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Tesco momentum Vs V Power


HEADPHONES

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Discussed many times before but thought I'd post up anyway.

Filled up tonight at Tesco.

The tanker driver was admiring the Zed and chatting to me about it.

He told me that his tanker lines up alongside the Shell tankers filling up with the same 99 Ron fuel. All that differs is the additives.

 

Forgot to ask if this was the same nationwide but at least here in South Manchester it is according to him :thumbs:

Edited by HEADPHONES
Damn autocorrect lol
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Currently shell v power where I live is 19p per litre more expensive than Tesco normal petrol. So a full tank would cost £15.20 more to fill up with v power.

 

Notsure what the cost of Tesco 99 is, my wife fills up her 206 with Tesco normal and I fill up the Qashqai with v power. Doesn't need it but I truly believe in the benefits it brings. Treat your car right and it'll last longer.

 

Looking back over my old fuel economy figures on the zed and on the assumption of doing 10,000 miles a year. It will cost you £434 extra to fill up with v power over Tesco normal petrol. It's a 30k car, so needs a bit of extra love IMO. That and £434 over a year for a car doing 10,000 miles is not too bad.

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Every other interaction you have with your car will make more of a difference than whether you use supermarket or premium fuel. As long as it meets the correct standard (95 or 97+), then it’ll be fine. 

 

V-Power, BP Ultimate etc have been around an awful long time now, and yet we’re still having these conversations. If they were that much better then we’d be seeing pics and vids and scientific papers all over the place showing this off as 100% fact. That we don’t screams volumes to me, especially in the social media age. I don’t doubt that the effort involved into the premium additives makes the end product slightly better, but I see little point in paying that much more for a 0.05%* improvement. 

 

 

 

*made up number, obvs. 

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9 hours ago, HEADPHONES said:

He told me that his tanker lines up alongside the Shell tankers filling up with the same 99 Ron fuel. All that differs is the additives.

Given there are only, what, 6 major oil refineries in the UK, this shouldn't be either surprising or news to anyone.

 

It's akin to there being only a handful of detailing manufacturers in the UK and almost everything on the shelves is a slightly different combination of the same ingredients. Similar analogy with supermarket "own brand" products, they're usually made in the same factories as brand labels with slightly different combination of the same ingredients. And clothing. And so on.

It's ripe across retail as a whole - the only difference is minor amendments to the recipe and major amendments to the price.

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There will be small differences...does it mean cars will detonate the second you out momentum in or suddenly gain 20bhp when you put Shell in? The differences are tiny really...amazing how much people hang on to Shell though because it's the most expensive. The pursuasion of brand and marketing in full swing!

Edited by coldel
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1 hour ago, LRF4N said:

With these small amendments there’s a difference in performance in detailing products as your tests show. The same will go for petrol 

Completely agree.

 

My point was more around the tankers lining up side by side filling up with the “same” fuel rather than the performance of each product.

 

Cant day I’ve noticed any discernible difference between the two in terms of performance so I’m happy to go with whichever of the two is cheapest at the time I need to fill up (including factoring in which is closest, etc).

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Yep I don’t think the performance will vary much but after the mechanics who mentioned it to me, decades of experience between them, said it’s the long term effects of usage that is the issue 

 

If something is cheap it’s cheap for a reason

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But the other way of looking at it is that she'll us more expensive because they are greedy. I use tesco momentum and have done in both of my zeds and my wife uses it in hers. It does happen to be the closest garage to us as well. But near me shell normal unleaded is still more expensive than momentum. 

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Possibly fuel technology since 2003 has improved somewhat and back then only 97ron was readily available. Today in 2019, I'd say even Morrisons super unleaded is going to be fine in our Zeds. Be hard pushed to notice and performance gains from either other than as mentioned above mpg differences over long runs.

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I’m not sure it’s a case of Shell being greedy per se, if you look at the two products Shell has a very specific portfolio of products, massive sponsorship deals in place in very prominent and expensive places across the globe, not to mention marketing costs and other significant overheads.

