Optimax or not

Anonymous · October 8, 2004, 17:33

My shell states ron 98 i'm sure

MRMike · October 8, 2004, 17:41

I'd be interested to know, as not one Shell Garage here says 98, and neither does it say so on the Website. I think the 98 RON advirtisement may have been when the fuel first came on the market, and subsequently they haev had to change the claim. If some pumps do have 98 RON on they might not have been changed..could be very wrong though

Anonymous · October 8, 2004, 23:56

im sure i remenber reading 98ron on the pumps a few years ago, but they do indeed seem to have got rid of the ron number altogether from everywhere?! cant imagine why? i would have thought it would persuade more people to use it, especially as BP Ultimate is 97ron...

Anonymous · October 9, 2004, 02:32

I filled my '2 up with optimax earlier (in fairness it was actually yesterday evening - *mental note - go to bed!!!*) and I could not see anything anywhere stating the ron values of ANY of their fuels s:roll: :roll: s:roll:

I still feel that the cleaning benefits alone (which appear to be largely proven) are a good enough reason to pay the extra, let alone for a potential "performance boost" too.

Out of interest (I don't think this has been covered, but hey - I am half asleep!) what ron fuel would the'2 run on in Japan? I'm guessing that the ECU would be designed with the capacity to optimise fuelling, etc, for ron ratings in the cars home market!?!

markiii · October 9, 2004, 08:30

sort of, but it does have a different ecu.

Tem · October 9, 2004, 13:23

Quote from: "Tomr2"im sure i remenber reading 98ron on the pumps a few years ago, but they do indeed seem to have got rid of the ron number altogether from everywhere?! cant imagine why?

Maybe they are trying to build an image of something better...?

Anonymous · October 10, 2004, 21:08

Quote from: "markiii"sort of, but it does have a different ecu.

Well that's my theory scuppered! s:wink: :wink: s:wink: s:lol: :lol: s:lol:

roger · December 29, 2004, 10:39

Sorry to bring this back out of the cupboard, but I have just received a "Customer Newsletter" from Shell, and in an article plugging Optimax they say

"An octane rating of 98 makes Shell Optimax the highest-octane (sic) petrol available from forecourts in the UK."

roger

hornseye · December 29, 2004, 15:52

Last time I filled up with Optimax, there was an ISO reference number on the pump. I guess that would describe the composition of the fuel? Next time I fill up I'll remember the number and post back.

Anonymous · January 5, 2005, 23:17

Started this thread Jun 24, 2003 - still no conclusive answer...

Nonetheless, continued use of Optimax - both MR2 and cat are fine.

HNY to you all.

Mike

Anonymous · January 6, 2005, 09:19

Heres the conculsion;

It makes practically no difference unless you've got a turbo, but the posh fuels clean your engine a bit and probably have less rubbish in it and also is better for the world.

Did I hear somebody tell me they boost the octane of normal unleaded during winter time to help with the cold starts?

Anonymous · January 6, 2005, 12:30

QuoteLast time I filled up with Optimax, there was an ISO reference number on the pump. I guess that would describe the composition of the fuel?

Shell Optimax pumps I have seen carry the BS 7800:2000 on them which is described as "Automotive fuel. High octane (super) unleaded petrol. " which I understand refers to 97 RON which you would hope for at the very least. You have pay £60 to get more info on what exactly is in the BS spec at http://www.bsi-global.com

As such there does not appear to be one for 98RON that Shell could use so we have to take their word for it or until someone independantly verifies it to our satisfaction.

Still you do get a nice Ferrari bag if you buy enough of the stuff s:wink: :wink: s:wink:

Anonymous · January 15, 2005, 00:05

Just stumbled across this on Shell's forum:

No additives are added to Shell Optimax to increase the RON. The 98 RON minimum specification is achieved by using high octane refinery blending streams. Occasionally when stored for long periods of time under inadequate storage conditions petrol may loose some of its octane quality since the higher octane components can be the more volatile ones. In this situation a loss of only 0.1 - 0.2 ON would be expected. I also stress inadequate storage conditions - this does not include retail sites.
The fuel is manufactured to meet a 98 RON minimum specification and we will blend it to this. Typically it can be as high as 98.5 RON but it would not be released from the refinery at any level less than 98.

The specification for Shell Optimax is 98 RON minimum!!

Here's the link to the topic m http://www.shelloptimax.co.uk/jive3/thr ... 9&tstart=0 m

MR-S Turbo · April 25, 2005, 16:30

I think Total also sell a 98 RON 'Super Unleaded'

Anonymous · November 17, 2005, 18:59

Saw a test of supermarket premium vs BP Ultimate vs Optimax on The Gadget Show the other day. Test were conducted at Thor using their dyno and were performed on a number of cars and each time the ECU was reset. These consisted of some supermini runabout (can't rememebr what it was), a new golf GTI and a new Scooby.

