Yeah, but there's a world of difference between meeting and exceeding the basic standards. I see quite a bit of this in the chemical industry.

I think the major petrol companies do advertise their fuel as better for your engine. I hear BP ultimate adverts all the time on the radio.

All fuel does come from a refinery - doesn't mean it all was refined to the same extent. Asda crisps are made by KP.. doesn't mean they taste as good as branded crisps made in the same factory.

As for morrisons fuel.. it managed to clog up my diesel filter causing the engine to starve! Its not as if the diesel filter is fine!

Hellcat said:

I think the major petrol companies do advertise their fuel as better for your engine. I hear BP ultimate adverts all the time on the radio.

All fuel does come from a refinery - doesn't mean it all was refined to the same extent. Asda crisps are made by KP.. doesn't mean they taste as good as branded crisps made in the same factory.

As for morrisons fuel.. it managed to clog up my diesel filter causing the engine to starve! Its not as if the diesel filter is fine!

Click to expand...

Sorry Hellcat but that is showing a slight ignorance for the oil industry. It's not like having a different oven for KP and asda crisps, we're talking multi-million pound kit here. Cat crackers/fractional distillation columns etc. can only produce one type of product at a time - continuous process. Investment in a new fuel range like Optimax/V-power or BP ultimate would have been multi-billion pounds, not just in research but also new kit. A whole new section to an oil refinery would have been built and used solely for that. There is NO WAY that I can think of that the base fuel from a refinery will be different depending on which lorry takes the supply away.

What could be different then?

Well a lot of people state additives, I will have this looked into next academic year and get back to you. Do remember however that it wouldn't simply be an issue of opening a little screw lid on tankers and pouring in a jar of "super additive" and hoping it will mix doing 56mph on a motorway.

Apart from optimax adverts - the first release of which had to be withdrawn due to repeated and upheld complaints against their false advertising - I can't recall Shell ever stating "our fuel is better than tesco's" (for example). Since making the fuel better would cost £billions you can sure as hell bet they would make it very clear.

I of course am wiling to accept that optimax and ultimate and other higher quality fuels will have a benefit to some cars (Ferrari 575 owned by shell for optimax testing runs better on 95 octane standard fuel, go figure). However, simply assuming "It is cheaper so it is worse" is a false economy, or a false false economy should I say.

I will categorically states that in my honest opinion there is no feasible way for the output from a refinery to be varied between tanker. I will state that there is the opportunity that different detergents are used (who is to say whose are best of course) and that storage can vary (again, who is to say whose is best).

Damn, I wish I had chosen the oil sector rather than the bloody gas sector

according to a friend in the fuel trade.the additive is added to the storage tank at the fuel station.how it is mixed,i dont know.maybe its a chemical reaction,but over to the chemists for the answer.

Very very unlikely to be a chemical reaction, hydrocarbons are fairly boring on that level.

Mixing (especially uniform) is very difficult. Move your tea around with sugar in the bottom, you're not mixing, you're just rotating the mixture. That's why I would doubt the idea of mixing from the movement of the tank. I haven't done mixing yet but have watch experiments on it and to get decent standards you need serious physical agitation, including baffles etc. etc.

As I have said, I have friends that will be working for at least 3 oil companies next year and they will be killed if they don't get my questions answered

The Negotiator said:

Jet fuel is basically Kerosene, would be funny to try in a car I am sure....!

Click to expand...

There are two types of Jet Fuel. One is JETA1 and the other is AVGAS. JETA1 is for 747's etc and is kerosene of sorts although it is slightly different these days. THis can be put in a diesel car to great effect, it will run better, faster and do more MPG.

AVGAS (Aviation Gasoline) is used in aircraft like prop driven pleasure craft. It's pretty much 100 Octane Unleaded and your car WILL shift on this stuff. Interestingly Shell will be introducing 100 Octane Unleaded in the UK soon to replace Optimax.

Despite what some have said the higher Octane fuels will be good in any unleaded car due to a cleaner and hotter burn although in many cars the difference is hardly noticable. My old Mini was set up on a rolling road to use Optimax and she had to run on that. Put anything else in and she ran like a bag of spanners.

Fianlly the octane ratings on most pumps are a lie. A friend did a study when at college and took fuel samples from a few local stations and then tested them in a lab. None of them made their claimed ratings and the Optimax he tested was 95RON!!!!!!

Nick

If the optimax was only 95 RON, unless human error (putting unleaded in the optimax tank) was the reason then who is to say that normal unleaded won't be significantly lower than 95 RON?

Done a bit of googling and it seems the supermarkets arn't tied into one supplier so they can shop around for the cheapest fuel day by day. Refining as with everything in life can vary so the reason one refinery may be selling it cheaper is because its not quite as good as last weeks. Remember supermarkets are in it for the money - if they can get it cheaper then they get bigger profits. This process of buying the cheapest available puts them at greater risk of buying duff batches. This wont happen all the time but remember a few years ago BMW V8s blowing up ahead of time? haha sorry - due to higher levels of sulphur in the fuel than they could cope with.

For the extra few pence per litre it adds upto what? An extra pound maybe? For that you get cleaning additives which keep your head and valves in much better condition according to our forum's Fiat tech. Could be the difference between an MOT pass and an MOT failure.

Exactly! Rubbish isn't it?

Nick

Going to be using Optimax from now on, I had to use a BP near me recently because of the traffic and the fact that I wasn't going to make it to the Esso, Tipo feels very sluggish and always does when I fill up from that particualar BP who I think have the same petrol as the Sainsburies from next door.