On the petrol flap it states Super unleaded 95 ron minimum. Super unleaded is 97 ron here in the UK. What do other owners use in their 1.2 tsi engines?

In Europe super unleaded is 95 RON and super plus is 98 RON. UK 95 RON will be fine.

Normal unleaded in the UK will be fine.

I usually run optimax from shell I get better mpg with that

Recent trip to the north east wife and baby fully loaded car steady 60-65 mph I averaged 50 ish mpg

I just go to Morrisons and fill it up and drive but I think the bloke at the till is called Ron lol.

On the petrol flap it states Super unleaded 95 ron minimum. Super unleaded is 97 ron here in the UK. What do other owners use in their 1.2 tsi engines?

 

Super Unleaded varies depending on where you buy it.

 

Shell V Power (formerly Optimax) is 99 RON, as is Tesco Momentum.

 

I use these in my Roomster 1.2tsi as I ust have the habit of using it due to my other car which is mapped for 99.

Does the different petrol grades make much difference to the average driver?

Is there such a thing as an average driver and average car.?

Become your own Average Driver and try things for yourself maybe, you know how and where you drive 

and you know what car and miles you cover and how much fuel you use or where you buy it.

 

UK Super unleaded from Sainsburys, BP, Esso is 97 Octane Minimum,

& Tesco Momentum 99 & Shell V-Power Nitro are 99 Octane Minimum.

 

http://www.tescopfs.com/our-fuel/testing_results

http://www.petrolprices.com

 

Tesco Momentum 99 costs 5 pence a litre more than Tesco Unleaded 95 ron minimum,  so £2.25 -£2.50 a tank extra in a Roomster size car.

Try yourself over a few tanks of fuel and see if the car feels better, or get 20 miles more from a tank and covers the extra cost 

with the engine running a bit more efficiently.

You might notice on cold starts, hot starts, normal driving or you might feel nothing, get no better economy and not want to pay extra.

(there are engines like the 1.4 TSI /TFSI 132-136 kw minimum engine where Super 98 ron is the Recommended petrol,

and you can very easily notice the difference even when sticking to UK NSL's)

Edited 10 June, 201511 yr by goneoffSKi

A bit late, but better late than never: After reading this, I looked into the subject further.....95 is the minimum,  98 max.  ( '15 Roomster 1.2tsi)

 

Assuming the electronics adjusts for different fuel grades, then what we get around here is 95 or 99, 99 being too expensive and over the top.

So  I tried a 50-50 95/99 mix after having used 95  and found a definite improvement in performance.....while saving a little cash, somewhat tedious and inconvenient.

 

I normally fill up at ASDA or TESCO.

 

SO started using  Millers Eco Petrol Max and that really hits the spot.  For me.  Oddly, Halfrauds seems to be cheaper than fleaBay as far as this stuff goes.

If you are buying in a Tesco Filling Station the Tesco Momentum 99 is 5 pence a litre more than Tesco Unleaded 95 ron.

So costs £2.25 a tank fill more.  Maybe the same as 97 ron costs in Sainsbury.     So a good £2.25 or more less per tank than Shell V-Power Nitro + will cost you.

 

It is not 98 ron 'Max' ,  that is just what VW Group Show on Filler Flaps as the 'Recommended Fuel'  They use different names for Premium / Super fuels/ Super Plus,

and seem to not bother that UK Retailers stopped selling 98 ron.

http://volkswagen.co.uk/need-help/owners/Fuel 

Edited 26 July, 20187 yr by Offski

I have used Tesco Momentum but I have found no difference in performance or consumption so I stick to the 95 cooking sherry. 

In Greece we have the plain unleaded which is 95 RON and super unleaded which is 100 RON. I think Shell offers 97 RON as well but I do not bet my head.

 

I only use 95 RON since day one but I must admit that between two specific brands that I trust, I see a vast difference in the distance outcome. I manage about 1000 to 1050 Kilometres in open road with one while with the other I never got more that 900 to 950. These distances are on open highways keeping a speed of 110 Km/h +- 10Km.

 

Car now has 127.000 km on clock and drives like new. Never skipped a service though.

I have kept detailed fuel figures for years.  I use a couple or 3 fill-ups of premium fuels every so often to give the engine a clean-up.  Over my last 3 cars (2 diesel, 1 petrol) I have travelled 31,000 miles using premium fuels and 86,000 miles on standard fuels.

