1.0 tsi premium fuel?

[seanhan12345]

hi what fuel is everyone using for their 1.0 tsi engines, been using v power for awhile.. Any point in doing so?

[Ootohere]

Some say not.  I would use Tesco Momentum 99 rather than Shell V-Power Nitro+ and not just because it is cheaper.

(Tesco Momentum 99 5 pence a litre extra so £2.25 a tank fill more than Tesco Unleaded 95, or Asda, Morrisons,etc.)

Recent posts say that the 1.0TSI losses power, but that is just nonsense as the higher octane no way reduces the engines output over the 95 ron minimum

with 95,110,115ps 1.0TSI's.

 

You have the car so you decide if £5.00 or so a tank fill is extra.

Or maybe just the same cost per tank fill with Super Unleaded from Supermarket filling stations as 95 unleaded cost from Shell, BP, Esso etc buy using Sainsbury's 97 ron or the Tesco Momentum 99 which is 99 ron minimum and the base fuel is brought in and store along with Royal Dutch Shells.

 

Greenergy that produces Momentum produces Essos Super.

Edited 19 July, 2019 by Roottootemoot

[SurreyJohn]

I have the 1.0 tsi in one of our cars, and get 10-15% better range when using Shell Vpower premium.   Not for the first 100-200 miles (when it’s detergents are presumably cleaning lots of crud), but afterwards.   The engine also seems to pull better on the premium fuel (not that the 115 is short of power).

 

So unless your local fuel fuel station charges a stupidly large amount extra (I find it it usually about 12-14p more) then seems to make sense.  10% price premium for about 13% increase in mpg

 

  I have also downloaded the Shell-Go App and have been sent some money off every few fills which makes it a no brainer to use Vpower premium.

[Gerrycan]

4 hours ago, SurreyJohn said:

I have the 1.0 tsi in one of our cars, and get 10-15% better range when using Shell Vpower premium.   Not for the first 100-200 miles (when it’s detergents are presumably cleaning lots of crud), but afterwards.   The engine also seems to pull better on the premium fuel (not that the 115 is short of power).

 

So unless your local fuel fuel station charges a stupidly large amount extra (I find it it usually about 12-14p more) then seems to make sense.  10% price premium for about 13% increase in mpg

 

  I have also downloaded the Shell-Go App and have been sent some money off every few fills which makes it a no brainer to use Vpower premium.

I'll be interested to hear your actual consumption with each fuel type and perhaps more detail about vehicle age and mileage to try and understand how premium fuel could possibly make such a big difference.

 

[SurreyJohn]

55 minutes ago, Gerrycan said:

I'll be interested to hear your actual consumption with each fuel type and perhaps more detail about vehicle age and mileage to try and understand how premium fuel could possibly make such a big difference.

 

 

It is a 12 month old Seat Arona with 10,300 miles.

I suspect the engine sensors detect when it is coasting, and are very sparing with fuel.  Maybe it’s because I have the 7 speed DSG gearbox which seems to be optimised to work with this engine.

 

[Gerrycan]

I drove a loan 1.0tsi manual Fabia for about a week and 1200km and was very impressed with the excellent consumption and  more than adequate performance for the road on 95 octane fuel.

 

I'll concede that if an engine is designed to utilise a higher octane fuel then it will get better power and probably consumption using it. For instance Mazda produce a turbo 2.5L 'SkyActive' engine which is sold in the American and Australian markets who offer a different range of Octane fuels than in Europe. Here in Australia we have 91Octane through to 98 Octane (ignoring the 105 Octane E85 or race fuels) and the US has similar under a different rating system. While the Mazda can run on them all, if the 98 Octane is used then there is an extra 13 bhp produced(Mazda's own figures). Significant but not mind blowing and that is for a whole 7 Octane difference.

 

Small turbo engines like the 1.0tsi are not going to get 13 bhp improvement for a mere 2 or 4 Octane increase, it is just not going to happen.

