Super Unleaded....Advice needed

[BTB 500]

My SL handbook says 95 for the 500 and 98 for the 600, I could not tell the difference between the two in my last SL320.

I have not tried super yet as the difference down here is 10p and it is not worth that

I use V-Power in my R129 because it doesn't do much mileage, I'm planning to keep it, and I believe the additives package in that fuel is superior. Any slight power gain is incidental ... I very rarely use full throttle anyway

 

[amwebby]

Thanks for all the replies. I'm still puzzled. I haven't checked miles per tank but the mpg calculator in the car shows I'm getting better petrol mileage from regular unleaded, 22.5 combined versus 20.1 combined before. I travel a lot, doing 15-20k miles a year and consequently fill up at petrol stations all over Europe so contamination shouldn't be an issue. Unless the additives in VPower do gunk up the injectors in some way and a good blast on regular has cleared that?

I don't know how many gallons in BlackC55's tank holds so can't do a comparison but surely the extra mpg is simply offset by the extra cost? Certainly if I perform the calculation on my car at a 5p per litre difference the cost per mile is almost exactly the same.

 

[grober]

superfuels

Apologies for resurecting an old thread but some folks might be interested in this report. http://www.whatcar.com/news-special-report.aspx?NA=228253

 

[television]

Thank you grober for that link, I think that if you are using a more expensive fuel you have it in the mind that the car is running better

 

[big x]

Thank you grober for that link, I think that if you are using a more expensive fuel you have it in the mind that the car is running better

Depends on the car.The "Which" test was with a humble 1.6 hatch designed to run on 95 RON. There are plenty of dyno graphs around showing gains with more exotic machinery which are optimized to run on 98 RON.
The premium fuels also have better cleaning additive packages and carbon bonds which means more energy.
Quite frankly someone running a Porsche, AMG or M-series on budget fuel is a fool !

adam

 

[BTB 500]

Yup the 5th Gear test showed this clearly. On the dyno a Renault Clio gave no more power on 98 RON Shell Optimax than supermarket 95 RON. However a Golf GTI got 5 bhp more, and a Subaru Impreza gained 14 bhp (plus 35 Nm more torque).