[palitsyn]

Which one would you recommend? Have both BP and Shell nearby.

[Lawton438]

Personally use shell v power

[CustomColours]

Dont take my word for this as it may just be me. But does anyone else find that they get better mileage from bp over shell.

My driving style is always the same. My journey's are they same I fill up with bp and end up with fuep left at the end of the week. Shell on the other hand im glat out empty by the time I go to fuel up on the monday

For this reason I say bp.

[AzRiz]

Coming from the VAG tuning world (my other car), I can say for a tested fact that Shell V-power was allowing one of the most reputable VAG tuners to extract more power out of tuned setups than on any other fuel. For that reason they only recommend Shell V-power. They did not find BP, Esso or Tesco to be as useful (all about being able to advance timing on a tuned map).

I religiously use Shell V-power on all my cars.

[CustomColours]

For power I will agree v power is the one.

But dont be comparing BP to esso or tesco. Shell and BP are margins away it was tested on fifth gear and there was not much between them. Tesco/sainsburys ets is a joke. Its octane is high but its benzine content is low so theoretically it may aswell just not be 99ron and be standard 95ron.

[doughboy]

No Brainer IMO?

BP Ultimate is only 97RON

V power is 99RON

Thus V power will allow more ignition advance at higher rpm, especially good for turbos and higher revving N/A cars

[DMH-01]

Shell V-Power for me as well.

The BP Ultimate is around 10ppl more expensive than V-Power round by me.

[doughboy]

+1 Vpower is BETTER and usually cheaper than crap Ultimate.

[mob17]

Originally Posted by doughboy

+1 Vpower is BETTER and usually cheaper than crap Ultimate.

How about for diesels?

[AzRiz]

V-power for diesels only contains cleaning agents and does not help with power or efficiency in a direct manner. Most recommend using V-power diesel in every other tank, I personally use it every time in my 330d as the double club card points really help bridge the price gap (30k miles a year)

[ALF_E90]

There is a lot more to fuel quality/capabilities than just the RON, as someone has said the chemical composition of fuel varies hugely over time. I have some friends in the fuel industry and most fuel companies take the same product from the same storage facilities then lob in some additives in the tanker. Don't get too precious about it. One did say that Shell V Power is treated more carefully and separately than any other fuel he knows of, that seems to back up the feelings on this thread.

I have done 75k miles in the last 3 years in my N53 330. I sell vehicle telematics for a living and am very careful and consistent on my long business trips, I use the cruise control a lot (set on 75mph usually - hence my 34-36mpg average) and I have telematics readouts in the car telling me my trip MPG on my satnav screen, which I always look at. I have blown hot and cold over whether to even use Super at all on the car as it seems to give a negligible improvement to MPG for long trips. It feels a bit quicker - but no more than, say, switching off the air con. It's a small difference though it does make the normal "drive" auto mode feel a bit peppier ("sport" can be a bit too inconsistent - in sport I tend to use the paddles).

I used any sort of Super for a year, then normal 95 though with a preference for the Shell extra mileage stuff, then mostly in the last year I have used Shell V Power though I went back to 95 when I put the winter tyres on recently. The differences in fuel consumption can barely - if at all - be noticed. This is different to the VW V6 I ran and especially the Alfa 3.2 V6 which felt barely quicker on super but gave much better MPG.

[SO8]

Originally Posted by mob17

How about for diesels?

I use BP Ultimate diesel as I believe the manufacture is more 'natural' than the Shell version. I have never noticed any difference in the performance of my 330d but buy it for the extra cleaning properties.

For petrol though I did notice a difference - and always used Shell - BP Ultimate didn't seem to be liked much by my 300bhp remapped Golf GTi Edition 30 ... nor the mapped Scooby before it.

I tried Tesco 99 and the Golf still preferred V Power - it was smoother and seemed to have more solid go ... subjective but over 3 years of pwnership and many tanks of super unleaded !

The re mapper (Superchips) recommended V Power over Tesco 99 and BP Ultimate as it was their preferred fuel.