In the 'MPG' thread, a retired professional automotive engineer even cited instances where they discovered that several different small turbo engines produced lower power in laboratory type test conditions with the higher octane fuel! Obviously they are not designed to utilise the higher octanes effectively and while that was surprising for many, including me, it does not conflict with my experience with using higher octane fuels (no noticeable consumption improvement from using 98 octane compared to the recommended minimum 95 Octane).

 

Marketing of many products would have you believe that certain foods are 'superfoods', that more expensive washing powders are better than cheaper ones, similarly for cosmetics, pet food, cola, medicines, or that banks care about their customers (haha) etc etc.  Independent and blind testing of products often reveal the truth is different from the marketing.

In the case of fuel, if there was one product that stood out from all the others then the car manufacturers would insist on its use, if only to reduce warranty claims and emissions. More detergents in fuel may help a bit but since our engines are direct injected there is no cleaning of inlet valves.

When my car is serviced I insist that no additives are put in and if they do it is at their expense, not mine.

 

I'll make one caveat though and that is it is a requirement (purely for the 'Greens' I expect) for European 95 Octane fuel to have a small amount of Ethanol (not sure if 5 or 10%) while higher Octanes are not legally required to. Ethanol has a 10% lower calorific value than petrol so the lower octane fuel has very slightly less energy content. We can get E10 here in Australia which is mixed with the standard 91 Octane and raises it to 94 Octane and sells for about 2 cents a litre cheaper. Most people who use E10 in their 91 octane capable cars (mostly Japanese and Korean brands) say they get noticeably poorer consumption but I have not seen any properly conducted tests to confirm that viewpoint.

 

However we live in relatively free societies and we can put whatever suitable and commercially available fuel in our tanks that we choose and if you believe and happy with your product choice then good on you.... and that includes me.

Edited 20 July, 2019 by Gerrycan

[krigl]

It is all about timing advanse and engine tuning to fully take adwantage of higher octane rating of fuel. 

It helps on a 1.2tsi on mpg, tested on my own car while it was stock, now it is tuned and higher octane is mandatory for me to eliminate chance of engine knock due to higher pressures and temperatures. 

[Ootohere]

The post said 13% improvement in fuel consumption, i have seen around 5-10% with a Seat Arona.

115ps with GPF.  Gets up to speed, toe off accelerator, and coast function thanks to the DSG.

 

The thing about using 95, 97 or 99 ron on the road is you can fill your tank, maybe time after time, through the seasons, using whatever fuel you want and then see the brim to brim range, it is not rocket science.

 

As to the Dyno and the small capacity CC TSI's, i disagree with the Ex Engineer and the posts in the other thread.

But then i have been at dyno sessions of 1.2, 1.0 & mostly 1.4TSI's,  also talked with the drivers who drive in the real world.

 

Again no doubt the Ex Engineers clients, employers are like 'Commercially sensitive.'

Edited 20 July, 2019 by Roottootemoot

[JohnLD]

I use the standard Tesco 95 octane in my 1.0 TSI

I previously had the 1.2 TSI and did try the premium grade for about 1000 miles and I found no difference in the MPG or performance

My 1.0 TSI is giving me and overall average of 41MPG  the majority of that is journeys of less than 75 m in the outskirts of Manchester

 

Edited 20 July, 2019 by JohnLD
Another Typo

[Gerrycan]

1 minute ago, krigl said:

It is all about timing advanse and engine tuning to fully take adwantage of higher octane rating of fuel. 

It helps on a 1.2tsi on mpg, tested on my own car while it was stock, now it is tuned and higher octane is mandatory for me to eliminate chance of engine knock due to higher pressures and temperatures. 

Thank you, I had forgotten to mention tuned engines which of course would be able to take advantage of, and in your case mandatory, use of higher octane fuel.

 

It makes sense to me that a low budget, and lowish output vehicle like the Fabia would be optimised for economically priced 95 Octane fuel.

