I have been reading with great Interest the threads on the problems with the DPF on diesel cars.

As we all know the cheap supermarket Diesel we use isn't the best for containing additives and cleaners therefor may have a tendency to produce smoke, therefor soot, where as top quality Diesel like V power and BP Ultimate contain these Cleaners and Additives which produce less smoke therefor less soot.

Most of my journeys are to work and back (2miles each way) and a trip to the shops and I have not had the DPF light up yet but I only run the car on BP ultimate

" Could running on Quality Diesel make a difference"

Just a thought.....................

Edited 30 September, 201015 yr by Auric Goldfinger

I have been reading with great Interest the threads on the problems with the DPF on diesel cars.

As we all know the cheap supermarket Diesel we use isn't the best for containing additives and cleaners therefor may have a tendency to produce smoke, therefor soot, where as top quality Diesel like V power and BP Ultimate contain these Cleaners and Additives which produce less smoke therefor less soot.

Most of my journeys are to work and back (2miles each way) and a trip to the shops and I have not had the DPF light up yet but I only run the car on BP ultimate

" Could running on Quality Diesel make a difference"

Just a thought.....................

I think the problem the people experience with DPF is just not letting the regeneration cycle complete i.e. just using the car over short journeys.

However I would agree with you, I never put supermarket fuel in my car unless absolutely necessary, I always use shell wherever possible

Who do you think makes supermarket fuel? . :wonder:

I dont see many Sainsburys/Asda refineries near the big ports. They get their fuel from the same refineries as Esso I believe, just with slightly different quantities of additives.

Edit: Tesco - Esso : Sainsburys - BP : Most filling stations, irrespective of brand, North of the border use BP as there is a massive refinery in Grangemouth

Edited 30 September, 201015 yr by Golf-Fiend

i use where ever im passing when i need fuel, only ever put the more expensive stuff in and that was by accident as i wasn't looking lol, ive done 20,000 in my car in the last six months and not had the light come up as yet, i do anything from a few miles to a few hundred miles a night in my job, but do confess to giving it some stick which im guessing helps.

My DPF only collects dust now

its parted company with the car and sits in the corner of my garage

EN590...

If a diesel car sold in the UK (and possibly all of Europe) can't run on EN590 without expensive faults, then by definition it is not fit for purpose.

All Diesel fuel which is retailed in the UK has to meet the European standard EN 590:2009. This gives precise limits on many compounds and additives in the fuel, including sulphur, ash, water, cetane number, viscocity etc. and minimum levels of detergents. This is the standard fuel that vehicle manufacturers use when developing the powertrain. 'Quality Diesel' is all about marketing.

My DPF only collects dust now

its parted company with the car and sits in the corner of my garage

Martin, as an ex DPF pat' what's your verdict on the removal? Does it allow the engine ''breathe' better? Is it really that much better as some say?

I've only ever used supermarket fuel in a 4x4 TDi with a DPF and no problems to-date in 3.5 yrs and 27,000 miles... (touch wood!)

Who do you think makes supermarket fuel? . :wonder:

I dont see many Sainsburys/Asda refineries near the big ports. They get their fuel from the same refineries as Esso I believe, just with slightly different quantities of additives.

Edit: Tesco - Esso : Sainsburys - BP : Most filling stations, irrespective of brand, North of the border use BP as there is a massive refinery in Grangemouth

The issues Tescos had a year or so ago were down to the fact they import their own fuel and add their own additive, so their certainly were not the same as the 'big' fuel players. Dont know if this is still the case but it obviously was.

Edited 30 September, 201015 yr by iainh58

I ran my pd vrs with dpf for 4 years and 30k miles on bascally tesco diesel with no issues.

The issues Tescos had a year or so ago were down to the fact they import their own fuel and add their own additive, so their certainly were not the same as the 'big' fuel players. Dont know if this is still the case but it obviously was.