The results were interesting: On the runabout there was no advantage in using the more expensive fuels - power remained the same on all. This was thought to be becuase the engine management system wasn't advanced enough to take advantage of the higher octane. On both other cars Optimax was the superior fuel giving worthwhile increases in power. The Ultimate also gave a performance increase but it was slightly less than the Optimax. This may be down the the fact that they said the fuel was rated at 97 Ron (wheter or not this is correct - I don't know).

I guess that means that by using Optimax we should see a performance increase as I beleive that our engine has a knock sensor that should allow the engine to advance / retard the ignition to suit the fuel and so get the maximum power / efficiency from it. One factor that may be crucial when comparing different fuels back to back is that it may be prudent to reset the ECU to see how your existing fuel performs and then again after you have filled up with whatever other fuel you are comparing it with. This should allow the ECU to immediately relearn the correct operating paramaters for the different fuel. I guess otherwise it may take a day or two to learn. This is of course ignoring the fact that there may still be a small amount of the previous fuel being burnt until the new stuff has flushed it out.

loadswine · November 17, 2005, 20:55

I saw the gadget show too, very interesting. They reset the ecu each time the test was done on the dyno. I wonder just how much difference it would make on a 2, as it seems the higher state of tune the engine is in, the greater the benefits.

Anonymous · November 18, 2005, 09:25

I use to have a little 1.2 Mk1 punto, and i used super unleaded, in it and it endded up blowing my head gasket. head gaskets are known to Fault on Punto, but becuase super unleaded gets hotter than reqular petrol (so the man in the fiat garage told me) this lead to the speed up of the blow,

kind of gone off it since.

MRMike · November 18, 2005, 09:35

You know I was thinking about this the other day too...and in my area not one pump states that the fuel is 98 ron, the ONLY place that I have ever seen Optimax mention 98 ron is on the website. Now, there are very different legal requirements for making claims between what you say on a website, versus TV or press. The ASA comes down really hard on bogus claims made on TV and press, not once have I seen 98 ron mentioned in these mediums.

Having tried BP ultimate which is stated to be 97 ron I have to say this makes the car feel much stronger than Optimax in the mid range, but seemingly feels weaker at the top of the rev range.

I am still none the wiser.

aaronjb · November 18, 2005, 11:17

Quote from: "extremeMR2"I use to have a little 1.2 Mk1 punto, and i used super unleaded, in it and it endded up blowing my head gasket. head gaskets are known to Fault on Punto, but becuase super unleaded gets hotter than reqular petrol (so the man in the fiat garage told me) this lead to the speed up of the blow,

That sounds like a good 'story' from a garage to me.. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but:

Regardless of octane, petrol has more or less the same calorific value (the amount of energy - and therefore heat - released in the explosion). The only difference is that the higher the octane, the more resistant to ignition the fuel is, which means you can run more ignition advance (though it's true to say that a great deal of engine management systems, especially up to a couple of years ago, aren't capable of taking advantage of that fact anyway).

I think he was telling you porky pies.

As for whether Optimax/Ultimate/Tesco is better for our cars - well.. that depends on the specifics of our ECUs. I would hazard a guess that the ECU in the Subaru is set up to run on the best fuel available (perhaps Japanese 102RON), and uses it's knock sensor to dynamically set the timing based on what it's currently running on.

I don't know if our ECUs are a) that clever (or whether they simply use the knock sensor as a safety device, and just knock a big chunk of timing off if they detect any det.) or b) tuned for anything higher than 95RON anyway (since all Euro cars have to be capable of running on dishwater) - meaning their max advance would be set for 95 (or maybe 97RON) fuel, using the knock sensor to pull the timing back if you have a bad batch of fuel. In other words, you wouldn't see anywhere near the gains that the Subaru saw even if you ran Optimax/Tesco 99/102RON race fuel unless you have a mappable ECU like the Unichip that can be mapped to take advantage of the extra advance you can run on a higher octane fuel.

Now, if someone can come along and tell us how clever the MR2 ECU is s:)

s:) (I'm betting it's fairly dumb really, using the knock sensor as a basic safety net in case you have water in the fuel or something, since our engine has more in common with the grocery-getter Clio in that test than the highly tuned Subaru turbocharged ECU...)