It also seems reasonable that more expensive and performance orientated vehicles with say the EA888 engine would also be able to utilise higher octane fuels. I believe that the higher octanes were also officially recommended in the earlier versions.

 

 

[Ootohere]

@JohnLD   

You are paying 5 pence a litre more in Tesco Filling stations than if you bought Tesco Unleaded, ie Standard Fuel,

Tesco Momentum 99 is 99 Ron Minimum the same as Shell V-Power Nitro + is 99 ron minimum in the UK.

Standard Tesco Unleaded is 95 ron.

Other brands of Super Unleaded in the UK is 97 ron minimum other than from Costco which is 99 ron minimum.

Edited 20 July, 2019 by Roottootemoot

[Gerrycan]

6 minutes ago, Roottootemoot said:

 

 

The thing about using 95, 97 or 99 ron on the road is you can fill your tank, maybe time after time, through the seasons, using whatever fuel you want and then see the brim to brim range, it is not rocket science.

 

You are right it is not rocket science, in fact there is no scientific method about it at all because your methodology just introduces a whole of lot of variables that renders useless results.

[Ootohere]

Yes obviously variables.  But you pay to buy the fuel, think, look, keep records. Many do.

   If you cover enough miles day in and week in and year after year you know your vehicles.

 

Australian fuels and octanes there for you to use.

Each tank fill in the UK any UK driver can try, see if the car drives any smother, or just feels better, or gets more range per tank. Simples

 

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

No retailers sell 98 ron in the UK.

But VW say this.

 

  Look in Skoda owners manuals and see what they say on Octane.  Then buy and try.

Tesco Momentum 99 & Shell V-Power Nitro+ sometimes no different and sometimes the 99 minimum can be higher in one or another, as with 97 or 95 minimum.

Which is why 102 ron etc is clean and unadultereted.

 

You pays your money, and it might be like Detergents, except no detergents in the race fuels.

Edited 20 July, 2019 by Roottootemoot

[xman]

The wording on the fuel flap gives the clue as to whether the engine ecu fitted can adapt to use higher octane. Look it up on Briskoda and its also stated in the owners manual. Some cars won't benefit at all.

 

Can't be bothered searching for the threads/photos as this is a tiresome subject regularly revisited.

 

Any improvement in performance/power/economy is relatively minor, many will swear by it and make outrageous claims but they are merely taking a placebo and suffering confirmation bias. Adapting driving style to help their preconceptions.

 

One definite benefit is that many super unleaded fuels have a higher and or more exotic detergent additive content. 

 

All UK petrol regular/super etc is now at least E5 which simply means it contains between 0% and 5% max ethanol. No way of actually knowing the content.

 

 

[Ootohere]

There as the BIO, and only this week there was calls for the 10% to be a 'Minimum' and again this week on radio and telly in the UK they were saying 

'Almost all new petrol cars are OK with 10%'.

 

The Bio producers are trying to force the UK government to support them, in the UK and World Wide.

 

Then there those that say it should be E85.

Edited 20 July, 2019 by Roottootemoot

[Gerrycan]

Ok here is a fun fact. 

The price differential between the UK unleaded and super unleaded seems to be about 10p, perhaps more, please correct me if I am wrong.

The price differential in Australia between the equivalent 95 and 98 Octane fuels is about 10 cents.

 

Allowing for current exchange rates and ignoring the base price that makes the price differential between the two octanes roughly twice as great in the Uk as in Australia.

Now either you are using a much better grade of detergent than is added in Australia (yes and we get all the same marketing BS about how Shell/BP/Mobil premium grade will cleanse your engine like new) or perhaps you are being ripped off. I think the latter

There is no more fuel tax involved here it just pure profit for the UK petrol companies so of course they say the 'premium' fuel is fantastic, for them it is!

 

[Ootohere]

@Gerrycan  'You are wrong'.

 

Sainbury 97 ron is 5 pence a litre more than Sainsbury, 95, maybe Asda & Morrison and Tesco 95 ron Unleaded.