That's not actually quite true. They bought the petrol from the Vopak terminal which supplies most of the of 'branded' fuel outlets across SE England, as well as supermarkets. Tesco were just unlucky that the batch they got was contaminated (storage tank improperly cleaned). A small percentage of that batch also went to Total, who had some unhappy customers. Some of it went to other retailers, but luckily it got diluted in the distribution chain so not many customers were affected. None of the supermarkets have their own refining and/or blending capacity, its all bought in from either major suppliers or the tiny number of independents that are left. Tesco has shares in the storage/distribution company Greenergy, which supplies many Tesco outlets, as well as Morrisons. The fuel itself mostly comes from Rotterdam via one of the big oil cos.

As we all know the cheap supermarket Diesel we use isn't the best for containing additives and cleaners

Rubbish, there is no difference in quality between basic branded fuel and supermarket fuel.

I've read the many threads on this subject on this forum and elsewhere over the years and have yet to see any hard evidence that there is any difference in quality.

As another member mentions, its called marketing. Premium brand, premium price.

The ironic thing is we are all mostly Skoda drivers and take pleasure in knowing we drive excellent cars hidden behind a non-premium and therefore lower cost brand.

Convinced Shell and BP fuel is better quality than the stuff at ASDA? Then you'd be better suited to an Audi - paying through the nose for the brand!

I'm one of the unfortunate s who has had DPF problems and its been the bane of my life for nearly two months now and have done a fair amount of reading up on the subject.

One interesting thing I did read was posted on a Volkwagen/Audi forum. These are the posts ;-

Astra_Daz13-12-2007, 18:09

I work for a vw dealer and we have see no end of eos and golfs with this problem,

the reason our master tech believes there is a problem is due to the type of diesel we use in this country, the DPF on VAG engines is designed for germany and similar european countrys where they use "sulphur free" diesel, where as we and a few other countrys use "ultra low sulphur" diesel. He reckons that even though its ultra low sulphur, there is enough in there to clog up the DPF and cause all manner of problems/lights on dash etc.

and the reply;-

Techie13-12-2007, 21:40

Daz has it spot on (I am a VW master tech) as the problem rarely comes up in Eurpoe where the diesel is much better as he says.

Its why VAG have now ditched the PD engines in favour of common rail for the new models. The PD was a great engines but emission regulations have now killed it.

And you think that has issues, you should try the 'BSS' engine in the Skoda Superb. The cat is too far away from the turbo for the DPF to work properly as it doesnt get hot enough. So iron filings in a solution are added to the cat to get it to burn. Problem is the solution runs out and the cat will eventually fill up as it has no burn off cycle. This adds a possible £800 or so to your 80k cambelt service, whooops.

Rubbish, there is no difference in quality between basic branded fuel and supermarket fuel.

I've read the many threads on this subject on this forum and elsewhere over the years and have yet to see any hard evidence that there is any difference in quality.

As another member mentions, its called marketing. Premium brand, premium price.

The ironic thing is we are all mostly Skoda drivers and take pleasure in knowing we drive excellent cars hidden behind a non-premium and therefore lower cost brand.

Convinced Shell and BP fuel is better quality than the stuff at ASDA? Then you'd be better suited to an Audi - paying through the nose for the brand!

Have run diesel cars for years now and have never put supermarket fuel in any of them. My father was a tanker driver for Shell all his working life and you wouldn't believe some of the stories he could tell about the "cheaper companies" filling up at the refineries. Yes I am convinced that Shell and BP fuel is better.

Where I live my local Shell station is near to Asda and my next closest is next to Sainsbury and the Shell fuel is the same price...no contest! So much for paying through the nose for the brand.

Glow pugs in the cat....

Sorry but I don't see why they can't just use direct electrical heating to heat the metal frame inside the DPF to raise the temperature to a point where the ash burns off.

It's not going to cost any more in fuel than the current system.

Sainsbury and the Shell fuel is the same price

Which confirms one of two things.

1) This particular Shell station is making next to no profit on their fuel.

2) It's the same or very similar fuel at both locations, except Sainsbury's are happy to make less margin on fuel as it encourages customers in to their store.

I know which one my money is on.

Before the latest "fuel-efficient" Shell petrol and diesel came out I almost exclusively used Shell, as I drove past every day on the way to work, they price-matched the local supermarket and I got airmiles...however the week that the new fuel came out I tried it, and had real problems - noticeable loss of power, engine running extremely rough at low speed and idle. After a couple of fills of BP this had gone, so now I go there instead (it's next to the Shell and only usually 1p more). Did anyone else notice this with the new Shell fuel or could I have had the dregs?