Tem · November 18, 2005, 19:21

Quote from: "aaronjb"Regardless of octane, petrol has more or less the same calorific value. The only difference is that the higher the octane, the more resistant to ignition the fuel is

That depends a lot how the gasoline and octane are made. Gasoline CAN make a big difference even with same octane rating. Some say the difference between a good and "ok" gas was up to 100hp in F1 engines in the turbo era, though they were supposed to be the same octane.

You can probably notice the same by trying good and bad gasoline in your '2 and following your fuel consumption or having it dynoed. You can have +10% difference with same octane gas from different companies.

That said, I have no idea about the Optimax...

spit · December 10, 2005, 00:32

Could this be the longest-running thread of all time?

For obvious reasons, I've started taking an interest in RON numbers. I asked what the deal was at a Shell garage today with no RON labelling anywhere on the forecourt......

Apparently, Shell issued a memo to their garages advising staff to assure pedantic customers like me that Optimax "is 98+ RON". I was also told that they removed the 98 RON labelling as part of a marketing re-think to distinguish the Optimax brand from the 98 octane offerings of the supermarkets.....don't know how much of this is flannel, but I can see how this decision might have come about in a Boardroom somewhere s:shock: :shock: s:shock:

The good news....if any of this is to be believed....is that we should expect some new super-fuel brand from Shell in the New Year that'll fight back against Tesco et al. Watch this space....

MRMike · December 10, 2005, 02:24

Quote from: "spit"Could this be the longest-running thread of all time?

For obvious reasons, I've started taking an interest in RON numbers. I asked what the deal was at a Shell garage today with no RON labelling anywhere on the forecourt......

Apparently, Shell issued a memo to their garages advising staff to assure pedantic customers like me that Optimax "is 98+ RON". I was also told that they removed the 98 RON labelling as part of a marketing re-think to distinguish the Optimax brand from the 98 octane offerings of the supermarkets.....don't know how much of this is flannel, but I can see how this decision might have come about in a Boardroom somewhere s:shock: :shock: s:shock:

The good news....if any of this is to be believed....is that we should expect some new super-fuel brand from Shell in the New Year that'll fight back against Tesco et al. Watch this space....

As you eluded to I think it's bull that they would take 98 ron off to differentiate it. Until now optimax has been supposedly the ONLY fuel to be 98 ron equiv you wouldn't want to lose this USP. (SUpermarkets to my knowledge until tesco have ever only been 97 ron)

heathstimpson · December 10, 2005, 07:15

Quote from: "MRMike"
Quote from: "spit"Could this be the longest-running thread of all time?

For obvious reasons, I've started taking an interest in RON numbers. I asked what the deal was at a Shell garage today with no RON labelling anywhere on the forecourt......

Apparently, Shell issued a memo to their garages advising staff to assure pedantic customers like me that Optimax "is 98+ RON". I was also told that they removed the 98 RON labelling as part of a marketing re-think to distinguish the Optimax brand from the 98 octane offerings of the supermarkets.....don't know how much of this is flannel, but I can see how this decision might have come about in a Boardroom somewhere s:shock: :shock: s:shock:

The good news....if any of this is to be believed....is that we should expect some new super-fuel brand from Shell in the New Year that'll fight back against Tesco et al. Watch this space....

As you eluded to I think it's bull that they would take 98 ron off to differentiate it. Until now optimax has been supposedly the ONLY fuel to be 98 ron equiv you wouldn't want to lose this USP. (SUpermarkets to my knowledge until tesco have ever only been 97 ron)

The new Tesco Super unleaded is in fact the highest octane fuel in the UK at 99RON.

Two's Company · December 10, 2005, 20:44

I turned up to my local Shell garage for an Optimax hit last week and it's changed to a Texaco garage! I tried to put Super 97 ron in and the bloody nozzle wouldn't fit! I decided it must have been a diesel pump when it used to be shell and left it well alone. s:shock: :shock: s:shock:

I have always used Optimax since I got the car 2 years ago and up until recently the price was nearly a £1 so I started putting normal unleaded in it and it just didn't feel as 'perky'.

I've found another Shell station and although it's a bit out of my way I'll be taking it there from now on.

Anonymous · December 12, 2005, 23:36

Rather timely, this, Evo magazine this month (January!?) has a review on all the new fuels including Tesco 99, Optimax BP ultimate and race fuel amongst others. The upshot is that they thought Optimax was best allrou7nder for response max power torque etc. It was beaten by BP for max torque but seemed to allow the engine to rev more freeley to give more power - don't ask me how that works, I'm well aware of the linking equation of Power = Torque x revs. It's interesting reading if your interested in this thread - which I guess is why you're reading, if you know what I mean. s:? :? s:?