GolfGTIforum.co.uk
Model specific boards => Golf mk7 => Topic started by: lew321 on 04 January 2014, 08:23
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Hi, I'm looking for your wisdom here.
I'm picking up my new GTI this morning and was wondering how many of you use premium petrol over normal or both? It has been a few years since I had a petrol car and wanted to see if any of you have noticed the difference with your GTI?
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I have always run my petrol cars on the good stuff. For the sake of a couple of extra quid a tank I think it is worth it. My old jcw mini ran better on vpower than it did on the normal fuel. Not ran my gti on anything other than vpower/momentum to be honest so can't really compare.
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I always use VPower Nitro, better performance, efficiency and cleaning properties. :)
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I've driven several several 2.0T engines right back to the original 197bhp version and always run Optimax/V Power or the equivalent. There's been a fair bit of evidence from dynes etc to show the engines would put out 10-15lb/ft more on the good stuff. Not sure if that's the same with the latest EA888 engines, but I'll be sticking with V Power anyway.
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Use what it says on the fuel filler. The mk7 says 95 RON which is normal unleaded.
My Mk5 said 98 so I used premium.
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The handbook says all Golf will run on both but that there is no advantage in either performance or economy using premium.
I would never waste money on something that made no difference...
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The handbook says all Golf will run on both but that there is no advantage in either performance or economy using premium.
I would never waste money on something that made no difference...
But VPower does make a big difference, it's been proven in countless magazine tests.
Modern cars have adaptive ECU's so after a couple of tank fulls it would adjust ignition & knock to make use of the higher octane, in turn giving you better performance :)
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The handbook says all Golf will run on both but that there is no advantage in either performance or economy using premium.
I would never waste money on something that made no difference...
But VPower does make a big difference, it's been proven in countless magazine tests.
Modern cars have adaptive ECU's so after a couple of tank fulls it would adjust ignition & knock to make use of the higher octane, in turn giving you better performance :)
Correct - proven many times now, particularly in turbo-charged engines. No reason to think the mk7 is any different.
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Thanks for the advice. I filled it with Premium on the long way home :evil: I love the car :laugh:
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Yes - Vpower, (Nitro) or BP Ultimate I have found to be the best. Don't forget to fill it with petrol if you have been used to a diesel, although I think it is far more difficult (if not impossible) than the other way around.
Enjoy the car!
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I've been driving 2.0 TSI cars for eight years and after two years of trying 98 and 95 RON I decided I couldn't tell any difference. My GTI is happily running on standard unleaded.
When driving on 98 RON I always felt the placebo affect was kicking in :smiley:
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If the car is set up optimally for RON98 then it'll run better on it than 95. Some previous VWs stated that they ran optimally on 98 and could run on 95 with slight reduction in performance, but current literature doesn't state that. Seems then that the GTI is set up for 95 and using 98 is just a waste.
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I agree with you MonekyHanger.
I usually use standard shell unleaded. However i had a voucher for their Nitro+ so i used it for a couple of tanks (around 800 miles) to see if i could notice any difference in power or economy. I noticed no difference at all. I'm back on standard unleaded now. I realise that a dyno may pick up slight differences in power. I however could not.
J
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I'm confident it makes no difference and you are wasting your money with the "premium" stuff. I'm a cynical fecker at the best of times and it wouldn't shock me if the premium came from the same tank as the regular!
I think we're all guilty of persuading ourselves a product is "better quality" especially if you've just paid a premium for it.
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There are two separate questions. One is whether the fuel itself is any different (and therefore beneficial). The other is whether the mk7 gti (or gtd for premium diesel) can take advantage of it.
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Not this old chestnut again :whistle:
Run it on 95 RON.
Anything else is waste of money.
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I guess everybody is entitled to their opinions, magazines and independent tests have proven the benefits countless times in the past.
Better octane fuels combust better, simple fact :rolleyes:
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Better octane fuels combust better, simple fact :rolleyes:
Only if the car is optimised for it, which the current GTI is not. 98RON fuel on a car optimised for 95RON will not help it run any better. The 98 will be combusted earlier in the compression/ignition/combustion cycle than would be optimum -most likely leading to same mpg at best. Higher octane fuel Ian't necessarily more calorific, it cab be compressed further before igniting, preventing pinking under the higher compression ratio that you would expect 95RON fuel to pink at.
The GTI has a compression ratio that lends itself to running best on 95RON, older engines set up with a preference for 98 have a higher compression ratio.
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I thought the ECU could adjust ignition advance according to the fuel.
The benefits when tuning are well documented.
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I thought the ECU could adjust ignition advance according to the fuel.
The benefits when tuning are well documented.
+ 1
I thought that too on the fuel cap it states 95 or higher it can run on 95 but the timing will be retarded by the ECU to allow the engine to run optimally on the fuel it has avail, so putting in a better fuel will allow the ECU to run on the best mapping it has available.
I use Shell Nitro pretty much all the time now since the new engines gone in and can I tell a difference in performance??
Not really but it's only an extra £4-5 per tank and I DO get more miles out of it on the motorway. I have actually tested this umpteen times and can range an extra 30-40 miles per tank.
HOWEVER - this is driving driving like a granny at 70-75 as soon as you plant your foot down any gains unfortunately have gone out the tail pipes!
This is from my personal experiment anyway but as said for the little price it is I'm happy to pay it knowing that the engines running at its best performance..
