Which Magazine report on fuel/diesel additives

[Broadbean]

Has anyone else read the October edition of 'Which'. They have carried out thorough tests on most brands of additives, including Millers Power sport 4 (which I have been using!!). To sum up everone tested had no benefit to performance or fuel economy, so basically all are a waste of time.

[Hannibal]

nuf said

[gadgetman]

All physcological.

Did they try 2 stroke as well?

[Gti Fly]

Is the Cage mod all in the mind too?

[Kaiserb_uk]

Yeah, and remaps.

Which? should stick to washing machines.

Did they test BP Ultimate and Shell VPower?

Edited 1 October, 2009 by Kaiserb_uk

[anonymouse]

Regarding Millers, once or twice I ran out. My wife went out in the car and came back saying it felt slow and sluggish.

This is from someone who knows virtually nothing about cars and would only notice, say, suspension problems if you took a wheel off

[Disco_Mikey]

Only difference I notice when I fill up without millers and/or 2 stroke is more smoke

[SnailUK]

I read somewhere ages ago, that its very car dependant.

Im sure i remember it saying that most cars will make little difference, its cars that can run on multiple grades of fuel, that have an ECU designed to cope with better and worse qualities of fuel. The one that seems to pop into my head as a good example of cars that car run different fuels effectively is the Impreza.

[ap0gee1978]

Effective or not, it's good to know 'Which?' have got their fingers on the pulse:

Sport 4 is dead, Long Live Diesel Eco Power Max!

And how many tanks did they use it for? The first tank will only ever clean out the rubbish left by using cheap fuel, after which time the ECU will need additional tanks of dosed fuel to adapt the timing and WHY to suit the ignition characteristics of the fuel + additives. Hence the earlier poster's other half's ability to notice that the performance was sluggish without it, as the ECU will have adapted to the fuel with additives.

For the second time today, although seriously rather than in jest I think: 'We mock what we don't understand'...

[rwbaldwin]

Modern ECUs try to produce the SAME performance whatever the fuel.

If you are using good quality fuel adding Millers makes no difference.

It does make a small performance difference if the cetane content of the fuel is below the optimum range for your engine and you have a pre-2004 car. Cheap supermarket fuel can have a lower cetane rating whilst still meeting EN590 but it is usually just the additive pack that is different.

For post-2004 cars, the only benefit can be better MPG as the SAME performance can be achieved using less fuel/stroke but this is very ECU dependant.

My own experience is that there is a small performance increase with remapped older Mk 1 Octavias/Mk 4 Golfs when using Tesco Diesel and there is no performance increase with Mk 5 Golfs on the same fuel.

[ap0gee1978]

So what you're saying is that the ECUs on newer car over-ride the effects of fuel additives, and that Which? have interpreted the absence of evidence as evidence of absence?

FWIW, I use supermarket fuel plus Millers, as it's cheaper than branded fuel, and you get those habit-forming little pointy-wointies!

[KenONeill]

I'd read it as "Absence of evidence is evidence of ineffectiveness".

[ap0gee1978]

I'd read it as "Absence of evidence is evidence of ineffectiveness".

...on a newer car, but not because they don't change the characteristics of the fuel; the ECU on a newer car will over-ride that effect. And of course that's assuming they weren't already using fuel with lots of additives, as I can believe that putting additives in a branded fuel probably has less of an effect than on cheap fuels. If that's the case, it's in the same logical league as saying "I used this pelican crossing and wasn't run over. Therefore, I conclude that pelican crossings are 100% safe, and there's no point in looking both ways, just in case."

[ap0gee1978]

...or to put it another way, just because I see no benefit in using 507.00 oil in my engine instead of 505.00 (or whatever the long / short life PD oils are called), it doesn't mean I wouldn't see any benefit in using either of them over bog-standard diesel engine oil...

