Fuel Quality - Diesel...

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That's interesting. I wonder why non-supermarket diesel would not suffer the same water contamination as well?

Could be down to number of factors such as quality of underground tanks or service schedules for transporting rigs.

The fuel might be coming from the same refinery but the way it is transported / stored would make a difference.

Of course the above is only my speculation, but I can honestly say that I haven't heard of any major garage network affected by water contamination as much as those belonging to food supermarkets.

Coincidence you say? Maybe...
 
I've been using the Pace petrol station since November and the tank on tank has been pretty consistent, I'm on my 2nd tank of texaco now so i will see what happens this time...

Be aware of the ambient temperature as that will make a difference.

Be aware fuel suppliers have now switched off Winter diesel to regular since 15th March, so MPG will improve anyway.
 
Not recommending additives, then using one at service time seems out of kilter, but that's what Mercedes do.

So it looks like MB either believe in limited use of additives, or just certain additives perhaps?

The don't recommend them as a catch all if someone adds snake oil and it goes bang.

That makes sense.

I find Millers to be good and cost effective.

For diesels? Which one specifically? I bought some Redex a while back, but after reading the 'MB don't recommend additives' message I didn't use it so far.
 
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Be aware fuel suppliers have now switched off Winter diesel to regular since 15th March, so MPG will improve anyway.

Wasnt aware there were Winter/Summer supply types.

What is the difference? Ignition flashpoint?
 
Redex is 2 stroke oil and pretty useless.

Millers or Forte seem to work well.
 
Could be down to number of factors such as quality of underground tanks or service schedules for transporting rigs.

The fuel might be coming from the same refinery but the way it is transported / stored would make a difference.

Of course the above is only my speculation, but I can honestly say that I haven't heard of any major garage network affected by water contamination as much as those belonging to food supermarkets.

Coincidence you say? Maybe...

All of what you say makes sense, if true, but how can Joe public find out? For all we know, branded garages might have started a rumour to line their own pockets, by making people avoid cheaper places like supermarkets. I doubt it, but stranger things have happened.
 
All of what you say makes sense, if true, but how can Joe public find out? For all we know, branded garages might have started a rumour to line their own pockets, by making people avoid cheaper places like supermarkets. I doubt it, but stranger things have happened.

Just a quick search

Anyone had car problems after filling up at morrisons catcliffe today? [Archive] - Sheffield Forum

Water in diesel at Morrisons Boroughbridge « Singletrack Forum

BBC News - Supermarket's water-contaminated petrol stalls cars

Tesco apologises for contaminated fuel - PetrolPrices.com


Tesco Andover Fuel - There Was A Problem - Andover Town News
 
It's probably "we don't trust the customer to not bugger things up, so if we just say 'don't use additives' it's easier"

I expect you're right.

One thing that nags away with this idea though is that knowing that dealerships love money, why doesn't MB sell their own 'MB' diesel additive?
 
Good finds! I will take a read.

What happens if you do the same search but replace 'supermarket name' with brand name instead, any hits?

Just did the similar search for Shell. Nothing came up for UK.
And no, I have no affiliation with Shell before you ask :)


Rightly or wrongly, I buy my meat at Tescos / Morrisions and I buy the fuel from Shell / Esso.
Never the other way round.
 
:)

I hope my analytical approach doesn't unsettle, but it's only by asking lots of questions that one learns stuff, and hopefully dispels the rumours / snake oil etc.

Next search: who does 'insert supermarket name here' buy their diesel from
 
Only time I've had water contaminated fuel was from a Texaco.
I've never seen any mpg differences using different fuels. When I did a lot of miles we had company fuel cards for Texaco and shell but neither seemed to produce different results than either Tesco or Sainsbury's.

High octane fuel made a noticeable difference to power and response in my motorbike but there is no discernible power difference in a car. Premium diesel or cheap diesel with additives do make my diesels run quieter and smoother.

Oil quality and regular change intervals seem to make a much more noticeable difference to how the engine and associated components run.
 
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Well after searching for 'Asda diesel supplier' I found this:

http://thinkypedia.com/question/60174/

The following reply is interesting:

"Aiming4777*answers:

I used to work for this industry and can confirm that the supermarkets buy their petrol from the same refineries as the major brands such as Shell and Esso but, they are not the same petrol / diesel.