Tesco Momentum 99 is 5 pence a litre more than Tesco 95 ron Unleaded.

 

Now BP, Shell, Texaco, Gulf etc 95 Ron might cost the same or more than Tesco Momentum 99 or Sainsbury's 97 Super.

 

Shell V-P0wer Nitro Plus can be 10 pence a Litre more than Sainsbury's Super or Tescos, Costcos.

 

So you can have a tank of 97 or 99 ron in a Fabia for £2.25 more than a tank of Supermarket 95 and sometimes less than a tank of the Multi Nationals Unleaded 95 which is just Petrol the same as Supermarket branded.

 

V-Power Nitro+ maybe another £2.50 a tank more than 97/99 from Supermarkets, 

As can be ESSO, Gulf, BP 97 ron Super Unleaded.

 

 

So £2.25 extra which is less than 2 litres costs of 95 ron from a supermarket filling station and maybe you get some extra miles maybe not.

Or maybe save £2.25 and use it to buy the 2 litres next time.

 

 

Edited 20 July, 2019 by Roottootemoot

[Dannyboy85]

My mapped 1.0 gets slightly better mpg possibly 3-4 no difference in performance that I can tell.. I mostly use Costco fuel.  

[xman]

4 hours ago, Roottootemoot said:

Sainbury 97 ron is 5 pence a litre more than Sainsbury, 95, maybe Asda & Morrison and Tesco 95 ron Unleaded.

 

Our Sainsburys is now 6p a litre more. Don't know about Tesco Momentum as only the Hyperstore across other side of town does that.

 

Shell V Power silly money around here (not many stations). The one BP station (now changed to Texaco) stopped doing Ultimate fuels years ago.

 

No demand.

[Guest]

On 19/07/2019 at 23:05, Roottootemoot said:

Recent posts say that the 1.0TSI losses power, but that is just nonsense as the higher octane no way reduces the engines output over the 95 ron minimum

with 95,110,115ps 1.0TSI's.

 

 

 

George you are back! You missed the Citroen C4 unfortunately. I did post you about it on the forum because you don't have your pm switched on. I'm not Freedom so it was removed after a day or so, so was forced to let it go. It ran beautifully when I went up to Newcastle with some of my kit in it.

 

We didn't test the 115ps 1.0TSI but the 110ps engine does lose power by around 4%-5% on 99 octane, and produces less mpg. It might be that the 115ps engine on 99 octane retains it's ability to produce the same power and mpg, but as you will have seen from the MPG thread many are saying their 110ps engines don't. That was my experience on both my 110ps 1.2TSI engines also. In March this year we tested over 14 other engine types (all smaller turbo charged petrol engines) with the same or similar results. The dyno doesn't lie and our testing was extensive.

Edited 23 July, 2019 by GeneralPurpose

[Ootohere]

Here is the test results that Tesco had from Millbrook back in 2012.

They were on Fuel Consumption and Emissions not power.   Different strokes for different folks, or what they drive.

388380a097b04fe693a8c27db8bb4974 (1).pdf 6ca06d648b9541e78fa838fece4a1a23 (1).pdf

 

 

Edited 23 July, 2019 by Roottootemoot

[xman]

Tsi engines much different today from 2012. Variable valve phasing, multiple direct injection etc etc.

[PaulJS]

4 hours ago, GeneralPurpose said:

 

George you are back! You missed the Citroen C4 unfortunately. I did post you about it on the forum because you don't have your pm switched on. I'm not Freedom so it was removed after a day or so, so was forced to let it go. It ran beautifully when I went up to Newcastle with some of my kit in it.

 

We didn't test the 115ps 1.0TSI but the 110ps engine does lose power by around 4%-5% on 99 octane, and produces less mpg. It might be that the 115ps engine on 99 octane retains it's ability to produce the same power and mpg, but as you will have seen from the MPG thread many are saying their 110ps engines don't. That was my experience on both my 110ps 1.2TSI engines also. In March this year we tested over 14 other engine types (all smaller turbo charged petrol engines) with the same or similar results. The dyno doesn't lie and our testing was extensive.

