Best diesel fuel provider and treatment?

[Oteda]

In your opinion what do you think is the best diesel to put in your merc? I always use Shell regular diesel however I am considering moving up to V-power, I have heard it makes a difference in mpg.

What about treatment wise, are there any kinds of substances that you could put in that helps maintain/boost performance?

Thanks in advance

 

[SilverSaloon]

personally after trying these in the past in various cars, i think they are a waste of money. fuel is a rip off as it is and why spend an extra 5p or whatever it is now on these "super fuels".

its just marketing hype.... just listen to their radio advertising for it - lots of mention of "fuel developed with ferrarri", "extra 2 litres of fuel every tank". 2 litres!!?? waste of time. they probably do clean the fuel injectors a bit but i think you'd be better off buying a decent treatment additive instead.

you'd be just the same clamping a magnet to your fuel line!

put whatever diesel is cheapest in the tank, usually supermarket fuel.

all IMHO of course!!!

 

[DITTRICH]

The cheapest diesel it can live on - supermarket fuel.
Once per year, when there are offers on fuel treatments or additives, I bung a bottle or two through the tank for piece of mind. In years past, this has cured my fuel gauge from giving funny readings (in my petrol car).
The rest is marketing blurb. So many things affect fuel consumption. The driver and the tires, followed by the time of year and fondness for air conditioning, followed by traffic conditions...the list is endless and not necessarily in that order.

 

[@MARK]

On my last car I ran Shell and only shell from the day I got it to the day it left with 80,000 miles on the clock.

The engine was as sweet at 80k as it was at 10k.

I did try V Power for a while and didn't really see any noticeable difference.

But when Shell introduced the Fuelsave stuff, I saw my average mpg raise by 1mpg within a couple of tanks and stay there.

When I drove into France that summer where they didn't have fuelsave I saw it drop by 1mpg. Returning when i got home

So I can certainly say the fuelsave stuff did make a difference (but not a huge amount) and as it cost no more than before (and I am able to collect airmiles) then I am happy at that.

Now I have had it suggested that because the V.Power stuff has a much higher detergent level in it, it's worth running a couple of tanks through the car halfway between services just to keep things clean. I can see the logic however as I try to stick to quality fuel from a known source, I am not to worried.

 

[@MARK]

put whatever diesel is cheapest in the tank, usually supermarket fuel.

I had 2 work colleagues and 2 neighbours who all had their engines trashed when Tesco screwed up their diesel a few years ago. It took them months to get any money out of Tesco who only owned up after the media got involved and revealed how big the problem was.

Supermarkets buy fuel from wherever they get the best deal and thus may have a different supplier this week to last. There is simply no way they can be confident in the quality or standard of fuel they are selling which is why 99% of the time it is going to be fine but as has been seen before, if anybody is going to be selling sub standard fuel, it's the supermarkets.

 

[DITTRICH]

The supermarket fuel thing has been discussed to bits previously.
There are only a very limited number of refineries and I think I remember reading that all the additives are added depending on what the customer has paid for at the refinery before despatch. I can't see the supermarkets just buying any old stuff as their fuel is a major part of their marketing. Yes they screwed up once in recent years but that is not a reason to keep away from them and pay more for branded fuel. As I said, most of the time, you will save more by changing your driving habits. Seeing performance drop by 1mpg in france in the summer could merely be the aircon working more where it is hotter or your tire pressures increasing because it was hotter in France or the wind blowing in a different direction. Who are we to know? Who is anyone to ascribe the difference only to fuel when there are so many other variables in play? And I think the supermarkets aren't the only ones to have had fuel probems. Branded fuels have had their problems too.

 

[st13phil]

I've never seen any benefit from running V-Power (or the BP equivalent) in any of my diesel cars, but I have found that the soot level is lower on both Shell & BP's regular diesel than when running on supermarket (Tesco's) diesel.

That said, I run my current E-Class and ran my previous C-Class exclusively on Shell or BP diesel, so the soot comment relates to my experiences 4 - 5 years ago, and things may have changed since then.

 

[Dieselman]

I had 2 work colleagues and 2 neighbours who all had their engines trashed when Tesco screwed up their diesel a few years ago. It took them months to get any money out of Tesco who only owned up after the media got involved and revealed how big the problem was.

Do you have a link to any information on this as I've never heard of it.
The only way I can see diesel ruining an engine is either from foreign matter or possibly petrol in the fuel.

 

[dsolds]

I used to think that the BG244 product (additive) was probably the best thing for a diesel engine until I looked deeper into the claims.

Take a look at powerenhancer.co.uk and read some of the blurb. Sounds plausible enough, especially as it seems to be endorsed by another site called fueltechexperts.com. That was until I did a whois lookup on those domains. They were both registered to the same bloke, something I pointed out on another forum where there were a lot of users of BG244. Anyway, about a month later the 2nd domain was suddenly registered with a privacy service.

So, do the products work? Dunno but I suspect not personally.

Oh and local Tescos pull out of the kingsbury refinery, as do Shell, Total, Texaco etc. Same stuff as far as I can tell.

 

[Oteda]

Thanks for the info, which is the best additive to put into a diesel tank? I used to put Redex in my old Audi A6.

 

[Clivefa]

The cheapest diesel it can live on - supermarket fuel.
Once per year, when there are offers on fuel treatments or additives, I bung a bottle or two through the tank for piece of mind. In years past, this has cured my fuel gauge from giving funny readings (in my petrol car).
The rest is marketing blurb. So many things affect fuel consumption. The driver and the tires, followed by the time of year and fondness for air conditioning, followed by traffic conditions...the list is endless and not necessarily in that order.

My local MB service centre (Waterhouse, Chelmsford) said not to use the cheap fuels due to inconsistency of quality.
I will be trying Forte diesel additive very soon.

 

[DITTRICH]

My local MB service centre (Waterhouse, Chelmsford) said not to use the cheap fuels due to inconsistency of quality.
I will be trying Forte diesel additive very soon.[/QUOTE

If it was such a big issue, surely MB would be warning people not to fill up at the supermarket. My car has done 159k miles of which 143k was me. 50% of the time I use UK supermarket fuel. The other 50% is any old fuel on the continent all the way to Moscow. The car is still with me and going strong.
My other car has 217k miles of which I am responsible for 47k. Again, supermarket fuel and any old stuff all the way to Moscow. It still works perfectly well.

 

[waterman69]

I am involved in the fuel industry, 80% of fuel supplied in the S.E area is supplied from mainly scandinavia or russia,Even Shell sometimes bring in ulsd from europe, it all has to meet a certain standard.

 

[Deleted member 6183]

If you can persuade a diesel car to run on veg oil I doubt whether different suppliers of fuel can make a great difference.