[KenONeill]

...on a newer car, but not because they don't change the characteristics of the fuel; the ECU on a newer car will over-ride that effect. And of course that's assuming they weren't already using fuel with lots of additives, as I can believe that putting additives in a branded fuel probably has less of an effect than on cheap fuels. If that's the case, it's in the same logical league as saying "I used this pelican crossing and wasn't run over. Therefore, I conclude that pelican crossings are 100% safe, and there's no point in looking both ways, just in case."

I was saying that that was Which?'s argument, not that it was the case.

[ap0gee1978]

I was saying that that was Which?'s argument, not that it was the case.

Ah, I see...

[Jim H]

I have read the same article in Which? magazine. I agree with the above, they probably did not run several tanks of the stuff to make the additive effective and the ECU to adapt. Millers do state it takes at least 250-300 miles for the additive to have any effect. However I did read on Scoobie net when changing to Super, that you should disconect the batery for 1 min (or maybe 30mins), fill up with Super Unleaded then go for a 20 min blast, mostly on Boost, after that the car's ECU will have adapted to the new octane.

Out of the 4 Diesel ones they tested, the only one that had a marginal affect on performance was PD-5 Fuel Treatment. It only increased the Cetane by 1.4 numbers, but increased torque by (up to) 1.7%. The verdict to say if it was worth it was Probably not.

All except Redex were cheaper than Super Diesel. When they tested Super fuels last year they found no performance increase. Again I bet they did not run them enough for the ECU to adapt.

In small print under millers they state there is a new stuff called Millers Diesel Power ECOMAX. It is now on Millers website with new Petrol additive. Has anyone bought/used this stuff?

[ap0gee1978]

Yes, it's in shops now. Although as I ran my car on ordinary fuel before it was mapped, and have only run it with EcoPowerMax since, I don't have anything to compare it to...

[MoggyTech]

You lot are going to end up in white lab coats with a dozen pens in the top pocket.

[Soot1e]

I'm not sure about the New Millers Ecopowermax, I think it is probably the same as the Millersport 4.

Probably jumping on the "Eco" bandwagon like everything else to convince the "Green" brigade that this stuff is good for the enviroment.

I actually started using Millersport 4 a couple of months ago and have not noticed any difference in performance, more mpg, less smoke etc. so I'll finish using the bottle up and then not bother and see if it makes any dfference without the treatment.

[cjb]

FWIW, I use supermarket fuel plus Millers, as it's cheaper than branded fuel, and you get those habit-forming little pointy-wointies!

Me too, and I'm convinced it's a bit better, and it doesn't cost a lot.

[Gizmo]

Is the Cage mod all in the mind too?

On a car that is performing correctly - yes.

Just like the Millers etc, if your car is running correctly then you will see no differance, however if there is a slight problem with the quality of the fuel you run on then Millers may help.

I have run Millers on 3 cars,:

MK5 Fiesta - made the engine quieter after the first tankful, no increase in power or MPG

MK5 Golf - no increase in power or MPG

2004 Superb - no increase in power or MPG

So i stopped using it (used around a full bottle per car - so quite a few tankfuls), i have also done the cage mod to the Superb & Golf with no noticeable benefit to either.

[daverapid]

:)On a slightly different note, if I fill up any of my 5 Skodas that are on the road [all rear engined carb fed with points ignition] at the local Tesco they pink REALLY badly, almost to the point of knocking. I don't get any pinking from any of them if I fill up anywhere else.

[Soot1e]

:)On a slightly different note, if I fill up any of my 5 Skodas that are on the road [all rear engined carb fed with points ignition] at the local Tesco they pink REALLY badly, almost to the point of knocking. I don't get any pinking from any of them if I fill up anywhere else.

Five! If they were originally designed for leaded petrol only they would be pinking, Have they been converted?

[daverapid]

:)The Tesco fuel is the same octane rating as the fuel I get elsewhere so there should be no difference. I've never bothered with hardened valve seats, never had problems as a result.