Petrol Types

[Stringent]

Petrol prices seem to be going up and down all over the place at the moment. Anyways, IS there a difference between all the different grades of petrol. What i mean by this is companies seem to add their own branded petrols.

So for example, BP have regular unleaded, and BP Ultimate Unleaded. Same with Diesel, reguar and Ultimate. Shell have Optimax Unleaded as well as regular. Thing is, these 'branded' petrols are usually about 6p more a litre, so question is, are they worth it? Whats the difference between them?

Been sticking in Shell Optimax Unleaded in my car, kinda figured needed a clean out, supposed to have all these other cleaning stuff to keep engine clean etc. Dunno, what you guys think?

[TiG]

Its all to do with the RON index of the petrol, higher the RON the more OOOMPH you get. My car Skoda Octavia is designed to run on 95-98 RON petrol, I put 98 RON in and i get more power. Thats the concept behind the prices, of course higher RON costs more money.

Optimax is 98 RON,
BP Ultimate is 97RON
and standard Petrol is 95RON.

I only use optimax if i know i've got a lot of fast driving ahead of me, otherwise i stick with the normal stuff.

TiG

[gobbo]

Optimax will give slightly better performance in a forced induction car.

I've tried it for about 3-4 tanks and tbh, not felt any difference, but my car is only a 1.2i so it's not like its a massive engine/forced induction.

[[GSV]Trig]

The higher the RON rating the less likely u are to get detonation so like TiG said on turbo cars etc its better, theres also a MON rating as well which I tihnk is more important, there were massive threads on migweb about it and what effects different fuels make, as for the cleaning properties petrols good at cleaning itself....

[TeePee]

Strangely most petrol... er... gas in america is 85-88 RON...

[Rave]

Its all to do with the RON index of the petrol, higher the RON the more OOOMPH you get. My car Skoda Octavia is designed to run on 95-98 RON petrol, I put 98 RON in and i get more power.

The RON is how resistant the fuel is to detonation. It makes no difference to the actual amount of energy stored in the petrol. It's possible that Optimax actually does have a bit more energy in it than normal petrol (you'd have to do back to back dyno runs to find out) but that's nothing to do with the RON, just the general make up of the fuel. To be honest, I'd be surprised if your car made more power with Optimax.

Cars that run a high compression ratio or a lot of boost need high-octane petrol to avoid detonating, but a stock car should not in theory benefit from it. I run my MR2 on the cheapest petrol I can find.

Rich :¬)

[Lowe]

Strangely most petrol... er... gas in america is 85-88 RON...

RON ratings in the USA are measured differently. They add the MON and RON ratings together and then divide by 2. So their Super Unleaded is near enough our 100-101 RON!

[jon bda]

RON ratings in the USA are measured differently. They add the MON and RON ratings together and then divide by 2. So their Super Unleaded is near enough our 100-101 RON!

Hehe, race fuel from the pump...

[Lowe]

Yup near enough.

Not fair is it.

[dkmech]

Maybe Britain should pick a country to invade and grab their oil? Then we could have 100 RON fuel here too.

[jon bda]

Maybe Britain should pick a country to invade and grab their oil? Then we could have 100 RON fuel here too.

ROFL, given the state they're reducing our Army, Navy and Air Force too, i don't think we would get far invading the Isle Of Man...

[Lee H]

ROFL, given the state they're reducing our Army, Navy and Air Force too, i don't think we would get far invading the Isle Of Man...

more like the Isle of dogs

I remember in a chemistry class our mad and eccetric teacher shown us how to convert standard vaseline into petrol with the use of some aluminium oxide, some metal wool and heat.

Then she shown us how to make this purer and purer

Heh - anywhere sell vaseline in like ton tubs ?

[Lowe]

Ton of vaseline? Think of the looks you'd get

[Stoo]

LOL that would be a classic

[Devilbod]

I use optimax on the bike because it does make a bit of difference just a bit smoother and a bit more poke to it, but then the bike is high reving - 14k top, straight through can and stage one tuned.
But heres a little thing worth noting that I found out today, Sainsburys fuel is BP fuel just rebranded and as far as I know Sainsburys is a bit cheaper than a BP garage...

[dkmech]

I saw a tiny tesco at a petrol station. And the station was esso. One could assume that tesco sells esso fuel at its own brand stations too. They won't be drilling for oil themselves, thats for sure.