Be Excellent To Each Other

See what the car manual says about the petrol. Only certain cars get a worthwhile performance increase from higher octane fuel.

Ah, I remember the days of 2 star, 3 star and 4 star. Apparently there was also a 5 star grade as well once.

Does anyone know when they stopped selling the lower grades of fuel and why? Was it around the time unleaded came in? So about 1988/89?

Which model of MR2 is it?

My sister in law dumped one in her parent's garden where it is rotting away. She might sell you some bits off it. Like the lights, then you could try prising them open to remove the colour filter (I saw threads about doing similar on some car forum) without worrying too much about smashing the hell out of things very important to your car.

You might find that despite not getting better performance from super unleaded, you get better mpg out of it. I get about 2-3mpg more out of my Celica when I run it on super-unleaded, so whether it's worth the extra 5p per litre is something I can't be arsed to work out

I think the old Jag we used to have could run on either 4 or 5 (although I'd never seen 5 in practice).

When they withdrew leaded we had to use unleaded with a special mixer to replace the lead and get the octane level up for the engine. Apparently if you used Super Unleaded with the mixer it was the equivalent of 5 star (although we never tried that).

Actually, despite all the fuss about leaded being withdrawn, you can still buy it. I've seen a fair few small family owned petrol stations in the countryside selling it. No it's not lead replacement stuff, it's genuine 4 star although I think it's about £1.50 a litre.

As many of you know, I'm currently gearing up to change my Ranger Rover into a Bowler Tomcat (bloggity). Essential things like spotlights, racing seats (Cobra Daytona's, seat fans), vinyls and a 'press to start' button are on their way to the house right now.
The TVR engine is scrap though, sadly

There's a firm round here with a stack of old TVRs and various other bits from the factory after it closed. I can find out the name if you want Grim...

Please.

Here you go:

http://www.automedon.co.uk/home.html

Run by ex-TVR employees I think.

I genuinely see a difference in the performance of my car when using BP Ultimate petrol, but bugger all when I use Shell V-Power. Apparentely, you should be able to get better economy out of the higher octane fuels in some cars, thus nullifying the extra cost, but that hasn't really been my experience. It just seems to give the car a bit more get up and go, though I accept this may be entirely down to my imagination.

Pretty much I think.
I assume that most cars by that point needed 4-star anyway so there was little point making all the different octanes available.

Be cautious about any anecdotal evidence around super unleaded giving extra mileage or performance. Unless you somehow magically drive the exact same roads under the exact same conditions each day, a measured 2-3mpg gain isn't statistically significant, unless you can repeat it a bunch of time.

You sure?

There is a garage near me which has LRP for £1.00 a litre. I sort of suspect the fuel in that tank is about 10 years old at this point. Their only customer for it is a single Reliant Robin owner, from what I can tell.

My Omega V6 estate is being discarded this week in favour of a 56 plate Picasso 1.6 HDi. I'll be very sad to see the Admiral's Barge go.

I basically do exactly this, and I've repeatedly seen gains with super-unleaded. I generally get about 315 to 325 miles to a full tank out of my Celica on normal unleaded. When I use the premium stuff that Tesco sell, I usually get between 340 and 350. Depending on driving style of course.

Unless your car has some way of changing the compression ratio on the fly (I think some Saabs are able to do this?) I don't find it very likely to be honest. The anti-knock strategy of the engine only gets used under high engine load so doesn't do anything differently unless you're driving like a nutter (in which case the MPG is probably in single digits anyway).

I'm also very wary of MPG short term trends but I must admit that with the Insight, you can sometimes get a dramatic difference on the MPG readout just after filling up with a different "make" of petrol.
Like, 90MPG instead of 80.
The car will drive differently too, it stays in "lean-burn" mode at higher power and for longer.
I don't think this is down to octane rating particularly, and it's not necessarily better with the more expensive "premium" fuels. I think it's a per-batch thing or might just be related to the temperature of the storage tank.

I am told it takes a couple of tankfulls for the ECU in most cars to adjust.

Eleven years ago.

The Omega was bought as a tow car, and the Picasso is a tow car with stupendous mileage and low insurance for learner drivers. Oh, and unlike the Omega, it's not totally knackered. One day perhaps I will buy a hot hatch for driving fun, but frankly these days I only drive for utility and not pleasure. The thing I'll miss most about the Barge is the autobox; that's just how soft I have become.

Very fixed, they are surprisingly far underground so they don't vary much. There was a report done the US recently debunking the "fill up in the morning when the fuel is colder so you get more" urban myth; only the first 1/2 gallon or so varies in temperature, and not by enough to matter.

Just out of curiosity what are you towing?

Please don't say caravans...



I've got a transit that does that by spitting out it's spark plugs. Fun fun fun.

[edit]Oh dear. #engines" class="postlink">Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

I was stuck behind the ultimate combo the other day: a van towing a caravan, travelling at 20mph in the really fast twisty section of the road to work (60mph limit) He was even holding up a lorry

Oh OK then. (whistles innocently).

Oh, mine too. The 2.0 DOHC?

I got stuck behind a horsebox towing a caravan once.
Still, I drove a steam engine around the North Circular, so I'll shut up now.

Richard and his missus are secretly part of the dogging in comfort fraternity of South Wales

No, it's a 2.4, I think. And none of your fancy cam's, either.

Probably the 2.3 16 valve one, might have guessed you'd have the posh mk 6 van

Nah, it's properly old - G reg, I think.
It's got the electric leather seats from a BMW M3 in, though

Super unleaded won't make any difference on an old car, it's only of benefit on modern cars with clever ECUs - they can alter the timing slightly to get the best of the extra temperature stability of higher RON fuel.

Most VAGs (including my Octavia vRS) for instance are optimised for 98RON but can adapt to 95 (super gives better total-area performance, and slightly better economy). The Civic Type-R I had, despite being iVTEC, didn't give two shits, and I think my M3 would be part of the 'pistons in your face' club if I tried putting normal unleaded in it.

Mine is to be sold in about 3 weeks. Gutted.

You have an Omega too? Awesome, aren't they? Now if only mine wasn't broken utterly, and got more than 15mpg.

Sorry, I didn't word that very well, I have a 2L Diesel Picasso. It's lubberly.

Oh, I see. I am quite impressed with the Picasso in terms of sheer practicality, if nothing else. The cabin design is very thoughtful.

Yep. Here's a full list of stations with proper leaded petrol:
http://www.leadedpetrol.co.uk/list.htm

There's probably more demand than you think. All those old classic cars you see driving around on a Sunday? They all run better on leaded.

You appear to be 50. Happy Birthday.

I was born a curmudgeon, and am just passing the intervening 50 years letting my physical age catch up with my mental age.

When they passed the law semi-banning it, there was some quota-controlled number of stations -- some fraction of a percent -- that would be allowed to apply and have it

It'd be interesting to plot a graph of these service station locations around the country, mapped against demographic of the residents there. Say, by income.

That's a weirdo then! They never fitted the 2.3 pinto to transits, and you reckon it's not the twincam.. Not a V6 either?

The old non-turbo diesel was a 2.4.

[/ford nerd]