what sort of variation is there in petrol quality between stations ?

[Thunderchild]

Seeing a very wide range of petrol prices make me wonder, do I get what i pay for ? or are some stations giving me a good deal ?

Experiences anyone ? is it worth paying another 5p a litre for good fuel ?

[MrIncredible]

I have heard lots of stories from people saying they have had dirty/bad fuel from a supermarket and its caused there car to backfire and generally play up, I used to fill up my car once a month either from tesco's/asda's (have never had any probs engine wise) but found my fuel was lasting longer when I used either Esso fuel or Bp Fuel.

[MantaRay]

I wouldn't condemn all supermarket fuels as some of them are selling branded fuel with the full additive package. If the supermarket isn't showing a fuel brand sign it could be supplying you with the minimal quantity additive package.

[BigRooster]

Not unless your driving some kind of performance car I wouldn't worry but once every 6 months I do add BG44 which helps with Carbon build up and cleans the Cat. But most new little seem to be happy with any grade up fuel.

[bookbinder]

I'm not a car expert by any means, so I read expert opinion in magazines, etc. One such expert said that it isn't a good idean to run your car exclusively on supermarket petrol, because it doesn't contain the additives (mainly detergents) that keep the engine clean. Without detergents, carbon can build up in the cylinders to such a point that it glows hot after the ignition is turned off. That's when you get the engine 'running on' a bit. So an occasional tankfull of more-expensive fuel is probably a good thing. The variation in prices is, presumably, because some petrols have the detergents and some don't.

[Thunderchild]

I had a 1.1L fiesta a few years ago and noticed a marked difference when not using tesco petrol, I advised a friend who has a vintage car (that has no electronics to adjust the carburetter to the fuel) not to go there but he did and came back and told me how bad it made his engine run because it was not setup for such bad fuel. I got pretty good mileage out of my mondeo with shell super and sainsbury's (always the cheapest) did not seem to do much for performance (holding a higher gear for longer and moving with ease without having to pump the accelerator). My "new" fiesta 1.3L did not seem to think much of sainsbury's petrol either and a top up of shell super seems to have made it perform a bit better I think