Which fuel do you buy for your Aston Martin ?

Which fuel do you buy for your Aston Martin ?

Author
Discussion

KevinBird

1,038 posts

208 months

Wednesday 29th January 2020
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This from Esso's website;

Esso super unleaded petrol (Synergy Supreme+ Unleaded 97) is ethanol free (except in Devon, Cornwall, the Teesside area and Scotland). We would therefore advise anyone who has concerns about the presence of ethanol in petrol to use Synergy Supreme+ – providing they do not fill up in Devon or Cornwall, the Teesside area or Scotland.

matfitzpatrick

75 posts

188 months

Thursday 30th January 2020
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I was advised not to use Shell V-Power in my V12VS but was also told that good quality standard fuel was absolutely fine, Ultimate / Super et al is not required. Apparently some of the V-Power additives can cause sensors to go awry on the V12 resulting in CEL’s. This was based on someone’s experience, not mine, therefore cannot form my own opinion on this but I have no reason to doubt what I’m told.

I’ve been using Tesco99 but after seeing the video from Bamford Rose may try Esso and see if I notice any difference (not sure I will though?). I just want to use what’s best for mechanical sympathy and longevity.

anonymous-user

55 months

Friday 7th February 2020
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After watching mike’s video my next tank was esso supreme.

I am now on my 2nd tank of the esso amber nectar and the car does feels that bit more edgy/quicker/responsive. It is a tough call on whether it is the placebo effect or actual improvement. Seeing as the stuff is a fortune compared to its usual tesco 99 drink I’ll go with ‘its better’ lol.

DBSV8

5,958 posts

239 months

Friday 7th February 2020
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DBS V12

used to use regular 95 after watching Bamford rose video ran the tank to fumes and now only using ESS0 97 , marked difference in performance

RL17

1,231 posts

94 months

Friday 7th February 2020
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Filled up with Esso Wednesday on way so will be looking for performance and other benefits next time out.

SHIFTY

894 posts

237 months

Saturday 8th February 2020
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Filled up with Esso Supreme + unleaded Friday (worth checking online as not all Esso garages stock).

Done about 200 miles and there is definably a difference, the car used to hesitate when pulling slowly away from junctions/islands not any more this has now gone and seems a lot smoother.



Edited by SHIFTY on Sunday 9th February 14:12

AWV12

600 posts

148 months

Sunday 9th February 2020
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JB65 said:
V8 Roadster said:
For those who live in germany, Shell V Power is the only fuel without Ethanol.

Regards
Torsten
That’s Incorrect, Aral Ultimate 102 has no ethanol and on top if it offers 102 octane vs Shell only 100.
Indeed, Aral Ultimate 102 is the way to go when in Germany. Also use it in my German (car with V8 and knock sensors :-)). Aral and BP are the same company, but in Holland only BP Ultimate 98 (so 98 octan, but also with NO ethanol!). Since the ignition of my DBS is fixed to Octan 98, I use that always!

V8 Roadster

45 posts

72 months

Sunday 9th February 2020
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JB65 said:
That’s Incorrect, Aral Ultimate 102 has no ethanol and on top if it offers 102 octane vs Shell only 100.
Sorry, but you are wrong. Look at the Aral Homepage in Germany, they say that Aral Ultimate has up to 5% Ethanol!

vernierMike

397 posts

95 months

Sunday 9th February 2020
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Is this heresy; I'll fill my V8s (and other high performance ICEs) with good quality high octane fuel, not worry about the 5% ethanol even if I'm tracking it. I daresay there is a tiny difference, which I will get one day with Esso fuel, but I'm not good enough to exploit it and I doubt many drivers are, at least safely on the road. I can't be arsed to treck miles or get stressed for an Esso station. At the circuit, of the three tankfuls a good day will require I'll arrive with one full and then be filling 2 tanks from the on-site pumps and that's whatever it is. Just the full fat stuff.

And I am sure my engines and lap times will be just fine....

DBSV8

5,958 posts

239 months

Monday 10th February 2020
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vernierMike said:
Is this heresy; I'll fill my V8s (and other high performance ICEs) with good quality high octane fuel, not worry about the 5% ethanol even if I'm tracking it. I daresay there is a tiny difference, which I will get one day with Esso fuel, but I'm not good enough to exploit it and I doubt many drivers are, at least safely on the road. I can't be arsed to treck miles or get stressed for an Esso station. At the circuit, of the three tankfuls a good day will require I'll arrive with one full and then be filling 2 tanks from the on-site pumps and that's whatever it is. Just the full fat stuff.

