Which octane petrol for Kodiaq1.4 TSI

[morganic]

After many years of driving diesel VWs and Skoda I’ve bought a Kodiaq 1.4 Tsi 4x4 to replace an Octavia Scout.

Lovely quiet and a smooth and responsive drive. The change of fuel was based on lower mileage covered,differential in price of the  diesel model over the petrol one and cost of fuel itself. 

The Petrol flap says 95 RON fuel is required but is there any benefit in going for fuels like Shell V Power or Tesco Momentum? 99RON ?

[Rooted]

Quite possibly, or Costco 99,  or even others 97ron, 

Higher Octane will do no harm and you can easily check what works.

Maybe only £2.50 extra a tank on Tesco Momentum 99 but £5.00 on Shell V-Power Nitro +, so that is £2.50 extra wasted, no point paying for Detergents that are in the Tesco Momentum anyway, you just want the added  ethanol.

[morganic]

Many thanks. I’ve got a Costco card so I’ll try that. 

[DaveMiller]

I have used the higher grade (and higher priced) fuels in all my cars (though not the motorhome), both diesel and petrol, for many years and expect to do so with the 1.4 Kodiaq when I get it.

 

There are two distinct advantages which you get, once the car has "tuned" itself to the fuel:

 

- you get smoother, more tractable response at low revs, and therefore can change up sooner

- once you've learned that, you get better mpg.

 

I reckon the extra mpg nearly cancels out the extra cost, so you get a smoother car "free".  I will be interested to see whether the DSG can learn to do the changes earlier, to make that gain.  (My 22-yr-old Mercedes 220E auto with its very old-fashioned slush box seems to - presumably because the throttle is slightly lighter for the same acceleration demanded.)

[bigboss]

17 hours ago, DaveMiller said:

There are two distinct advantages which you get, once the car has "tuned" itself to the fuel:

 

- you get smoother, more tractable response at low revs, and therefore can change up sooner

- once you've learned that, you get better mpg.

 

I reckon the extra mpg nearly cancels out the extra cost, so you get a smoother car "free". 

Any evidence to support that?

[Rooted]

It costs you less than £2.50 extra a fill up to gather our own evidence or experiences from using 95 ron unleaded or 97 / 99 ron Super Unleaded.

 

Winter grade Petrol in a filling station near you any time now until March or so next year.

[DaveMiller]

6 hours ago, bigboss said:

Any evidence to support that?

The extra smoothness and tractability I can feel, more in some cars than in others, but can't measure.

 

My current 1.6 litre (and 1.6-tonne) Superb Estate does a dash-read 51 mpg or so on a cold-start 2-mile trip into town; 73 or so on a longer A-road trip, and about 64 on motorways at between 75 and 80.  As I haven't repeated those drives with lesser fuel, I can't directly compare.  Anyone on ordinary fuel getting these figures?

[bigjohn]

On 10/17/2017 at 18:08, bigboss said:

Any evidence to support that?

 

For me on a 1.4 tsi Superb (previous gen EA111)  looking over it's Spritmonitor figures when I've tried to fill up with higher Octance fuel - Tesco Greenenergy/Momentum(reasonable costs) or Shell Optimax -(really expensive now!) but have had some tanks of 95 RON. On average there is actually very little difference between fuel types (big difference on journey types!)

 

However it always runs better on the higher Octane fuel and indeed when in France driving with 95Ron fuel and the windows down/high sided walls next to you when driving uphill you sometimes heard a slight pinking rattle (not audible in the car normally due to the sound proofing). After I filled up with higher octane fuel (common in France) the noise vanished. To me that noise means potential damage - so I try to keep filling with higher Octane fuel (sadly not always available en-route for me). 

 

i've had a similar experience with my old Octavia 1.4 16v(old MPI jobby) that is fitted with the engine that is supposed to burn out pistons at low mileages - 120k miles plus and 16 years old and it doesn;t burn oil and runs very well indeed.  

Edited 25 October, 2017 by bigjohn

[CainDingle]

1.4 TSI 140 (MY13) Octavia here, so not too dissimilar an engine. I can second (though only from personal/anecdotal experience) that that particular engine is very noticeably smoother at low revs with 99 RON fuel in the tank. Passengers have noticed this as well.

 

I find I have to rev less when pulling away at junctions etc to achieve a smooth result. I do a lot of stop/start city driving so for me the extra outlay is justifiable by dint of the fact that the car is considerably more pleasant to drive.

 

Having for a long time been one of the "it's a placebo effect, stupid!" brigade, I now only fill up with 95 if a higher octane fuel isn't available.

[Jadejaws84]

5 hours ago, CainDingle said:

1.4 TSI 140 (MY13) Octavia here, so not too dissimilar an engine. I can second (though only from personal/anecdotal experience) that that particular engine is very noticeably smoother at low revs with 99 RON fuel in the tank. Passengers have noticed this as well.

 

I find I have to rev less when pulling away at junctions etc to achieve a smooth result. I do a lot of stop/start city driving so for me the extra outlay is justifiable by dint of the fact that the car is considerably more pleasant to drive.

 

Having for a long time been one of the "it's a placebo effect, stupid!" brigade, I now only fill up with 95 if a higher octane fuel isn't available.

It pretty much is a placebo effect on normally aspirated engines (unless they’re high compression/tuned) but isn’t so on forced induction .

[CainDingle]

On 11/2/2017 at 21:40, Jadejaws84 said:

It pretty much is a placebo effect on normally aspirated engines (unless they’re high compression/tuned) but isn’t so on forced induction .

I'd often wondered whether this was the case - thanks for confirming. This car is the first turbocharged (petrol) engine I've had. All the other petrols have been normally aspirated and higher-octane fuel made absolutely no difference whatsoever - though they were very small engines for non-turbos (998cc Austin Metro, 1.2 Fiesta). Makes sense I suppose, thinking about how a turbo works. I'm still pretty amazed at the actual perceptible difference in performance it makes. I wonder whether (at the risk of going off-topic) the difference is even more marked in the 2.0 TSI? I think I might do a search given that this has very probably been discussed on here before....

[bigjohn]

On 11/2/2017 at 21:40, Jadejaws84 said:

It pretty much is a placebo effect on normally aspirated engines (unless they’re high compression/tuned) but isn’t so on forced induction .

 

Think it depends on the engine type

 

As I mentioned higher octane petrol make a difference on both my Superb (1.4 tsI) and old Octavia (1.4 16v mpi) but my wife has a 1.2 Fiat Panda and it doesn;t seem to make any difference in that.

 

The Panda has the simplest and oldest design of engine(Fire) , wheras the 1.4 16v engine in Octavia the was the first of the "modern" designs  

[Rooted]

They did tests on a Panda & TSI's and others.

6ca06d648b9541e78fa838fece4a1a23.pdf

Tesco Momentum99 - Tesco PFS.mhtml