Shell Fuel vs Supermarket Fuel

(09-09-2012 07:24pm)ChuckieB Wrote:  You have a Waitrose and one with a filling station! Rickmansworth is even more posh than I thought

Oh yes, all mod cons here you know. I even saw a policeman last week - on foot!

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(07-09-2012 11:30pm)exigejoe Wrote:  With direct injection engine it does such as a 2.0L ecoboost; top tier gas is needed in order to prevent acculmulation of sludge. google direct injection carbon build up.

If your car actually 'needs' the higher octane juice, the manufacturer will have told you. All modern ECU's can compensate for different octane ratings within their design range, so using a higher grade 'super' fuel will cause the ECU to compensate and you may see performance variations, typically in MPG and power output.

But this is not the same as saying your motor actually 'needs' a higher grade than the manufacturer reccomends.

(09-09-2012 08:09pm)FujiSan Wrote:  Oh yes, all mod cons here you know. I even saw a policeman last week - on foot!

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If your car actually 'needs' the higher octane juice, the manufacturer will have told you. All modern ECU's can compensate for different octane ratings within their design range, so using a higher grade 'super' fuel will cause the ECU to compensate and you may see performance variations, typically in MPG and power output.

But this is not the same as saying your motor actually 'needs' a higher grade than the manufacturer reccomends.

This has nothing to deal with higher octane to obtain power or increase mpg or fixing knock, etc. Its about preventive of sludge in your engine using petrol that have cleanIng additive/detergents to clean it out the sludge (mostly cheveron and shell have this) so overtime you dont have a decrease in performace. DI engines significantly in audis exhibit this due to the design of their di engines. Even the bigger brother 3.5 ecoboost engine have found a signficant amount of sludge at 30k miles.

And yes i know all about ecu learning octane and what have you.

All modern fuels have these additives these days.

Some may have more than others, granted, some may have different additives, I grant you that as well.

And some have been proven such as shell and cheveron to the quality of their detergents.well thats in my area dont know about over there but hey its your car if you want to rip the block apart or pay a mechanic $1200 to clean the sludge thats up to you.

OK, you win.

Have a nice day.

Anything wrong with the occasional "good stuff" to clear the crud out then?

Wouldn't LR specify the good stuff to always be used if there were any significant issues?

Exigejoe - most of us over here drive diesel cars - sludge in the engine is normal! Within seconds of firing up after an oil change our lub oil is jet black with carbon

Sludge is of course normal but significant in di than port injected. You being diesel this means you are di so using quality gas that somewhat counters is a good thing and wont decrease performace early in the car life (with regard to mileage) Here in the usa grocery gas most likely meet the minium epa requirement of these additives in comparison to fuel co like cheveron, shell, etc.
Im just saying i have been in the car game and seen many examples of this problem. Im not saying to not to use grocery fuel but once in awhile use the good stuff or make it a habit to seafooam every so many intervals. I would rather go the preventive route than shell out money/time to fix this problem so early in the car's life.

(09-09-2012 10:55pm)smayo Wrote:  Anything wrong with the occasional "good stuff" to clear the crud out then?

Wouldn't LR specify the good stuff to always be used if there were any significant issues?

I'm quite happy to be proven wrong, but I have posted earlier about this. The manual quotes "use only high quality diesel fuel according to EN590 or equivalent and I know that Tesco pumps state EN590.

I would think that what Shell for example sell in the standard 'fuel saver diesel' is of a higher quality than the supermarket diesel.

What I can't prove to myself yet is if this Shell fuel will give any better fuel economy, last Saturday's journey was mostly A roads and single carriageway at that, at just about reached 40mpg.

This is just a statistical battle going on in my head. But what I know for sure is that the car is so much fun to drive.

I've driven diesel Land Rovers since 1998 including Discoveries series 1/2/3, Freelander series 1/2 and now an Evoque. Most of those vehicles have been used for work where I covered a pretty high mileage, circa 35k per annum, and were changed at 65-100k miles. During this period i have used most of the brands of fuel available including those from the supermarkets, the regular brands from the majors and the premium brands from the majors. I used to keep pretty accurate fuel consumption records and drove over the same routes. My experience was that there was no perceptible difference in fuel consumption or change in running characteristics. All the vehicles were serviced as per the schedule and at no time was there any problem with a build-up of sludge. My personal view is that the premium brands of diesel offer nothing over the regular brands. My preference was to stick with the major brands, principally Shell, Esso and BP where possible but have no justifiable reason for that.
As regards petrol powered vehicles I've owned several Porsche and Aston Martin models and whilst most of them can be run on 95 octane they are generally able to take advantage of the higher octane fuels via the engine management system and will then give their best performance. The performance gain is supposed to be pretty small, perhaps 15 bhp, but in my experience they all seemed to run more smoothly on the higher octane fuel.
All these views are based purely on high mileage practical experience, not heresay or quasi-scientific reports.
Our Evoque Pure SD Auto is, by the way, excellent and over it's first 3.5k miles is registering 33.8 mpg.

enjoy your motoring
Tim