Gazole Plus, V-Power, Excellium etc. diesel

[Steve928]

Each year when over in mainland Europe I intend to treat my engine to some of the enhanced diesel products that are available at much less than a price premium than they are over here, typically 3 or 4 Euro cents per litre. I've never gotten around to it before but this year I did give it a try.

 

First I took on board about 3/4 of a tank of 'Avia Gazole Plus' and didn't notice any real difference on the road. However, the next morning from cold the engine (2015 HDi130) wasn't happy running at a constant light load and would hiccup and jerk down the road. Give it some welly white-van-man style and it was fine. All was OK again after a couple if minutes.

 

We ran that tank to almost empty and filled with Total Excellium. Again fine on the road with a warm engine but the next morning I thought that we were going to need the breakdown truck. It was hard on the throttle or nothing, just jerks and hiccups. Kangaroo fuel until warm.

 

So at the next opportunity it was back the the cheapest available (Euro 104.9/litre!) and since then everything has been back to normal. I'm at a loss to explain this - any ideas?

[flicka]

Hi Steve,

the premium diesels fuels were originally introduced for high performance diesel engines, not commercial vehicle engines. So you are paying a premium for something that will not give you an extra benefits.

 

Maybe if a re-map have changed the engine characteristics it may, but IDK.

But that opens a whole new can of worms.

 

 

[Guest Peter James]

When you turn the key you need to wait until the glow plug light goes out before turning it to start if you want it to start first time. I still forget sometimes :$

[Archiesgrandad]

As a 1000 miles per week driver I did a fairly controlled exercise using these premium fuels in a 2 litre Audi 170 bhp diesel. After 10000 miles it was found that the fuel consumption had improved by about 4% , and fuel costs had increased by 4%. Driving a road car on public roads did not indicate any benefit in the way of improved performance in terms of shorter journey times, reduced noise levels or anything else, so I went back to buying the cheapest fuel I could find. That car is still working fulltime and last time I checked it had covered192000 miles with no more than normal servicing. I'm not sure that there is any positive benefit.

AGD