Shell V-power nitro+ VS plain old cheap petrol - My experience and thoughts

Mkjackary

Was going to post a thread here asking if it is worth it, but I thought fuck it, filling a tank up costs under 15 quid even with the most expensive fuel so may aswell try it for myself.

Got a 97 kawasaki ER-5 (500cc), on plain old fuel if I drove like a grandad I could get about 136 miles until I hit reserve and then went to a station to fll up, and if I drive normally it is 125 until I have hit reserve and have to fill up. so I'm hitting reserve anywhere between 3-8 miles before that sometimes.

I filled up from reserve to brim with shell v-power, so there was about 2 litres of old stuff left I think.

On 150 miles to the tank and I haven't hit reserve yet, probably has another 10 miles at least until I was where I was at when I measures the other two measurements.
Besides from that there is a very noticeable difference in power and performance, wasn't sure if it was placebo but it definitely isn't.
I was driving, if anything, more silly than "normal" with the V-power fuel as it was a bit more torque-ey.

So, ignoring the fact that I have at least another 10 miles before I was at the level of fuel I measured the other two readings at, and the fact that this tank of fuel has 2 litres of standard cheapy fuel mixed in with it. I get 20% Higher milage! before I bought the cheapest of cheap fuel I could find which is £1.10 here, and V-power was £1.21 a litre.

So for a 10% increase in fuel price I got at least a 20% increase in milage.

This doesn't include any of the benefits such as the cleaning, lubrication and protective elements that are added to the fuel, which will increase the amount of time needed before services etc which will reduce cost long term aswell.

So overall a no brainer for me. I am officially converted to shell v-power.

Mkjackary

Would be interesting to hear everyone else's experience, especially car drivers. Motorcycle engines run at much higher RPM so it is probably a bigger difference than in a non sporty car.

Evilmags

Depends on engine. Anything with over 75hp per litte benefits and turbo cars really benefit 

Mkjackary

My bike is about 47BHP

stratosonic

My Volvo S40 D5 (180 bhp) is a diesel so it runs on whatever is cheapest, but I used V Power in my previous Mini Cooper S and got a bit more mpg, it also felt slightly more responsive (but that could be my brain telling me I paid more so it must be better)!

Hertz32

I wasnt aware they mix cleaning agents in, but higher octane fuel alone shouldnt make a difference to any engine that doesnt have a high compression ratio? 

Everything I say is speculation and isnt to be taken as fact but...
My understanding was higher octane meant that you can run a leaner mixture which leads to the alleged milage benefits. If the ecu automatically adjusts the mixture in a fuel injected engine, then this makes sense. But for a Carbed engine it would require rejetting to run the leaner mixture happily. 
I'm sure it's making a difference for a bike, as the engines are built differently. But for a car, I cant see any advantage over standard fuel with a bottle of RedX every 20k miles. 

I do know that there are cars out there that absolutely MUST have 99oct+ (mostly hypercars and supercars) otherwise they wont run due to the compression ratio being so high that standard octane isnt combustable enough. 

peteri

My last car (Porsche Boxster S - amazing car), v power made a very clear difference. Maybe 10-15% better consumption, but a real change to smoothness up the rev curve

boogieman

I think one of the motoring programs did a test once and it made bugger all difference. 

ArchtopDave

My last car was a petrol BMW 318 Estate, which was really a bit sluggish. I found the Shell V power Petrol did perk the car up a bit - nothing magic, but enough to be appreciated. 

TTony

Mkjackary said:

Got a 97 kawasaki ER-5 (500cc), 

Evilmags said:

Anything with over 75hp per litte benefits

Mkjackary said:

My bike is about 47BHP

But that's 47BHP from a 500cc engine - or 94 bhp/litre.  So EvilMags' comment is consistent with your experience.

Evilmags

Hertz32 said:

I wasnt aware they mix cleaning agents in, but higher octane fuel alone shouldnt make a difference to any engine that doesnt have a high compression ratio? 