It is the additives that differentiate between the branded products and the not quite so good quality supermarket own brands.

I’m surprised to say there is no branding on the tankers you see delivering the petrol to your supermarket though. They are commonly branded with the name of a petrol company. This is because they are no longer owned by the petrol companies so can transport fuel for who ever they want and you frequently see branded tankers delivering to supermarkets but they do not contain the same fuel.

All fuels come from the same refinery (s) and are essentially the same, the difference is in the additives.

At our local oil terminal at Buncefield in Hemel Hempstead (scene of the recent fire), petrol is received by pipeline from BP, Total/Fina and Shell refineries.

Each type of fuel is kept in the separate brands at the terminal, they don’t have special tanks for fuel destined for supermarkets.

The tankers are filled from the appropriate tanks regardless of their destination but the additives are added before the tanker leaves the depot.

All fuels have additives included … the difference is that the branded petrol has additives that enhance the performance and the supermarket petrol has additives to make it cheaper.

Mineral oil is often added to diesel fuel for example. There is a maximum level of contamination of mineral oil permitted and the supermarkets regard this as a standard and not a maximum.

If you think that supermarket petrol is the same as from your branded fuel supplier, remember the damage to people’s cars caused by using Tesco and Morrisons petrol last year. The reason for this was that it was made using reclaimed/scrap toluene solvent which had been used to wash PCBs in electronics factories. No reputable oil companies were involved in that scandal as I’m sure none of them would use a cut price additive such as this."
 
Similar here:

http://www.fireworks-forum.org.uk/threads/supermarkets-fuel-who-supplies.13244/

"I used to work in the industry and can state categorically that supermarket fuel is not exactly the same as buying from a brand name.

The big brands go to great expense developing additives to "clean" your engine as you drive, thereby reducing fuel consumption and engine wear...it also leads to increased performance over having a dirty, clogged up engine.

The main brands fuel has the additives already added when the tankers are filled up at the fuel terminals - situated in various places around the country - ready to deliver to the filling stations.

As a contrast, the supermarkets fuel does not have these additives already added and it is down to the tanker driver to add them...are they really going to climb up on top of the tanker in freezing cold weather, or if it's pouring down with rain to do this? I was told from the horses mouth that they do not.

Of course, to cover myself from any possible legal action for daring to say these things, if the situation has changed in the 5 years I've been away from the industry then I would be happy to be corrected!*

I always fill up at my local Shell station...not quite as local as my Asda but you pays yer money and takes yer choice.

I do know of several people that have had expensive engine problems, and they always bought fuel from supermarkets...but, of course, I'm not remotely suggesting that the two are connected.

Reading through my above post, I should have said that the main brands additives are added at the same time as the tanker is loaded, to specific quantities.

Any additives that should go in the supermarkets fuel would happen after the tanker is loaded, if at all.It is true that the basic product does come from the same source."
 
No I haven't done that. I expect if I paid a 10p/15p premium per litre on shell v power, or equivalent, I may see improved mpg, but is it worth it? That's almost a £15 premium per tank on my car.

It seems likely the shell v power cleaning additives would be beneficial, certainly not harmful, but hopefully the fact I mostly do motorway miles keeps engine etc clean anyway, from the Italian tune up effect :)

Which? magazine did an experiment using premium grade fuel a couple of years ago from a couple of non-supermarket garages. Not only did they find no measurable performance improvement, but fuel economy actually went down slightly with the premium fuel. Not quite the result one would expect with premium diesel fuel.

I drive weekly from South London to Leeds and have noticed that I consistently get improved fuel economy when the tank is filled up with Asda diesel. On a run up to Leeds on my W169 A180CDI I typically get around 53 to 55 mpg according to the trip computer. But when I fill up at Asda I can easily get 58 to 59 mpg and even reached 60mpg once.