 

Teaco on the other hand have a massively diverse portfolio to spread costs over, have nowhere near the sponsorships and when was the last time anyone saw Tesco advertising fuel? They’ve been very savvy buying into an established market in the cheapest possible way and their overheads as a result are much lower - they don’t need to partner with anyone else to make their forecourts turn a profit, they all already have a supermarket attached to them!

 

They are two very different business models which will naturally creates very different pricing strategies. I mean, just take a look at Tesco profit margins, they’re not exactly giving stuff away themselves!

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Yes business models nowadays make 'get what you pay for' something of a yesterday thing. Think Aldi, cheap, but good quality - better quality per pence than other supermarkets, because their business model allows for it. The supermarkets sell more fuel than the branded petrol companies. 

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I can remember watching something on 5th gear a few years back where they tested different fuels in a golf gti (i think) and there was a few bhp and mpg difference between the standard unleaded and the premium offerings. They all varied by 1 to 5hp so they did make a difference but the average driver and car would never know. Obviously for racing it may make a tenth or 2 per lap difference swapping fuels but for everyone else its a marketing exercise to get more of your hard earned ££

that said i still put the most expensive fuel in whatever car i have as in my mind it will perform better, last longer and protect the engine so the marketing has hooked me and my walket in :doh:

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Mk IV Golf R32 says in it's manual that if you fill up with 95 Ron it'll only give 220bhp. Yet with 98 RON it'll give 240bhp. (I think these are the figures it claims. Remember reading it when my brother bought his R32 back in 2006. Very close to it if I am wrong).

 

With regards to V Power Vs Momentum... I very much doubt it's a complete con otherwise there would be scientific proof of it done by someone. Even if it's does just help maintain my engine better, it's got to be worth it. People use Redex all the time to "clean" their engines or get their engines flushed. Maybe I'm just gullible. Who knows???

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On 24/02/2019 at 00:22, HEADPHONES said:

Discussed many times before but thought I'd post up anyway.

Filled up tonight at Tesco.

The tanker driver was admiring the Zed and chatting to me about it.

He told me that his tanker lines up alongside the Shell tankers filling up with the same 99 Ron fuel. All that differs is the additives.

 

Forgot to ask if this was the same nationwide but at least here in South Manchester it is according to him :thumbs:

Yep exactly right.

 

The condition of the storage tanks at the garage receiving the fuel would be the biggest issue in fuel quality. When was the last time they were inspected and cleaned out? some garages have been there a long time and tanks will be really old and in a poor state and full of crap by now.

 

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When I had my 350z i would put in tesco 99 some times and v power other times. It may be psychological but i "felt" the car was more responsive with v power. I experienced the same with my 997 turbo. I actually approached the subject with my tuner when I had the turbo modified and remapped last year and he said he wouldnt touch tesco 99 with a barge pole. He said he has experienced a lot of problems trying to tune cars running it and he always uses v power as it gives better knock protection in his experience. So ive stuck with v power since. Actually filled up this morning £86.

 

Performance cars aside, Ive always run my diesels on tesco diesel and had no problems at all. I must have covered more than 275k miles using tesco diesel, probably even more.

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11 hours ago, scobie140 said:

Yep exactly right.

 

The condition of the storage tanks at the garage receiving the fuel would be the biggest issue in fuel quality. When was the last time they were inspected and cleaned out? some garages have been there a long time and tanks will be really old and in a poor state and full of crap by now.

 

This is a valid point but again something that wouldnt phase me too much, a local branch of Tesco had some contamination (what i dont know) in their tank/tanks (shut down and put new tanks in) and a few cars ended up in a bad way, but they had to pay out, hence why it wouldnt bother me.

 

I wonder what the tuners on here feel in relation to Rabbits tuners remarks, would be interesting to know, i cant say Jez mentioned anything when my Zed went supercharged or any tuning in relation to my Rx7 days.

 

Edited by Jetpilot
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