v-power. That was until about 2 weeks ago when I needed to refill and was nowhere near a shell station so I popped in to Tesco. After filling up with a full tank of 99 I instantly noticed the car seemed to be pulling slightly harder and running smoother but I couldn't understand why.

I thought I was going mad until I read the above. Glad it's not just me who's noticed this. Will be sticking with Tesco from now on.
 
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I used to use Shell but the price shot up and now I use Tesco, it was about 12p a litre more for the shell v power.
 
V-power is £1.32 a litre at my local shell. Tesco is cheaper but a bit further away. Worth the drive though.

Car will be going in for stage 2+ tuning soon. Will be getting it mapped with a full tank of Tesco 99
 
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GaryP said:
I don't have much choice over in Northern Ireland. No Tesco Momentum or Shell as far as I am aware. We don't even have Shell stations at all...!!! Is BP Super Unleaded really that bad??
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I suppose that it is all relative, if your best brand available is BP then you must use it, BP don't seem to make any effort to advertise as far as I've noticed, and our local BP station changed to Shell at the time that BP were said to be stopping retailing fuels in UK - how true that turned out to be I don't know, but I suspect this might have been misinformation based around the fact that many of these old legacy roadside brands, where they do exist, only exist in as much as brand names as another company or group will be doing all the supply work behind the scene, probably much like all the old legacy brands owning their own refineries? Same thing with some lubricating oil brands?
 
All the fuel in any particular area is likely to come from the same refinery with the exception of round humberside where there are two refineries next to each other. In the North West, all the fuel comes from Stanlow Refinery where Shell Optimax was developed which then became V Power. The refineries don’t have tankage to make lots of different grades so make only 2 or 3 octane blends. The only difference between the fuels at each station is the additives packages that are added. VPower is supposed to have the most advanced detergent and friction modifier package and is 99 RON blend. I believe Tesco make the 99 RON by adding ethanol.
Higher octane petrol is made by blending different components (including toluene) which increases the density of the fuel slightly. It also burns slightly more evenly and allows a greater advance of the ignition (assuming your car can take advantage). The higher density provides slightly more energy per unit fuel which provides fractional power increase. Shell were aware that V Power improves fuel effiency but chose not to advertise this, focussing instead on the performance increase. BP have always advertised the better mpg.
It’s worth noting that there are no Shell or BP refineries in the UK any more, though Esso and Total still do refine in the UK.
 
I think that things might have changed a bit, Esso and Tesco and maybe some other brand(s) source their fuels from GreenEnergy - I think that is what the company is called.

What you said about Tesco lifting the RON up by adding Ethanol was true back when Tesco shipped their fuels in from maybe Europort, but it has been said that as above, they source their petrol at least from the same company as Esso do.

The name of the company that now supply Esso and Tesco and some oithers is not GreenEnergy but Google can not give me the right answer, I think that I've discovered that before, but once you find out that company's name you can find out what they do, ie supply all of Esso and Tesco and some other brands including other supermarkets. In other words it seem that these facts are not meant to known by the masses.

Edit:- greenery.com, though it could be that some of the fuels they supply is refined by Esso depending on filling station location.
 
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rum4mo said:
I think that things might have changed a bit, Esso and Tesco and maybe some other brand(s) source their fuels from GreenEnergy - I think that is what the company is called.

What you said about Tesco lifting the RON up by adding Ethanol was true back when Tesco shipped their fuels in from maybe Europort, but it has been said that as above, they source their petrol at least from the same company as Esso do.

The name of the company that now supply Esso and Tesco and some oithers is not GreenEnergy but Google can not give me the right answer, I think that I've discovered that before, but once you find out that company's name you can find out what they do, ie supply all of Esso and Tesco and some other brands including other supermarkets. In other words it seem that these facts are not meant to known by the masses.

Edit:- greenery.com, though it could be that some of the fuels they supply is refined by Esso depending on filling station location.
Click to expand...

It’s http://www.greenergy.com
 
QuattroCalum said:
Up in Scotland it all comes from Grangemouth. Tesco is better for preventing knock.

Sent from my ANE-LX1 using Tapatalk
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Yes, to prevent fuel travelling from all parts of the country to filling station that is true and that has been said many times already, what I was clearing up was that it is Greenery that manage the supply of fuels to the filling stations of Esso, Tesco and some others.

Edit:- as for preventing pinking, Tesco is sold as 99 fuel and Esso is probably only 97 fuel.
 
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Hmmmmm... very interesting thread. I’ve always sworn by V Power. Going to run the tank down and try some Tesco super juice.
 
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Very glad to see that this thread continued in my absence!

Also glad to see I’m not the only one still using Momentum 99! Never ever looked back!
 
I run my VXR8 on Tesco momentum all the time. There has been one occasion when it’s had v power and the only difference has been to my wallet, locally Tesco fuel is around £1.16 per litre against the v power being around £1.30.
Either or, still goes like a stabbed rat and makes loads of noise at the same time
 
I’ve always had better result with getting cars mapped on v power rather than momentum so that is what I use. If I am in a bind I’ll use momentum if I have to.
 
I used to use v power until one time there was a shortage and I never noticed the difference so I swapped, although I do fill up twice a year because I noted it has cleaning properties.
The cars have been 250,360,350,300 bhp mostly turbos apart from the 350 which was naturally aspirated V8 :D
 
Just thought I should weigh in on this old post. I've just taken my car in for a tweak on the the Revo stage 1 software it's has been running, the week before I took It to have a new wheel bearing fitted. on the way I to get my bearing fiited I had to stop off for some fuel and I ended up putting the new ESSO 99 supreme in. I had been running it on Tesco 99 (which it was mapped on) and after using some of the ESSO 99 I realised my car felt a bit sluggish. On the way to getting my stage 1 tweak I put a bit of Shell V power in and 2 hours after dropping it off I got a call saying they've tweaked the software but there not happy with how it's running, so now they need me to run the fuel in it through and after a full tank of V power though it and then take it back. Letting you know because I think that ESSO 99 supreme is a bit iffy.
 
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"Letting you know because I think that ESSO 99 supreme is a bit iffy." that is a bit annoying, when out and about with my car, I prefer to aim for Esso and had planned to fill up with that new stuff when we are allowed to travel freely again, ie long distance. Until then when fuel is required, ie every 6 months, I'll stick with Costco UL+.

Edit:- although, as my S4 is still standard, it might be okay.
 
Oddly for the first time this week I put half a tank of the easy stuff into the GTR and thought it felt a bit peppier!
 
Used both, but my old Type-r just seemed to run better on momentum, so at the moment using Tesco 99 in the RS3.
 
During the pandemic I ended up using V-Power as it was closer to get to than Momentum. The car once again feels a bit more sluggish but with it being 5 years old now I thought some of the cleaning properties may be a good idea. Plan to go back to Momentum for the next tank.

I have to add that I hate both Esso and BP with a passion. Car feels sub-par when running them.
 
I use VPower. Have used Momentum on occasion and didn’t really notice much difference though it is only the odd tank and not consecutive fills. Not justified but I still remember lambda sensor silicone-gate.

My past few turbocharged cars have all been VPower (even though not all of then could exploit it) though on the odd occasion I had to put 95 in they all seemed more eager low end but flat higher in the Rev range. They also all ran a bit hotter too.

To be fair - I should give Momentum another try.
 
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