Average mpg obtained were:

Octavia 1.9 TDi - BP Ultimate 52.4, Shell V-Power 50.6, BP 50.2, Shell 50.8, Morrisons 50.6

Octavia 1.8 TSi - BP Ultimate 37.3, Shell V-Power 36.1, BP 36.6, Shell 35.9, Morrisons 37.2

Roomster 1.6 TDi - BP Ultimate 56.0, Shell V-Power 54.3, BP 54.3, Shell none, Morrisons 54.6

 

For the petrol car there is no significant difference between premium and standard fuels.  For the 2 diesels the V-Power is no better than standard but BP Ultimate gives me consistently 1.5 mpg better than standard.  OK, but not really enough to cover the extra cost.

 

  

Odd with the TSI that BP Ultimate which is 97 ron would give a poorer consumption than V-Power which is 99 ron, 

or was that back when both were 98 ron in the UK?

On 01/08/2018 at 01:02, Offski said:

Odd with the TSI that BP Ultimate which is 97 ron would give a poorer consumption than V-Power which is 99 ron, 

or was that back when both were 98 ron in the UK?

Had the TSi from 2010 to 2013.  Look again. The V-Power is 2nd worst for that car. Even Morrisons is better.

I saw that, which is why i asked because the Octane changed when the name changed from Shell V-Power to V-Power Nitro +, 

seemed odd to get worse fuel consumption if using 99 ron.

Odd to get worse economy with 97, 98 or 99 ron over 95 ron not even the same.   But you were keeping the scores on the doors so know how it was.

Edited 2 August, 20187 yr by Offski

Rather old thread  Looking back over my Spritmonitor mpg figures I don't think the higher octane fuel has been really any better or worse overall - HOWEVER:-

• For my rather sensitive ears it cures pinking(aka damage!) issues (suspect many can't hear this due to soundproofing) - has been true on both my Superb 1.4tsi and Octavia 1.4 16v. Has not been an issue on my Fiat Panda 1.2 8v
• With Greenenergy (5 p/litre more) or Vpower (now tooooo expensive) ALL my cars are smoother with no low rev hesitancy

Edited 2 August, 20187 yr by bigjohn

Maybe not quite a sensible comparison, but when my wife ran a 2002 Polo 1.4 16V 75PS and it had an oil separator issue in as much as too much oil was getting passed into the manifold area, running it on V-Power Nitro stuff stopped the pinking, made that car much more driveable but the tank average MPG was always slightly lower than when running it on normal Shell UL.  I thought the reason for this had been explained by someone "way back" - and I don't mean that we ended up "hammering" the car just because it felt better to drive.

Pinking! Last time I heard pinking was in my Ford Orion 1.4 with Webber carburettor.

16 hours ago, edbostan said:

Pinking! Last time I heard pinking was in my Ford Orion 1.4 with Webber carburettor.

 

I used to rebuild/ tune lots of engines in my mis-spent youth so I'm rather familiar with that noise. A lot of modern petrols automatically take engines to ignition advance limits and have high compression ratios to get optimum economy/performance which can leave them just on the edge of pinking. The problem is most people don't really hear this as many recent cars are so well soundproofed.  HOWEVER - pinking can still do damage - even more so on a modern engine that may have lightweight pistons or valves. On the small cc 16v MPI and later tsi engines the pistons are very shallow, this really helps the laws of physics each time the pistons change direction at the end of each up/down stroke but they can be rattled by pinking that then causes premature piston / bore wear (And there have been reports of this sort of damage on these engines).

 

After hearing pinking from new I've usually run my old Octavia 1.416v 75 (this engine reported in the past of lunching pistons at 30,000 miles!) on higher octane petrol and it's still going strong after 17 years and over 126k miles

 

Likewise with my Superb tsi in France I had to put some 95ron fuel in and then when driving uphill in a built up area with the windows down - yup pinking a little!

 

When near home I tend to use Tesco Greenenergy 99ron petrol. I used to use Shell vPower nitro but it's way too expensive these days.

 

 

 

Edited 4 August, 20187 yr by bigjohn

16 hours ago, edbostan said:

Pinking! Last time I heard pinking was in my Ford Orion 1.4 with Webber carburettor.

 

Well the 1.6 CVH and later the 1.4 CVH ford engines were designed as lean burn, so pinking would always be just round the corner.

 

I ran a 1.6 CVH with a Ford Weber (Escort Ghia) but the next two were 1.6 Ghia I’s which was when unleaded fuel turned up.