[doughboy]

Originally Posted by ALF_E90

There is a lot more to fuel quality/capabilities than just the RON, as someone has said the chemical composition of fuel varies hugely over time.

I agree, but all things being equal, a higher octane will delay detonation and allow more ignition advance.

So higher octane does directly effect output. The ignition advance gain at high rpm (i.e. over 5K) means that the benefit is only really felt at higher revs / higher outputs.

My 330i ran out of puff at 6K on regular fuel, but on super it gained a second wind at 6k and pulled harder to 7k+ due to the extra ignition advance available to the ECU without inducing knock (vpower or momentum)

All brands pretty much all use the same base fuel, with brand specific cleaners and additives put in at the tanker stage. But these are unlikely to change the calorific value of the base fuel.

I'm not sure where MPG comes into the equation?

You buy super fuels to improve performance and feel, there is no suggestion anywhere that it is an MPG improver? MPG has no bearing on that purchase decision, for me anyway, in fact using super meant lower MPG as it meant I could stretch the engine properly to the top end.

The cost difference will never be offset by MPG gains.

[ALF_E90]

Originally Posted by doughboy

The cost difference will never be offset by MPG gains.

It certainly has been for me in the past - in the 156GTA there was a consistent extra 5% or so in tank mileage, and like you say a little extra in the top end performance wise. I don't drive the 330 as hard as I did that car (well, I drive it sideways a fair bit, but rarely use much over 6k revs) so maybe I notice less now.

There was a good time when Sainsbury's (who's fuel is all BP-supplied, by the way) were only asking 1-3p extra per litre for Super, which made it a no brainer. the premium on Super seems to have risen.

I often see people refer to economy gains from Super (I'm talking petrol only, I have no knowledge of the black stuff) and of course it often contains extra cleaners so who knows whether it is the greater energy in the fuel (which seems logically could lead to better MPG) or them. From what I have read, the Shell extra mileage 95RON is basically the additional cleaners in VPower but at the lower RON, it does seem to work as well as Super for me in terms of mileage.

On a turbo car I would run Super all day, and indeed my wife's Golf 1.6FSi hates normal fuel so we run that on Super. I'm just still not 100% convinced of the benefits in mine. It is feeling better than ever as it approaches 100k miles and weirdly I have felt more benefit from Super recently than years ago. The car does just feel quicker full stop the more miles it does though.

[SO8]

I used super unleaded when I had a Honda S2000 ... I never noticed any performance gain but it normally managed about 25-30 miles extra per tank compared to normal unleaded.

[Chris_506]

Shell. People say it doesn't make a difference but I have tested it with many cars and it does. Particularly turbo cars... Bp gas has contributed to already existing issues on other vehicles I've had (I.e. worn plugs or bad coils) and amplified the misfiring due to it. Every time no exceptions.

[palitsyn]

Thank you all. V-power it is then

This is what I have been using ever since I got the car 2.5 months ago, but wanted to hear your thoughts on the ultimate.

[MattOz]

I was searching the forum for some fuel advice as my 335i has been slightly fluffy on wide open throttle in higher gears. I've been running it exclusively on V-Power, but recently had to fill up with BP Ultimate. This is where it gets interesting. Well, maybe!

On BP Ultimate, the fluffy delivery has disappeared. The car is definitely happier on BP than V-Power, despite the Shell fuel being 2 RON higher. I've run a few tanks through now and the car is really going very nicely. Not that it wasn't before, but I'll be sticking with BP from now on.

[RichJ]

V power always made a difference in my N53 330i and much better than Esso or BP.

[Ajs_435d]

I tune petrol cars on standalone ecu's hondas etc they typically have a high compression, on a turbo s2000 the best I could extract was 522bhp from bp ultimate with a ron booster (millers cvl dp not crap) , customer then filled up car completely with vpower as it was almost empty this was on the same day and I was shocked how much advance I could increase by , only 2 degrees but in the end the car made 543bhp this in on a stock engine.

Cheers