IMHO Shell Optimax is Rubbish

[Animal Mother]

Tried Optimax in my car, lost nearly 0.2 bar of boost and lost 2-3 mpg on runs, plus performance was notably down and surging idle.
Tried Tesco 99, boost straight back up, up 2-3 mpg and much better performance, plus idle is rock solid. Even better it's 2p cheaper per litre.

[Acidburn]

Ain't really tried tesco as there is not many local to me, tried shell when i did the RR day at weston's and thought it was ok, went well enough on the trip up or so the beemer that tried racing me thought.

[Knight Rider S4]

Strange results as V-power is usually very good ..would it really affect your boost ? wgfv regulated via ecu

Must of been contaminated or you got council juice

[Animal Mother]

would it really affect your boost ? wgfv regulated via ecu

User manual says poor quality or low octane fuel affects boost.

[martinjs]

Probably normal unleaded in the optimax tank, happened to me a couple of times about 2 years ago (from the same garage)

[S-Express]

Well, personally I swear by the stuff - no boost or idling problems.
Wouldn't touch tesco's with a barge pole due to lack of additives - my 160k engine is as sweet as a nut and emissions are perfect.
My injectors have just been cleaned too, they were 0.1% variance before cleaning and the same after. Proves the quality of fuel going through them imho

[dan_b]

Tesco99 is the dog's danglies as far as I'm concerned, and I too have had less than satisfactory performance with Choptimax - last time I put a tank of that in it my 3.0v6 started pinking - for frack's sake!

It's Tesco99 all the way for me.

[Ian Simmonds]

I know several people with performance (turbocharged) cars who have stopped using shell's Fontwell Garage on the A27, because the cars haven't been running particularly well. All problems cured by filling up with other branded super-unleaded.

[Error404]

Not muhc you can do either, becasue how the hell do you go back to the petrol station and say, "you've sold me £60 worth of useless fuel" ?

[Jamo]

Think the question is how you bought optimex when virtually all the shell stations nationwide have replaced it with V-Power? :mischeif:

[Smith_S2]

I wouldn't sat optimax is rubbish but one of the reasons is that tesco's fuel is better is because it does not sit in the tanks for to long and the fuel does not age. Not a lot of people will buy optimax or BP's expensive stuff(forgotten whats it's called) so it sits for much longer. I do notice a difference when i put cheaper octane fuel in my S2.

[Animal Mother]

Tesco 99 should have cleaning properties as it contains 5% bioethanol.

Link

It makes both of my turbo cars run like a dream as non normally-aspirated cars love ethanol in their fuel allegedly.

[eubanks2]

I'm a v-power man, but 90% of the time i add an octane booster. I did find this test though.

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/t...?f=57&t=302977

[Sonic]

There have been a few posts lately about Optimax/V Power not being in the pumps at some garages due to a problem with the fuel. Could it be that you got 'a bad tank' ?

[4WheelDrifter]

It could be a bad tank of V-Power. We've had this problem with Optimax before, on more than one occasion. Shell don't seem to own up to any problems though.

A question I'd like answered is why does my car go so much better on V-Power 98 on the continent, compared to V-Power 99 sold in the UK. You can even smell the extra goodness in the 98. Our 99 smells shít.

V-Power 100 sold in Germany is brilliant stuff, they must put MTBE in that stuff, or are are they using good old TEL?