I am not a boy racer, instead I set the cruise on 70mph and seldom exceed this unless I have to. I do use Redex diesel fuel additive at every fill-up though - the reason being that a couple of years ago my W210 CDI was on the edge of passing the MOT emission tests. My regular MOT tester recommended that I put a splash of Redex fuel injector cleaner in the tank before the next MOT test to avoid any problems. Not believing that this will work on a once off, I decided to start using it regularly hoping it might make a difference at the next MOT. After using Redex on the W210 for nearly a year, the following MOT emission test revealed an improvement of nearly 60% compared to the previous MOT. Although we don't use the W210 much (covering less than 3000 miles between consecutive MOTs) we no longer worry about the emission tests on the W210 come MOT time despite the low usage of the car in London traffic.

Cost of using Redex at each fill-up is circa £1 as they are about £4 a bottle from Costco, and I use a quarter bottle at each fill-up.
 
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Supermarket V Branded is a topic I have been watching for quite some time. I have only had my CLK 270D since last Friday so I cant comment on the Mercedes engines and how it reacts to the cheap and branded diesel.

My previous car was a Jaguar x type 2.0d, That when I traded it in last week it had covered 181500 miles. What I can say is that when I used the supermarket fuel the car was very sluggish, rough sounding and returned very poor mpg. In September of last year I had to replace all the injectors and was told then by a diesel specialist that the supermarket diesel has little or no additive (he did tell me the technical name for the additive but one has forgotten it) that a diesel engine needs to lubricate the injection system compared to the likes of Shell, BP and the like.

I know a lot of other Jag owners that have been putting 2 stroke oil in with every fill to replace the additives that the cheap fuels don't have. They report by doing this the engine runs smoother produces less smoke on hard acceleration and they claim that it helps keep the injectors from getting to much carbon build up.

I would be interested to see if other Mercedes owners agree with this and do the same with their cars.

After I had the injectors replaced on the Jag I never went back to using the cheap fuels and used the shell regular diesel only. But on the odd occasion where I could not get shell and had to put in a supermarket fuel. I can say I really did notice the difference in performance and mpg.

I did for a while try the Shell Premium diesel but found compared to their regular diesel there was no noticeable difference in running or mpg. The only difference I noticed was to my wallet, so I went back to using just the shell regular.

I was told by the diesel specialist not to use the supermarket fuels or if I have to just put enough in to get to a branded fuel station as this fuel is no good for the injectors or fuel pumps ect.

As a rule now for my Mercedes I will only use shell where I can but I would be interested to know your opinions of Supermarket v branded and the Mercedes engine as I am hoping its a much better engineered engine than the weak engine that was in my x type.

Marcel-Anthony
 
Similar here:

Supermarkets Fuel - Who Supplies? | Fireworks Forum

"I used to work in the industry and can state categorically that supermarket fuel is not exactly the same as buying from a brand name.

The big brands go to great expense developing additives to "clean" your engine as you drive, thereby reducing fuel consumption and engine wear...it also leads to increased performance over having a dirty, clogged up engine.

The main brands fuel has the additives already added when the tankers are filled up at the fuel terminals - situated in various places around the country - ready to deliver to the filling stations.

As a contrast, the supermarkets fuel does not have these additives already added and it is down to the tanker driver to add them...are they really going to climb up on top of the tanker in freezing cold weather, or if it's pouring down with rain to do this? I was told from the horses mouth that they do not.

Of course, to cover myself from any possible legal action for daring to say these things, if the situation has changed in the 5 years I've been away from the industry then I would be happy to be corrected!*

I always fill up at my local Shell station...not quite as local as my Asda but you pays yer money and takes yer choice.

I do know of several people that have had expensive engine problems, and they always bought fuel from supermarkets...but, of course, I'm not remotely suggesting that the two are connected.

Reading through my above post, I should have said that the main brands additives are added at the same time as the tanker is loaded, to specific quantities.

Any additives that should go in the supermarkets fuel would happen after the tanker is loaded, if at all.It is true that the basic product does come from the same source."

I think you have forgotten that in the eighties, a major brand introduced a new advanced formula that is suppose to "save fuel and clean your engine" while you drive, only to cause engine problems due to burning out valves prematurely shortly after introduction of the new formula. Although one could claim damages from said petrol company, one had to prove that one had used this fuel exclusively and extensively (for over a thousand miles?). Luckily I was using cheaper supermarket fuel which didn't attempted to save fuel as I drive the car so didn't have to put a claim in.
 
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ItalianTuneUp said:
Add which additives DM? I thought MB don't recommend additives?
Red line 85 plus
 

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