Quote:

In Australia diesel is more expensive than what you pay for petrol

When BP Ultimate diesel first came on the scene I gave it a try. At the time I was running a Peugeot 406 HDI, I'd run about 12k miles on normal fuel then ran another 10k miles on Ultimate. During that time the mpg on Ultimate did improve to the extent that it was about cost neutral to use it, i.e. additional cost of fuel was covered by improved mpg. So for me there was an improvement but not to the extent of being earth shattering.

Given the legal situation regarding advertising claims then I'm sure the whatever BP, Shell, ESSO, Total et al claim can be backed up by evidence gained from controlled testing. What I think you have to be careful of is the language used to describe guaranteed benefits as opposed to possible benefits. Given the chemistry of the ‘premium’ brand fuels it seems that emission benefits can be guaranteed, but when it comes to performance benefits then there is always a good use of conditional words or phrases. I’m sure if challenged then test data to prove the point would be available, but then there will be no guarantee that this is repeatable in every car on the road.

I have recently tried a tankful of Shell V Power diesel, although I didn’t think I could feel a difference the tank to tank measurement suggested there may have been an improvement (490 miles on 59 litres including 150 miles towing a 1500kg caravan), maybe I’ll try another tankful when I’m not towing. However, other than this one tank of Shell the remainder of my near 21k miles has been completed entirely on Tesco’s best !!!!, as was the 67k miles I covered in my previous car. Fuel has never caused me a problem, I’m more than happy to accept the supermarket’s low prices.

The premium brand fuels offer higher cetane ratings plus cleaning additives, if that’s what you want then it is undoubtedly cheaper to buy an additive such as Millers Power Sport 4 and add it yourself. This will cost you about 2p per litre of fuel where the premium fuels cost about 5-6p per litre more.

Also I would agree with UKdave104 about knocking the oil companies, the margin they make is not as big as most people think, even if you stripped out all of the oil company margin the pump price wouldn't change that much. The price of refined fuel (petrol or diesel) doesn't vary that much around the world, what does vary is the tax and duty regimes in different countries and that is the substantial cause of higher prices.

I don't mean to make you guys but in the middle east where governments don't grab massive amounts of tax on fuel, 71 litres cost me £6 yesterday. Mega ouch. Out with the old (2007 SE)
In with the new (2012 Dynamic with everything). Now also gone.

The problem with "modern" diesel is, that this fuel is most criticised for its soot production and related air pollution. So the first step was to reduce the sulphur in the diesel. However, sulphur is said to have the capability to grease the high pressure injection pumps and the injectors, so many diesel engines collapsed due to unsufficient greasing of some of its components. The next step was to allow up to 5% of Bio-diesel in the standard diesel, and again, this led to considerable damage of some other components as biodiesel, due to its ethanol basis, is chemically very agressive.
The manufacturers of diesel engine components have reacted by teflon-lining of all affected components, however, this teflon-lining has proved not to be very long lasting, so again numerous diesel engines collapsed.
Due to the increasing international demand of pollution control in general, and air pollution in particular, the Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) has been developed and introduced (as option) by nearly every car-manufacturer. Again, certain problems started, as a reliable technology to automatically burn the collected soot in the DPF was not available. A number of DPF equipped Freely 2's have been effected.
So, the oil industry has been at stake to produce diesel which is, among other factors, sulphur free, has sufficient greasing capabilities, and reduces the soot production to suit the political demands.
Even special motor oils have been developed for diesel engines with DPF with a verly low ash-content in order to reduce the soot burden of the DPF.
The Ultimate Diesel as offered by BP or similar special fuel offered by other oil companies do take all above factors into consideration. Such special fuel will not neccessarily increase your milage, but the long term reliability of your engine should increase besides your contribution to the never ending story of our world beeing destroyed by the mobile population of this earth.

YF

I'm aware that taxes on fuels are outrageously high. Recently the European government even decided that countries where the fuel prices are considerably lower than in the neighbouring countries will have to increase theirs ! In my opinion this is nothing less than legally organised theft.
And yes, I'm also aware that the profit of BP decreased 29 %. Their yearly net profit deceased to a poor 4 400 000 000 US$.

So back to the topic tittle: "super" diesel.
For Mr. Avarage it is hardly possible to find out if the claimed fuel saving (if any) justifies the higher price.
It is just not feasible to repeat the same driving circumstances (speed, wind, engine wear, etc.). Filling up your tank on a flat surface or a slightly inclined one easily gives a difference of 5l....

So I do appreciate the "whatcar" test and their conclusions. If the oil companies disagree, let them produce evidence.

wildrover wrote:

I don't mean to make you guys but in the middle east where governments don't grab massive amounts of tax on fuel, 71 litres cost me £6 yesterday. Mega ouch.

