Premium fuels e.g. Shell V Power/Nitro. Effect on MPG?
 

Hi all,

New member here with a (new to me) car so looking to track my mileage!

So far so good from a big 3 litre diesel!

I was wondering if any of you (Mainly here in the UK) Have used the premium fuels e.g. Shell V Power Diesel and if it has improved your MPG or not?

I will do an experiment myself soon, normal diesel here costs 120.9, V-Power costs 126.9

So for a full tankfull (60 litres) it will be £72.54 using normal diesel, £76.14 using V Power.

I will update this thread in the near future with my findings and of course track them!

Just wondered if anyone here has already tried it? :)

Cheers,
Tom

We get only one diesel type in the US, but I have experimented with different octanes of gasoline. In that case, it is a question of whether the engine is designed(has higher compression ratio) to take advantage of the higher octane fuel.

What is the difference between the regular diesel and premium diesel?

Could be a coincidence, but my last tank was Shell "fuel save" diesel and it just happened to be my best tank. I used the same stuff this tank, and I'm getting close to 70 MPG so far. The V-power is obviously aimed at performance rather than economy, some say it makes a huge difference, others say it's just a marketing gimmick. There will be more additives and lubricants in the expensive fuels, so you do get what you pay for. Is it worth it? That's something only you can decide, I would experiment and post the results! I don't know much about fuels or what goes into them, try reading some blurb on Shell's site, it might give you some justification for the higher price ;)

Also worth noting, my previous petrol car I had electronicly tuned, the higher octane fuel affected the "knock sensor" and gave better performance. Not very technically minded, but if the same occurs with diesel then you should feel a slight improvement in performance on the premium stuff.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cetane_number

Sounds like the higher the cetane number, the shorter the delay between when the fuel charge ignites in the cylinder and when the pressure wave starts pushing the cylinder down.

A high cetane fuel could start pushing the cylinder almost immediately. With lower, the cylinder gets pulled down by the motion of the crankshaft before the burning fuel catches up and starts pushing on it. Too low a cetane, and you get a knock effect.

In theory, the higher cetane diesel should be more efficient in the engine, since the piston gets pushed for a longer proportion of the power stroke by the expanding, burning fuel than diesel with a lower cetane value. In practice, it is going to take experimentation to see if this results to an improvement of a car's fuel economy.

If there is a difference, it may be more noticable in engines that operate in higher rpms.

V-power is just nitrogen enriched, in a way this fuel is better for your engine but not for the environment (higher nitrogen monoxide and nitrogen dioxide out the exhaust) the only real improvement is under high rpm where the exhaust gas recirculation value is closed (the added nitrogen in the fuel keeps the combustion temps in check)

so unless your own a turbo diesel and like to thrash it (3000+ rpm), stick to the normal stuff

I also own a high revving 600cc motorbike and I can definitely feel the difference, I always use V Power in that now, performance wise.

I do have a big turbo diesel, so I will be giving it a try shortly!

Cheers

Ok so I've just come back from a 12 hour 600 mile trip. Most of the journey was on the "Shell fuel save" but I refilled with V-power Nitro. I have to say, I gave the car a good thrashing on the way home and it made a huge difference to the responsiveness of the car, it felt like an instant power upgrade! I got 65 Mpg on the way back, so it seems thrashing the car with V-power makes little difference to the economy. Give it a try and tell me what you think. It cost 1.30 a litre so £68 to fill, which is around $106 for our US users.

Nice one, much how my motorbike reacts.

Increases throttle response. Once my tanks empty I'll be giving it a go!

With fuelly, can I say fill up £25 and still track it without doing a full tank? Silly question I know, but I'm not going to be after MPG when I have a tank of V power! :D

Cheers

Yea if you put fuel in but don't fill up, you can still enter the numbers here and check the "partial fill" box. Your fuel figures won't be calculated for the next two fuel ups after though, so be careful!