Edited 1 October, 201015 yr by IndianaBlues

Have run diesel cars for years now and have never put supermarket fuel in any of them. My father was a tanker driver for Shell all his working life and you wouldn't believe some of the stories he could tell about the "cheaper companies" filling up at the refineries. Yes I am convinced that Shell and BP fuel is better.

Where I live my local Shell station is near to Asda and my next closest is next to Sainsbury and the Shell fuel is the same price...no contest! So much for paying through the nose for the brand.

It's probably only like that because of the competition from the supermarket.

We've got a JS store with a petrol station at Burpham (Guildford), about 300 yards away is a BP station, that's 4ppl dearer than the JS one, however what makes them do it is there's the off slip road from the southbound A3, that comes up between the two, so motorists looking for fuel only see the BP station, so go there, rather than the cheaper JS station. That can make a considerable difference in the overall price of a fill up.

BP = Bloody Pricey!

Edited 1 October, 201015 yr by Evening Star

My mate works for Total Fina, is a Chemical Engineer, and was in production control at Lindsey Oil Refinery - his comments when I asked him a while back?... Absolutely no difference so use the cheap stuff!

Sorry can't agree. My 1.9PD is now run exclusively on Texaco or Shell fuel. When I first got the Octavia, I carried on using Tesco, that I had been doing for years whilst I had my Citroen Picasso without problem, and found that it simply did not like running on Tesco's own. Compared to Shell, it was sluggish, noisy, very smoky and relatively thirsty. Since running on nothing but branded fuel, the MPG has gone up, it's not smoking, it's quieter from cold and the performance is better. Funny thing is that SWMBO's Leon is exactly the same.............

I'm not arguing as to what branded fuel has, and what supermarket fuel hasn't got, all I know is that for the sake of a couple of pence per litre, both our cars run much better on the branded stuff.

Mike

[/quote

Currently run a Seat leon 2.0 tdi dsg, until my Octavia VRS CR DSG finally arrives (31 weeks from order to delivery so far). I used the new shell diesel and my car started to smoke like a steam train, so bad it was embarrasing. Next fill up was with Waitrose fuel and problem went away. Tried shell again so far ok. Wonder if the first batches were suspect?

Edited 2 October, 201015 yr by teebee

Sorry, not entirely relevant to this thread, but out in Bahrain at the moment.

Just filled up with 47 litres of unleaded for just over £8 (around 18p a litre!).

I didn't notice any diesel pumps at the filling station!

Running my remapped Superb PD140 DSG DPF exclusively on Tesco or Asda fuel. No issues to report or DPF issues at all in 14K miles, most of it spent limping around the M25 in traffic.

My vision on this:

The 170 PD engine is a dog and reacts more on the difference between mineral diesel and synthetic diesel.

Carbon residue is more when using mineral diesel, as synthetic diesel will burn with less residue.

My car reacted on using normal diesel instead of synthetic by regenerating more often. Also had to do a regeneration run after using normal diesel, didnt happen using synthetic diesel (with my driving profile).

Another fact is the PD elements of this engine are prone to clogging, my elements were cleaned after one of my elements died. Workshop told me, that they werent clogged at all and relative clean, not even after 142tkm. They had to clean them as one of the elements had to be replaced.

My commonrail 3.0 diesel doesnt react as severe on the difference. But I still use V-power, Ultimate, Excellium or other synthetic diesel when available. (only in some european countries the availability is poor)

A friend of mine drives a 1.9 chipped tdi and even he can feel the difference, engine runs smoother especially on cold start up. Also the soot it produces is less. Performance and or economy wise he doesnt notice any difference.

Edited 2 October, 201015 yr by magic62

There is no such thing as 'synthetic diesel'. All Diesel sold in Europe must meet EN590:2009. This defines a minimum Cetane number and maximum levels of ash and sulphur (10mg/kg). Diesel can currently contain up to 7% biodiesel under EN590, usually its a lot less.

The idea that engines smoke and run rough on supermarket Diesel is laughable and shows the power of suggestion.