Not at all jealous ...... middle east governments might not take much tax on fuel wildrover but say the wrong thing , offend the wrong person ,drink the wrong drink ..hic... wear the wrong length miniskirt ,have the wrong faith etc and that £6 doesn`t look such good value

To be honest I don't worry about what fuel my car consumes, other than that I don't like to have to use more than I have to. I'm not worried about what it throws out of the exhaust pipe, infact I don't give a fig about it's impact on the environment..........................
Why?
Well I won't care until airlines and shipping companies start to pay some sort of environmental taxes on the fuel that they consume. When I'm at work the engine on my ship burns about 260 TONNES of thick black heavy oil (it takes a 100grm ball bearing 3800secs to drop a meter through this stuff, you DON'T want it on your local beach) a day, it is tax free (ok it does cost $300 a tonne and when we fuel up we take 10,000 tonnes at one shot) but what comes out of the funnel is frightening - about 2 tonnes of carbon smuts a day, a lot of sulphuric acid and a host of other particulates. Aircraft are the same but on a smaller scale. I work for a company that owns getting on for 300 ships of this size and a couple of hundred smaller ships, some burn more fuel and others less, and our fuel bill in 2006 was in excess of $15billion!
So why should I be too worried about what my car that has twin cats, particulate filters and so on on it puts out when in a day at work we put out more cr*p than all the vehicles in London put together. We have just made one concession.................... as of Aug 11th 2007 we had to start using Low Sulphur Fuel from arriving in the English Channel until we leave it again...................... WOW, that has only reduced the amount of sulphur we emit, not the carbon or other muck!

Here's my work "truck" seen at about 1 mile away

Click image to enlarge

Click image to enlarge

Paul wrote:

So back to the topic tittle: "super" diesel.
For Mr. Avarage it is hardly possible to find out if the claimed fuel saving (if any) justifies the higher price.
It is just not feasible to repeat the same driving circumstances (speed, wind, engine wear, etc.). Filling up your tank on a flat surface or a slightly inclined one easily gives a difference of 5l....

avtur, I agree the way you made a "test" is indeed more reliable than those carried out by "Mr.Avarage". The only disadvantage is that you had to buy quite a lot of the stuff you wanted to know of if it is worth buying...


@ Tim: indeed an excellent comparison you made !

Tim in Scotland wrote:

To be honest I don't worry about what fuel my car consumes, other than that I don't like to have to use more than I have to. I'm not worried about what it throws out of the exhaust pipe, infact I don't give a fig about it's impact on the environment..........................
Why?
Well I won't care until airlines and shipping companies start to pay some sort of environmental taxes on the fuel that they consume. When I'm at work the engine on my ship burns about 260 TONNES of thick black heavy oil (it takes a 100grm ball bearing 3800secs to drop a meter through this stuff, you DON'T want it on your local beach) a day, it is tax free (ok it does cost $300 a tonne and when we fuel up we take 10,000 tonnes at one shot) but what comes out of the funnel is frightening - about 2 tonnes of carbon smuts a day, a lot of sulphuric acid and a host of other particulates. Aircraft are the same but on a smaller scale. I work for a company that owns getting on for 300 ships of this size and a couple of hundred smaller ships, some burn more fuel and others less, and our fuel bill in 2006 was in excess of $15billion!
So why should I be too worried about what my car that has twin cats, particulate filters and so on on it puts out when in a day at work we put out more cr*p than all the vehicles in London put together. We have just made one concession.................... as of Aug 11th 2007 we had to start using Low Sulphur Fuel from arriving in the English Channel until we leave it again...................... WOW, that has only reduced the amount of sulphur we emit, not the carbon or other muck!

Even if all the ships in your company used the 'greenest' fuels available Tim stiil not sure it would make much difference ......"China is now building about two power stations every week, the top climate change official at the UK Foreign Office, John Ashton, has said. His statement came as a new report suggested that China may have already become the world's biggest polluter - much earlier than expected.
The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency said China's CO2 emissions had risen by 9% last year, compared with 1.4% in the US. "......still i`m sure the LR CO2 offset program and my green wheelie bin will save the planet

Quote:

as of Aug 11th 2007 we had to start using Low Sulphur Fuel from arriving in the English Channel until we leave it again.

We have a separate set of fuel tanks and lines for low sulphur. It isn't just the fuel that is different, we also have to change the engine lubrication routines too, out lube oil consumption increases to about 1200 litres a day from 1000 litres a day when we are using LFSO. The ship is only a year old and the system was designed to be compliant with the regs from day one.
My position - I'm the boss - responsible for the whole shooting match and it's 24 crew, the multi billion dollar cargo and making sure we operate as economically as possible. I'm the Captain. How can carbon have a footprint, it has no feet?
Now driving - RRE Coupe Dynamic Lux Auto with Plus pack, Fuji White, Ebony, SD4 with tow pack
Gone - 2010MY FFRR TDv8 Stornoway and Ivory, Privacy - the pace of a TDv8 RRS, the incomparable grace of a Range Rover
Gone but will be missed- RRS Tdv8 HSE Stornoway Grey with Ebony Leather
Gone (only a little missed) RRS Tdv6 2.7SE Giverny Green/Aspen
Defender 90 County HT in Epsom Green

Tim in Scotland wrote:

My position - I'm the boss - responsible for the whole shooting match and it's 24 crew, the multi billion dollar cargo and making sure we operate as economically as possible. I'm the Captain.

CAPTAIN SCOTLAND, has a nice ring to it