I use whatever Garage I hit at the time. tesco was 127.9 after my 5p off and got 350-360 miles out of it before the light went on. (could not tell you the avg mpg).And its about the same when I use anywhere else. Just depends where I am driving and how I am driving.

I have had as low as 300 to the tank before

Edited 31 May, 201214 yr by kevinm79

morrisons fuel has something like 7% biodiesel in it, hence the drop in power. big name fuel like shell or esso dont mix with biodiesel as far as i know.

All fuels have a percentage of biodiesel in. I think they are allowed up to 7% without having to state it on the pump.

So in other words you don't use the 'xxx miles for £20' that the op posted and I disagreed with, you calculate distance against volume like the rest of us to calculate mpg. That's not the same as the op who stated he got xxx miles from a £20 fill up from the light and used this as the basis of comparison.

Even using the light is flawed, the odds of having a petrol station next to you at the exact moment the light comes on aren't great, the senders position changes relative to the car's motion, the fuel expands based on ambient temps and pump return. To compare a brimmed vented fill of fuel at a consistent cool temperature (thermal change a few feet below the surface is quite minimal) against a partial fill done using an inaccurate measure use yet even with your method you still think partial fills calculated against the fuel sender's estimates are consistent and accurate vs say a vented fill? While not as variable as the op you're still not getting an accurate figure. For example my non vented petrol fill has yielded circa 35 miles (7mpg up on average) more thanks to the warm weather this time round.

Yes sorry about that regarding the confusion.

Ironically guess what I filled up with today? After getting 48mpg (that's +7mpg over my 8k average, not bad for a humble mpi) I'm now running a tank full of Tesco's cheapest. I'm not expecting miracles as the weather's cooler now but i'll be interested to compare a few tanks against the Shell/Asda data I have. It's interesting the difference ambient temperature appears to make.

As has been said driving stlye makes much more difference than the fuel you are using but I'm pretty sure once tallied up the "pence per mile" for the 2 options would be almost the same.

30 litres @ 1.50p litre to get 350 miles

or

30 litres @ 1.40p litre to get 340 miles

meh

I almost exclusively use Tesco diesel, whether it be 5p off or not, and i can say i've never had any issues with my VRS

I'd like to suggest something, not sure if it's been mentioned or not yet..

But I've this week just filled up at a (new) Shell garage.

I've got an app on my android phone which keeps a log of how much fuel and total odometer reading.

At this fill up I was suprized at how few litres I needed to put in to get a full tank...

Anyway, this was also confirmed by the app on my phone, I got a reading of 57mpg, when I was expecting about 51mpg (the car said 51mpg on that tank of fuel).

25miles later down the road I noticed the fuel gauge had already moved off the full mark, whereas normally it takes atleast 75+ miles before any sign of it shifting off the full.

Conclusion? That pump stopped pumping in fuel well before the full mark. I must be 2-4litres down on when it should have stopped pumping in fuel. I even vented the tank a few times as normal, and still the pump stopped as to say it was full, so I thought nothing of it until I noticed the gauge had shifted after only 25miles.

Could this have been the same cause of the original poster's poor fuel range?

In the op's case it's not likely, he fills up £20 from the light (tank almost empty) so virtually no chance of an air lock, his problem is he doesn't work out his mpg and works on how many miles he gets from a small volume of fuel (£20) which I think we've now established isn't the most accurate way to do things given the 10p+ variation over the last few weeks and the extra ltr it is now possible to buy for £20 vs the previous high (based on my petrol figures).

When is the change over from Winter grade diesel?

THAT would probably make more difference than where it was bought.

I recently drove to my local shops. Flat road, no hold-ups, and I managed 100mpg in my 2009 Octy 2 1.9 TDi .

On the same return journey, same conditions, I recorded 55 mpg.

WHY? Because its gently downhill all the way to the shops.

When cars are this efficient driving style, weather conditions (temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction) , speed and PARTICULARLY differences in elevation make a huge difference to consumption.

Trip to the shops over the hill and back same way - 48mpg. Same trip around the hill, mostly on the flat, (and its further) 60mpg.

You must compare like with like to get realistic comparisons, and this is not easy especially on public roads.

I've have found similar. When I bought my vRS, I used Tesco diesel. At that time £30 would last 2 weeks and give me approx 220 miles mainly local mileage. Put some BP Ultimate diesel in after a while and for two days it chucked out loads of black smoke when accelerating but this stopped after that time and has been Ok ever since. Noted that I got 250 miles so then put Shell diesel in (not V-Power) - £30 gave me 275 miles on similar driving. Since then I have only used Shell / BP diesel with every 4th lot being Ultimate or V-Power.

Its all to do with the additives they use in fuels. Tesco use there Tesco value additives. Wear Bp are much like those of Marks and spencer. But none of them know how to make fuel.

I got a very disappointing 43 mpg to devon last week. Wasn't accelerating hard. Didn't understand how. It was Tesco fuel... Filled up with shell on the way back and got 53 mpg? So they must be some difference. When filling up with supermarket fuel I often get flat spots and a stutter, but with BP or SHELL I'm fine. My conclusion is, you are what you eat.

I was recently very disappointed with some Tesco diesel that I bought when I was given a 5p off per litre receipt at the checkout. There are a lot of conflicting reports on here, some say that supermarket diesel is cr@p, others say there is no difference between it and branded stuff since both conform to BS EN 590. Anyhows this is my experience -

On Friday I drove 210 miles from Northampton to Sunderland with half tank of Tesco's finest :-) Winds were westerly and light, ambient temperature about 10degC. I drove all the way with cruise at 70mph and stopped once. By the end of the journey my trip computer showed a disappointing 63MPG average.

On Sunday I drove back, with a full tank of Shell 'fuelsave' diesel. Winds were the same, temperature was a slightly warmer 13degC. Again I drove back with cruise at 70mph and stopped once. At journeys end my trip computer showed 74MPG average!

I'm open to interpretations :-)

Not sure if its been said but you were going up hill there n down hill back.

Lol

Sorry no help

Never listen to the trip computer.

At 70mph on cruise control on the motorway mine says I get an average of near 100mpg.

Realistically, I get 60mpg

WOW - my wee vRS fuel comp tells me i'm averaging 46mpg but then that's commuting every day and very often sitting in traffic on the Edinburgh City Bypass.

I once saw 60mpg average for a trip, but I was driving like Miss Daisy.

I can't imagine seeing something 70-odd - do you guys ever put your foot down?

Anything 40-odd or over get's a thumbs up from me as it makes for a cheap to run wee motor - compared to some of the cars i've ran over the years!

Another variable that people probably often overlook is the inaccuracy of there milometer/speedo and therefore tripmeter. One can be quite a bit different from another and up to 10% out. And then take into account those running different sized wheels/tyres with a slightly different rolling radius, that could dramatically affect the milometer over a long period of time. Even a brand new tyre with 8mm of tread and the same tyre on 2mm will have a noticeably different rolling radius and in theory as your tyres are wearing you'll be getting the impression of increased MPG because you'll think you've travelled further than you have.

To prove the concept on whether supermarket fuel is worse than the likes of Shell or Esso will be very difficult, unless you have like for like cars! However, I can definitely say that when I used Shell V-Power in my ST, the MPG was better and gained about 50-60 miles more from a full tank.

I'm currently getting about 40 mpg as my EGR valve is sooted up and needs cleaning. Things like this will have an impact on your fuel performance. Once this is sorted, I'll let you know if supermarket fuel is worse, as I'll top up with a few tanks of Shell V-Power Diesel and compare them.

Edited 5 November, 201213 yr by Mounty