Everything I say is speculation and isnt to be taken as fact but...
My understanding was higher octane meant that you can run a leaner mixture which leads to the alleged milage benefits. If the ecu automatically adjusts the mixture in a fuel injected engine, then this makes sense. But for a Carbed engine it would require rejetting to run the leaner mixture happily. 
I'm sure it's making a difference for a bike, as the engines are built differently. But for a car, I cant see any advantage over standard fuel with a bottle of RedX every 20k miles. 

I do know that there are cars out there that absolutely MUST have 99oct+ (mostly hypercars and supercars) otherwise they wont run due to the compression ratio being so high that standard octane isnt combustable enough. 

From experience

BMW 750 no difference at all
BMW M3 considerable difference
Mazda 3 MPS dint put 95 in it
Merc CLS 63 AMG runs on 95 but gets a fair bit more millage on 98. 

Mkjackary

TTony said:

Mkjackary said:

Got a 97 kawasaki ER-5 (500cc), 

Evilmags said:

Anything with over 75hp per litte benefits

Mkjackary said:

My bike is about 47BHP

But that's 47BHP from a 500cc engine - or 94 bhp/litre.  So EvilMags' comment is consistent with your experience.

Yes, wasn't disagreeing, just letting people know what it is as I haven't included it in the first post.

Mkjackary

As far as I know, it just increases performance, so going at the same speeds and accelerating the same amount will use less fuel/be at a lower RPM.

I had thought it was just a con untill a couple months ago.

Emp_Fab

I drive a twin-turbo BMW (I wish I had the balls to just leave it at that, as it sounds far better than it is !), three-cylinder 1.5L diesel 116d.  Shell V-Power diesel makes a noticeable difference to the acceleration and I definitely get more mpg.  However, with the V-Power fuel in, I tend to drive, er...  "sportier" shall we say, which probably undoes the mpg saving.

I would use it all the time if I could find Shell garages whenever I'm close to running out.

Axe_meister

Well you've given your engine a nice clean. Stick the cheaper fuel in and you will get an improvement on what you had.
You get the same kind of effect by sticking some engine cleaner in the tank ever so often 

ICBM

Not tried the Shell V-Power, but a while back I did compare standard 'proper' petrol station fuel to 'supermarket' fuel for my distinctly non-'performance' Renault Scenic. I averaged each over a couple of thousand miles and a range of my normal driving.

The result was that supermarket petrol is a false economy. It was about 2% cheaper, but 3% worse in mpg. Those additives that the supermarkets don't pay for do make a difference. So it wouldn't surprise me if there's an equivalent trade-up between the standard stuff and the fancy stuff.

What's slightly frustrating is that the people who can least afford to pay more than they need to for petrol usually use supermarket petrol because "it's cheaper"...

WezV

I have put it in my 1.4 Astra a few times by accident. Seems to perk it up quite nicely, but I own a 1.4 Astra, so performance isn't my main goal

Maynehead

Tried it in my rx8, didn't notice any difference, mileage or otherwise. Probably not particularly suited to the Wankel engine.

Emp_Fab

Axe_meister said:

Well you've given your engine a nice clean. Stick the cheaper fuel in and you will get an improvement on what you had.
You get the same kind of effect by sticking some engine cleaner in the tank ever so often 

Not so.  My engine is pretty new and I definitely notice the same difference every time I switch between normal diesel and V-Power.

nick79

In more modern cars/bikes with knock sensors you will see a difference as they will automatically adjust the timing. If for instance you had an older Impreza (or something similar with no knock sensor) that had to be run on 98 octane but you put 95 stuff in you would get pinking or pre-ignition. Basically the spark timing is off.

Theory suggests that putting high octane fuel in something like an ER5 is a waste of time but you're right a lot of the time you see benefits. Whether that's because the fuel you have been using up to now isn't the best quality or just the added ingredients i don't know. I have found that cheaper supermarket diesel isn't as good as that from 'proper' petrol stations, if i fill up my crappy Focus diesel at BP/Texaco i get better mpg and it feel's a bit livelier too. 

I remember years ago we used to adjust the timing manually on our 205 gti's to run on super unleaded, easy to do back then and it made quite a difference. 

RaymondLin

I have been using premium since getting my car mainly because the manual says so, thus I have no idea.  Although I've been using V-power the last month.  Truth is I don't push the car enough to really warrant it between supermarket 97ron to V-power.