Morning gang,

So i got thinking, what would be more effective do you think.

1. Buying supermarket fuel or similar cheap petrol and adding a decent fuel conditioner
2. Buying a premium fuel like Shell V power

It works out about £15 a tank more to fill up with V power as a pose to regular cheap fuel so in theory i could put a top quality fuel conditioner in every tank.

But which is better?

It was just a thought i had while filling up yesterday.

That said, im not an expert in this area but i think there are fuel additives and then fuel octane boosters

Personally speaking, I would not bother. I just use the ordinary stuff from Asda. A few months ago I did a 500mile each way trip & decided to see if there was any difference. Ordinary stuff going & premium coming back. Absolutely no difference apart from the cost

I suppose it personal choice in the end.

Driving a vehicle that can cost £80-120K when new then an extra £15 per tank is a small price to pay.

That and regular oil changes is about all you can do to look after the engine.

I use Shell V power all he time but i only do about 5000 miles per year.

Ive never used an additive.

Dave

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Always good for a debate. I've tried pretty much everything but cheap fuel, no additives seems to work just fine for me. I do change the oil regularly (every 5000-6000 miles) but thats a different debate and I think there's general agreement about that, well apart from the fact that I never change the filter, that get done around 12000 miles when the car is serviced  Geoff

Choice of fuel and conditioners depends on what it is you're trying to achieve.
Varying brand and type of fuel will show little or no MPG benefits that are worth having. I'm talking a significant change, and not a few mpg.
Many people concentrate on the mpg with no regard for the lubrication aspect of the fuel. I'm referring to diesel in this instance.
Fuel has less of the good stuff than ever, so some research into the content of the additives by various companies can help to make an informed choice.
Fuel pump and injectors will benefit from additives if they're not provided in sufficient quantities in the cheap end of the fuel spectrum.
Finding out exactly what's in the company additives is fruitless as I've never found it published.
As ever, you make a choice, but avoid the trap of basing judgement purely on returned mpg values. Think lubrication and internals.
The additives is a whole world of discussion too, as is the 2SO benefit 🤔 2014 FFRR Autobiography
Corris Grey
Previously 2011 D4 SDV6 HSE Santorini Black

I just use the cheapest diesel around, no problems for 10 years or more, I used to believe all the nonsense about premium this and premium that, but I think it over promises and under delivers for the humble RR driver

What I have done though, is every MOT, she gets a good service, proper oil change, filters etc
and then 4 weeks later I put 350ml of Extralube ZX1 in the engine oil

every 10,000 miles or so, I put about 50ml in the fuel tank, and 3 cap fulls in the coolant tank

https://www.team-zx1.com/extralube-zx1-mic...tment.html

On Ebay its around £60 quid for a litre, but I have three cars, various different engine sizes, so suits me to buy a litre of the stuff, and use it up as and when, I believe the science behind the ZX1 formulation, they seem on point if you read the marketing bullshit

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/143591465284

Last edited by pcourtney on 16th Jul 2025 11:31am. Edited 1 time in total

I stopped using V Power (which I used to use exclusively) a few months ago and now use Shell FuelSave and add a can of Liqui Moly Super Diesel every fill up.

It works out much cheaper - at circa £8 per tank rather than £20, and I feel that the Liqui Moly is doing more than the V Power (appreciate that is a purely subjective view)

I used to put 250ml of 2 stroke into a full tank of diesel in my previous RR Sport. Lots of posts on RRSPORT.CO.UK forum. Some good reading, snake oil, placebo effect, possibly/more than likely. Anyway I got into the habit of using it, supposed to keep the injectors clean. Don't know if it had any effect but there was no downside. Below is a part of the article. Don't shoot me, I'm the messenger

To all interested:
due to the pollution control measures of the EC diesel-oil is nearly sulphur free and contains up to 5% of bio-diesel. Sulphur has the property to grease the high pressure injection pump and the injectors. Without sulphur, the reduced greasing property of the new diesel has already shown negativ impacts on the long-term stability of the injectors and the high pressure pump. The pump manufacturers have tried to react by lining the moving parts of the pumps with teflon or other suitable material. However, the long term stability is still not achieved as with the old (sulphor contained) diesel.
The engine-research centre of a well known German car manufacurer has conducted some long term tests of diesel additives to find out whether any one of them will have an impact on the long term reliability of the diesel engine components. This introduction to explain were my information comes from.
The results of this research: any diesel additive of any manufacturer presently on the market is not worth the money!
BUT: 2-stroke oil, which we use in our motor saws, lawn mower or in 2-stroke motor engines has shown to have an extreme positive impact on diesel engines, if such 2-stroke oil is added to the diesel in a homoeophatic dosis of 1:200. In practical terms: 0,300 litre of 2-stroke oil into the 70l diesel tank. The 2-stroke oil will be absorbed by the diesel (emulsion) and grease every moving part of the high pressure pump and the injectors.
Besides this, the 2-stroke oil will keep the diesel engine clean, as it burnes cleaner as the diesel itself.
In other words, the 2-stroke oil has a much lower ash-content as diesel, when burned. This proven fact delays the DPF (diesel particulate (soot) filter) to clogg, and the "burn free" process of the DPF will be much less.
One more information: in Germany we have to present our cars every 2 years to the TUV -Technical Supervision Organisation - who will check, amongs others, the pollution of petrol and diesel engines.
The measured cloud-factor of a diesel engine without use of 2-stroke oil has been 0,95.
The same factor with the use of 2-stroke oil has been 0,47 - reduction of nearly half of the soot particles.
Besides this, the use of 2-stroke oil in the diesel will increase the milage by 3-5%.

Same as Alex1976

If you think the extra additives put into premium fuels are worth having / have some benefit
And you can achieve same / similar with off the shelf additives and add them yourself to a base fuel
Without paying the extra duty

Then go for it

Some might say you are wasting your money, and they always just use the cheapest derv….ASDA, Tesco City derv….
But that is not the question you asked
You are asking users of premium fuel if they would switch to a base fuel with off the shelf additives to save duty whist retaining some / all of the benefits of the premium fuel

i do this

Alex1976 wrote:

I stopped using V Power (which I used to use exclusively) a few months ago and now use Shell FuelSave and add a can of Liqui Moly Super Diesel every fill up.

It works out much cheaper - at circa £8 per tank rather than £20, and I feel that the Liqui Moly is doing more than the V Power (appreciate that is a purely subjective view)