TESCO petrol - Is it Pooh?

errrrm, can you point me to the texaco refinery in england please??? even the esso refinery, not the storage place that has 20 or so big drum like containers to store the fuel in and has the brand stickers on the sides, but the place they actually turn the crude oil into petrol and diesel,

AFAIK there are only 2 or 3 refineries in the UK, and they supply all the different petrol station brands, so your all getting the same fuel, it is only the so called addatives that can calsify one 'brand' of fuel from the other, and half of those adatives are anti foam ones so you can pump more of their fuel into your tank.. rather than having the nozzle click off prematurely so you dont fill right up and hence dont pay as much as you could have done.

the supermarkets just buy their fuel from who ever is the cheapest that day, i've seen our local asda take deliveries from texaco, BP and shell tankers, as well as the more usual asda tanker,

even when i worked in a petrol station (shell) it'd take 2 to 3 days for a delivery from ordering it, and as the petrol station was very old, it had dip sticks to measure the holding tanks fuel.. not something you want to be doing every hour.. especialy as to get at the sticks you had to shut the station down as the tank fillers were under manhole covers dotted all over the forecourt,

so we'd wait untill the tanks ran dry, switch over to another, if that was dry too, we'd have to put in an order with the local fuel company, which was it's own branded fuel used usually for filling the truck depot's bulk tanks,

The main problem is modern diesel is that ultra low sulpher crap, and sulphur was not only a gread lubricator, but it also helped with fuel economy... go to france and fill your tank up and you'll get 3 to 5 mpg extra, they still have 'real' diesel with the full sulphur content.

Ok, I re-phrase it.

They got deliveries from Stanlow Oil Refinery and the Texaco storage facility in Trafford Park, Manchester.

Totally incorrect. All properties of a fuel oil are laid down as a Standard. This includes standards for lubricity which are compulsory. If substandard fuel is used, which lacks the lubricity property, then fuel pumps will fail.

Diesel fuel is a complex chemical formula which does not occur naturally and is not consistent unless considerable care is taken to make it so.

Huw

Pembroke is not in England but it does have a Texaco refinery on mainland UK. It has just had a £60M refit.

There are three around Pembroke and Milford Haven alone, so your information is rather suspect. In fact the UK has 15 oil refineries.

Huw

Just checked to make sure my information is current. In fact we are now down to 12 refineries in the UK with one each in Pembroke and Milford. Last time I checked was about five years ago. Our Gazzy friend has not checked at all. Period.

Huw

Must say the car does seem to be quicker/more responsive with Shell Optimax.

tesco act like bullies with their suppliers (I know this as a fact) to lower costs even more even if quality suffers so I guess thats what they do with their petrol

Changing tack a little - does anyone else think it strange with all this celebrity chefs/good ingrediants / healthy eating but the fat majority just go for price (tesco/Asda) and not quality?

My experience is Tescos petrol burns and makes the car go, Esso does the same, Optimax makes the car go better by a fraction. But Optimax is hellishly expensive in comparison, so the car doesn't get much of it. It's a very old engine though, designed in the days when lead was a good thing, so the higher octane of Optimax is probably helping, unless the PO changed the timing, I've not bothered to check.

The fuel depot near me has one set of tanks that just about everyone appears to fill up from. There a few more tanks next door that say Shell/BP on them so they clearly share base fuel stock and going on the tankers in the compound don't share with anyone else round here.

-- Peter Hill Spamtrap reply domain as per NNTP-Posting-Host in header Can of worms - what every fisherman wants. Can of worms - what every PC owner gets!

My engine is rather more modern :-) I've had my car for a year now (not from new) and have collected mileage figures over that time. Difference between varieties of straight unleaded petrol appears to be... zip. In fact, I've just filled up today and recorded the second most economical tankful yet, on Sainsburys finest. Variation apart from the odd exceptional tank is 38-41mpg and the only correlation I can see with anything is weather. 38 in winter, 41 in summer.

I ran three previous cars without any problems on supermarket fuel (again mostly Sainsburys) and never had any issues with them, nor did any mechanic ever pass comment at service time. Supermarkets sell huge volumes of fuel, it's not in their interests to sell total rubbish. A bit like their food, really.

I've used Tesco fuel for ages with no problems in several different cars. In fact I get enough club card points out of it for a free tank a year :)

I wish they'd do a Tesco value fuel with a blue and red stripey pump and sell it at 50p/l :)

Do they realise all the petrol within a 100 mile radius comes from the same place?

Its called marketing which is why Shell have managed to screw 8p/litre more for their Optimax.

Same tankers. Driver just adds some extra ingredients.

No, really? THats because its got a higher RON rating. Normal UL is 95 RON, Opticrap is 98 RON. THe higher the RON rating the "bigger the bang".

How do you do that. The cash tokens I got for culb card points specifically excluded the purchase of fuel.

A lot of cheaper fuel had high sulfur and did damage engines over 30K miles.

-- Peter Hill Spamtrap reply domain as per NNTP-Posting-Host in header Can of worms - what every fisherman wants. Can of worms - what every PC owner gets!

Well I'll be damned, just checked on the back of one and you're right! Cashier took them though - 30 quid's worth.... Probably caught a trainee on their first day I guess. I won't expect it again now :(

Depends on the car aswell, if it doesn't have a knock sensor then the only difference is less dosh in your wallet!! I tried opipants and it made bog all difference in my car so I stick to normal UL.

I've been paying for fuel with my vouchers for a couple of years now and never had any problems with it. Not sure whether the specific exclusion of fuel is a new one though or not.

Stephen :)

In news: snipped-for-privacy@nnrp-t71-01.news.uk.clara.net, maxwell decided to enlighten our sheltered souls with a rant as follows

When I first got the 540i BMW I had for a while I was very strongly advised not to use Shell petrol in it. Something to do with Nikasil bore linings. So I never did.

However, in the works cars (stretch limousines), I've noticed that if I fill 'em up with Sainsburys or Tesco petrol, the smell out of the exhaust is bloody horrendous. Proper eggy sulphur smell, I've actually had complaints from customers about it. Weird really, never had that problem with any other petrol bar supermarket stuff, and never in anything but the yank tanks..