And I am sure my engines and lap times will be just fine....
some more info here

https://axleaddict.com/misc/Pros-and-Cons-of-Ethan...

certainly increases fuel consumption , and wears out seals , put simply in a high performance engine alcohol is not a good thing

cheers

RL17

1,231 posts

94 months

Monday 10th February 2020
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V8 Roadster said:
JB65 said:
That’s Incorrect, Aral Ultimate 102 has no ethanol and on top if it offers 102 octane vs Shell only 100.
Sorry, but you are wrong. Look at the Aral Homepage in Germany, they say that Aral Ultimate has up to 5% Ethanol!
0% is in the range of up to 5%. FAQ section of Aral website (translated) says 'In the production of Aral Ultimate 102, no bioethanol is added....'


vernierMike

397 posts

95 months

Monday 10th February 2020
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DBSV8 said:
some more info here

https://axleaddict.com/misc/Pros-and-Cons-of-Ethan...

certainly increases fuel consumption , and wears out seals , put simply in a high performance engine alcohol is not a good thing

cheers
Info? Really? At 5% the performance impact is minimal for most of us and Aston owners can usually afford the minuscule impact on mpg which is real but small. It used to chemically affect seals, not wear them out, but the materials have been changed to suit, just as when unleaded was introduced and traditionalists hailed damage to all engines. It makes some plastics swell and all that but this has been engineered out in cars designed to take this fuel. For me there are more important things and I shall continue to fill happily with 5% ethanol when it's available but yes I'll give Esso a go when it's to hand. But I won't travel the land searching it out. And I bet my engine's in fine fettle at 100k miles plus.

Just a side issue but the use of ethanol does make a difference to carbon emissions, and has been part of the UK's strategy for many years. Which no-one seems to be bothered about. Just saying...

DBSV8

5,958 posts

239 months

Monday 10th February 2020
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vernierMike said:
I
Just a side issue but the use of ethanol does make a difference to carbon emissions, and has been part of the UK's strategy for many years. Which no-one seems to be bothered about. Just saying...
Carbon emissions I beg to differ on that one !!!..and i work in the oil and gas industry ................., you pays yer money , ive tried normal 95 and Esso 97 , its readily available in Hampshire , so i will continue using it in the Aston

RL17

1,231 posts

94 months

Monday 10th February 2020
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Due to concerns on land use the UK bioethanol program has been scaled back. Does tend to use good agricultural land and produce animal feed rather than food for human consumption. Also uses water, chemicals, and lots of diesel for tractors and lorries.

Denaturants are added (which are then not possibly fully burnt in combustion), extra processing required for petrol to be blended to try to reduce the excess evaporation in storage and use. And large UK processing plants that spend years being idle. Large scale bioethanol production also has a big impact upon biodiversity as well as encouraging elimination of previously uncultivated land areas.

vernierMike

397 posts

95 months

Monday 10th February 2020
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DBSV8 said:
Carbon emissions I beg to differ on that one !!!..and i work in the oil and gas industry ................., you pays yer money , ive tried normal 95 and Esso 97 , its readily available in Hampshire , so i will continue using it in the Aston
So I always use high octane for my V8s as said previously, as it happens these engines senses the difference and can exploit the smoother burn. That isn't the current question we're discussing. It's 5% ethanol high octane or 0% ethanol high octane? Or have I missed the point? I do agree that the 0% ethanol for the car will have marginal performance benefits, but they're just that for even fast road use and mortal drivers like me and possibly you. Cars are designed and engineered to use ethanol in petrol, so the contention it will cause damage is a red herring - the resilience issues have been engineered out in recent years.

Ethanol is a biofuel and thus implicitly has lower associated carbon dioxide emissions because it has absorbed carbon dioxide as it was grown, sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and thus negated when it is burned and released - a shorter time loop than the burning of distilled fossil-juice that we know and love. So it does reduce atmospheric carbon emissions because it absorbed carbon recently during its manufacture.

I'm not in the oil and gas industry, I'm not sure what difference that makes other than a potential pre-disposition for this fuel type, but I am a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers for what it's worth.

vernierMike

397 posts

95 months

Monday 10th February 2020
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RL17 said:
Due to concerns on land use the UK bioethanol program has been scaled back. Does tend to use good agricultural land and produce animal feed rather than food for human consumption. Also uses water, chemicals, and lots of diesel for tractors and lorries.

