General Discussion
Petrol & Diesel Prices
I don't use my car very often but I have noticed that the price for unleaded at Sainsburys has risen about 5p per litre in recent weeks.
If you are concerned about the rising price of fuel, how about using this post to inform us users of where you can find the cheapest fuel in the area?
Not just in Dawlish, but the surrounding area, especially now that the new Morrisons has a garage.
It will help all of us to save some money if going to a certain area and knowing that we can save some money instead of driving round looking for the cheapest fuel.
Good idea or not?
We have had this issue many times on here and sadly if you research the subject in depth there are other factors to consider when buying fuel other than price.
The supermarket fuel as you would expect is the lowest quality they can get away with when it comes to the Octane rating, its a bit like your pub landlord watering down the spirits only they do it with what they claim to be addatives. In other words they put stuff in their fuel which is cheaper than the refined unleaded i.e. cleansing agents or a type of bleach to you and me. This is added at the storeage depot a bit like a coffee machine the tanker driver selects the supermarket blend at the press of a button and there you have it.
If you find your vehicle suffers from poor cold starting, inconsistent running sometimes ok then sometimes a bit underpowered and missy, or you have moments where the engine management light flashes on then goes off. This is more than likely due to supermarket fuel. A quick test is to go up a long dragging type hill like on the A38 and trying to maintain an even accelerator application, watch for the rev counter dropping and the engine temperature climbing, if this happens fairly quickly your engine isent getting what it needs from the fuel. Repeat the test when you have a tank full of Branded quality fuel and see if there is any difference.
If you are a firm believer in Supermarket fuel then a good option for your engine is to fill up with superunleaded say once every four fills. If however you drive a high peformance vehicle or do a lot of towing avoid supermarket fuel its that simple.
Going back to price, I believe locally Morrisons have been the lowest since they opened and Trago are allways amonst the lowest plus the Shell branding.
@ Fred.
Thanks for the info (I assume that you are a tanker driver) and obviously not a good idea then.
Maybe the webmaster will remove the post if it is not worth keeping it up.
Its a good idea, its getting people to remember to post when they spot a good price. Maybe the webmaster could make the post into an updateable listing under the Services heading probably. Im sure the fuel stations on the list will soon let us know if the posted price is wrong. As above though its important to list their fuel brand as well as price where posible.
In 2004 Sainsburys struck a deal with B.P who supply their fuel all fuel sold in the U.K has to comply with BSEN228. We have in the Uk a national grid for fuel supply so for arguments sake fuel refined lets say in Milford Haven is piped to distribution depots in varios parts of the country. The tankers all fill with the same fuel the only difference is that the drivers dose each pot with additives these can be different for each brand so BP could be different from Texeco. At the end of the day we dont know what the difference is there are lots of rumours for example Supermarket fuel doesnt have additives is a lower octane rating etc etc the truth is there is very little difference. I use both retailers in Dawlish and find no difference in performence what i will do is run a test with both products to check M.P.G using the in car trip computer and will post the results.
Announced on Spotlight last night that the Southwest pays the highest prices for fuel in the country. Having consulted various people around the country there doesn't seem to be much difference though.
From both work and personal experience my own findings are that there is less mpg from supermarket fuel. In my working life part of my job was the fleet manager for a company that had 1000 vehicles. By recording and monitoring fuel usage I proved that on average the vehicles filled from supermarkets acheived 7 miles per gallon less than those filled on branded fuel. I still record my usage and mileage in the same way and still find that I get 7 to 8 milesper gallon less on Supermarket fuel.
And I paid £140.9 in Cornwall this week (unleaded).
i also predicted Sainsbury's Dawlish would come down once Morrison's opened......must be psychic!
So the cheapest fuel is Morrisons but you are only saving £1.20 if you fill up with 60 litres it is still cheaper to fill up in Dawlish. The reason as i have mentioned more than once it costs 50p to 61p to run a average car 9 miles at 50p is £4.50 so it would cost more than the saving.
Just to break even fuel at Morrisons would have to be 7.5p cheaper and it will never be that so just accept that the price of fuel will keep rising. The solution is simple if every motorist stoped buying fuel for one month the price would drop but again that will never happen.
Not again!!!!! The urban legend about supermarket fuel being 'different', complete nonsense, this urban legend dates back to 2007:
Back in 2007, there was a problem with Tesco and Morrisons petrol. It caused engine problems for some customers, and the supermarkets compensated them.
The problem was caused during shipment of fuel in a tanker between the Vopak tank farm in Rotterdam and the UK. Anti-foaming compound intended for diesel fuel was added to the wrong tank. When the organic silicone compound was burnt in a petrol engine, a layer of silicon dioxide (glass) formed over the Lambda sensor preventing it working and causing the engine to go into limp home mode.
The point is that whilst it happened to be fuel destined for Tesco and Morrisons, it didn't of itself suggest that supermarket fuel was more likely to be off-spec it general - presumably it could have happened with branded fuel.
The only drawback I can see to supermarket fuel is that it is more likely to vary than branded fuel, as it could come from different sources. But the base fuels come from the big refiners and are therefore the same as can be found on branded forecourts - Tesco and Morrisons don't have their own refineries - yet.
In actual fact Supermarkets in general have a very high fuel turnover so you're more likely to get grotty fuel from small stations with low turnover and old storage tanks.
Another point is that Tankers often deliver part loads to different petrol stations so the 'bad' supermarket petrol delivered to Sainsburys is just as likely to be delivered to non-supermarket petrol stations.
Hopefully, we can retire this legend again, but am sure it will reappear again in due course.