 

Hi GeneralPurpose,

 

As a slight tangent and out of my curiosity, may I ask what sort of figures, typically speaking, you see for the 1.0 TSi 110 engine? Having downsized from a 2.0 TDi Superb (totally different beast of course), I've been pleasantly surprised by how my Fabia performs - it "feels" swifter and more torquey than the 1.6 four-pot cars I drive at work, which have similar official output. 

 

Cheers!

[Guest]

9 hours ago, PaulJS said:

 

Hi GeneralPurpose,

 

As a slight tangent and out of my curiosity, may I ask what sort of figures, typically speaking, you see for the 1.0 TSi 110 engine? Having downsized from a 2.0 TDi Superb (totally different beast of course), I've been pleasantly surprised by how my Fabia performs - it "feels" swifter and more torquey than the 1.6 four-pot cars I drive at work, which have similar official output. 

 

Cheers!

Hello Paul, just been going through the figures. The 110ps TSI 1.0 engine showed 106.5ps at 250 miles. This increased to a maximum of 112.1ps at 2000 miles. This on 95 ron. Using 99 octane, power dropped to 107.9ps. Figs quoted are averages of 3 runs each. One should not forget that the power output of an engine varies from day to day depending on temps, humidity, fuel used, state of tune etc etc.

 

 

[Guest]

14 hours ago, Roottootemoot said:

Here is the test results that Tesco had from Millbrook back in 2012.

They were on Fuel Consumption and Emissions not power.   Different strokes for different folks, or what they drive.

388380a097b04fe693a8c27db8bb4974 (1).pdf 995.53 kB · 3 downloads 6ca06d648b9541e78fa838fece4a1a23 (1).pdf 2.86 MB · 3 downloads

 

 

 

George, yes we have those reports plus several others. Very valid Indeed for those vehicles that were tested way back then, but not so relevant on cars tuned for today's fuels & emission standards running PPF's etc (mostly the engines we tested). Engines have changed substantially, as has the fuel itself in some respects in order to meet the new emission standards. Note some of the cars tested in those reports were 2005, 2008 cars.

 

Momentum is a great fuel though and many cars can benefit from using it as it cleans the motor very well under normal driving, but I wouldn't use it myself as long term use is expensive for absolutely no gain in my Citroen for example, and possibly some detriment in some vehicles due to ECU's not being able to cope with timing alterations, as far as we could determine.

 

At this point I should say all fuels we used were done so "blind".  We had no idea what fuel was being used for each test other than it's octane rating. We were not testing individual branded fuels. Not our objective. In fact for power test purposes our fuels were specially manufactured with normal high grade cleaners in them. No actual branded fuels were used in the power output tests. This is done for lots of technical reasons. Remember, we design & develop engines and this form of testing is useful at various stages when working on developing new engines and making comparisons with other makes of engine.

 

Our testing showed 95 and 97 Ron to be the best all round fuel for best power and fuel economy. Most euro 6+ cars didn't benefit in any way from higher octane fuels, with many actually having worse performance, albeit by just a little that many owners probably wouldn't notice in normal driving. In fact many owners would I'm sure tell you their cars actually go better! However, don't forget, the engine designers develop everyday car engines to run on mainstream 95 ron. This is the most commonly available fuel everywhere in all parts of the world where modern small cars are sold.

 

In addition it's worth remembering that fuels like momemtum, in my experience and in the main, only restore your engine back to full performance. Rarely did we ever find an increase in performance of any kind over and above the normal expected performance range of an engine if running standard fuel. What happens is engines gradually get dirty inside (this includes injectors, fuel system etc) and good fuels just remove this muck, restoring normal operation. Always remember, there is no more stored energy in 99 octane fuel than in 95 octane. 

 

Interesting subject with some good info being added.

Edited 24 July, 2019 by GeneralPurpose