Denaturants are added (which are then not possibly fully burnt in combustion), extra processing required for petrol to be blended to try to reduce the excess evaporation in storage and use. And large UK processing plants that spend years being idle. Large scale bioethanol production also has a big impact upon biodiversity as well as encouraging elimination of previously uncultivated land areas.
All true but the crisis is a climate crisis, and unless you deny the science community is mainly due to man made carbon emissions...

Emilio Largo

584 posts

112 months

Tuesday 11th February 2020
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RL17 said:
V8 Roadster said:
JB65 said:
That’s Incorrect, Aral Ultimate 102 has no ethanol and on top if it offers 102 octane vs Shell only 100.
Sorry, but you are wrong. Look at the Aral Homepage in Germany, they say that Aral Ultimate has up to 5% Ethanol!
0% is in the range of up to 5%. FAQ section of Aral website (translated) says 'In the production of Aral Ultimate 102, no bioethanol is added....'
Correct RL17, that´s exactly what the homepage (FAQs) says.

I´ve taken a look at the Ultimate 102 Saftey Data Sheet to find out more about the ingredients of this fuel:



On tert-butyl methyl ether (ETBE) I found in Wikipedia:

"Ethyl tert-butyl ether (ETBE) is commonly used as an oxygenate gasoline additive in the production of gasoline from crude oil. ETBE offers equal or greater air quality benefits than ethanol, while being technically and logistically less challenging. Unlike ethanol, ETBE does not induce evaporation of gasoline, which is one of the causes of smog, and does not absorb moisture from the atmosphere.
... Ethyl tert-butyl ether is manufactured industrially by the acidic etherification of isobutylene with ethanol at a temperature of 30–110 °C and a pressure of 0,8–1,3 MPa."

So ETBE seems to be a derivative of ethanol added to fuel to enhance knock resistance. Does anyone know if ETBE features the same or similar negative effects commonly associated with ethanol on high performance engines? Or is it something different that has nothing to do with our topic?





Edited by Emilio Largo on Tuesday 11th February 03:19

V8 Roadster

45 posts

72 months

Tuesday 11th February 2020
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RL17 said:
V8 Roadster said:
JB65 said:
That’s Incorrect, Aral Ultimate 102 has no ethanol and on top if it offers 102 octane vs Shell only 100.
Sorry, but you are wrong. Look at the Aral Homepage in Germany, they say that Aral Ultimate has up to 5% Ethanol!
0% is in the range of up to 5%. FAQ section of Aral website (translated) says 'In the production of Aral Ultimate 102, no bioethanol is added....'
I am sorry, looked at their website again and found the information, that no bioethanol is included in Ultimate 102. Probably I looked at Aral Super Plus 98, there it is included .....

I need new glasses probably .....

regards
Torsten

ThelastNA

79 posts

84 months

Tuesday 11th February 2020
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Hi Everyone,
I have a Vanquish S Ultimate (latest gen). Currently I'm using premium unleaded and have been since the car was made. Am I wasting money using high octane fuel and would standard unleaded make no difference?


RL17

1,231 posts

94 months

Tuesday 11th February 2020
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vernierMike said:
RL17 said:
Due to concerns on land use the UK bioethanol program has been scaled back. Does tend to use good agricultural land and produce animal feed rather than food for human consumption. Also uses water, chemicals, and lots of diesel for tractors and lorries.

Denaturants are added (which are then not possibly fully burnt in combustion), extra processing required for petrol to be blended to try to reduce the excess evaporation in storage and use. And large UK processing plants that spend years being idle. Large scale bioethanol production also has a big impact upon biodiversity as well as encouraging elimination of previously uncultivated land areas.
All true but the crisis is a climate crisis, and unless you deny the science community is mainly due to man made carbon emissions...
Not denying a climate crisis, but isn't bioethanol just eco friendly based on the presumption/myth that unless you grow corn/wheat etc on millions of hectares of agricultural land nothing else would grow there.

It's big business mainly based on subsidies that grew up to reduce dependence on imports from OPEC nations.

Main point on thread is damage to engines. Car manufacturers especially mainstream ones (in fact virtually all manufacturers) are happy with limited product lives.