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We get 100+ RON out here in Cyprus and it's still cheaper than UK standard unleaded!! :cool:
Not looking forward to coming back!! :sad:
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Super unleaded does make a difference. You may have to run a few tanks to notice but your ecu will adapt to a better rate of fuel. The only real placebo is the super diesel stuff, that's just a con and won't improve derv performance, may help the engine last longer but that's it.
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Super unleaded does make a difference. You may have to run a few tanks to notice but your ecu will adapt to a better rate of fuel. The only real placebo is the super diesel stuff, that's just a con and won't improve derv performance, may help the engine last longer but that's it.
It will not. A standard GTI is optimised for 95RON running it on 98RON will not develop more power as the timing will not be advanced to allow the engine to take advantage of it. It will not do any harm, short or long term but there is no advantage in running Premium Unleaded on the current Golf.
I have had previous experience with the Mk5 Golf Ed 30 and others (Honda S2000, Honda Integra Type-R etc.) which were optimised from the factory for 98RON but would run on lower octane - which were auto-detected by knock sensors which reduced the advance on the timing to eliminate detonation - with reduced performance...
Now if you want to remap you MkVII, you might re-map it based on Super Unleaded and you will see more power, and assuming the MkVII GTI has knock-sensors, you could run it on 95 (in this situation) with reduced performance.
The test that I have seen performed used an Impreza WRX (optimised for 98RON)...
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Last time this came up someone posted this, which is quite useful to understand why the higher octane number makes no difference in a car that is not tuned for it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9nhXNarFdg
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Well what is confusing me is that the tests I have seen have been conducted on cars optimised to run on 95 yet still shown an improvement with 98? Think 5th gear has done a few bits on this and cars have always shown an improvement?
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Were they proper and rigorous tests or were they just 'try different fuels and drive it around a bit'?
I think something like this is prone to confirmation bias with human testing - you want to see an improvement so you find one.
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Were they proper and rigorous tests or were they just 'try different fuels and drive it around a bit'?
I think something like this is prone to confirmation bias with human testing - you want to see an improvement so you find one.
Well, the first test done by fifth gear was done with a dynamometer(sp?) and a rig with separate jerry cans for each fuel with multiple runs on each fuel. The other test (also done by fifth gear) didn't have separate jerry cans but did do an ECU reset between fuels. All tests found a difference between 95 RON and SOME of the 98 RON 'super fuels' on forced induction cars (Golf GTI Mk5, Golf GTI Edition 35, Subaru Impreza) but no improvement on a naturally aspirated car (Renault Clio of some variety).
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Sounds like only a dyno run will solve this. Anyone got any plans on dyno'ing there 95 RON Gti?
I did mine the other day, made 243bhp with BP Ultimate (Shell was closed due to tanker delivery).
No graph as its a before and after run so wont be getting one till the end of the month. All I do have is this... :smiley:
(http://i998.photobucket.com/albums/af109/GrahamFR/DSC_0034_zps3vocjmr6.jpg) (http://s998.photobucket.com/user/GrahamFR/media/DSC_0034_zps3vocjmr6.jpg.html)
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Well, the first test done by fifth gear was done with a dynamometer(sp?) and a rig with separate jerry cans for each fuel with multiple runs on each fuel. The other test (also done by fifth gear) didn't have separate jerry cans but did do an ECU reset between fuels. All tests found a difference between 95 RON and SOME of the 98 RON 'super fuels' on forced induction cars (Golf GTI Mk5, Golf GTI Edition 35, Subaru Impreza) but no improvement on a naturally aspirated car (Renault Clio of some variety).
Well that sounds fairly thorough, and I don't know enough about cars myself to come up with any explanation.
It could be that there is something other than the octane level which is different about the premium fuels which does make a difference? Just guessing though.
It would be nice to get a proper answer as I'd happily pay the little bit extra if it was better, but equally I don't want to be a mug and pay more for something that's just in my head.
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Well, the first test done by fifth gear was done with a dynamometer(sp?) and a rig with separate jerry cans for each fuel with multiple runs on each fuel. The other test (also done by fifth gear) didn't have separate jerry cans but did do an ECU reset between fuels. All tests found a difference between 95 RON and SOME of the 98 RON 'super fuels' on forced induction cars (Golf GTI Mk5, Golf GTI Edition 35, Subaru Impreza) but no improvement on a naturally aspirated car (Renault Clio of some variety).
Well that sounds fairly thorough, and I don't know enough about cars myself to come up with any explanation.
It could be that there is something other than the octane level which is different about the premium fuels which does make a difference? Just guessing though.
It would be nice to get a proper answer as I'd happily pay the little bit extra if it was better, but equally I don't want to be a mug and pay more for something that's just in my head.
Probably right, one of the premium fuels gave hardly any more power than 95, but the others did.
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Were they proper and rigorous tests or were they just 'try different fuels and drive it around a bit'?
I think something like this is prone to confirmation bias with human testing - you want to see an improvement so you find one.
Well, the first test done by fifth gear was done with a dynamometer(sp?) and a rig with separate jerry cans for each fuel with multiple runs on each fuel. The other test (also done by fifth gear) didn't have separate jerry cans but did do an ECU reset between fuels. All tests found a difference between 95 RON and SOME of the 98 RON 'super fuels' on forced induction cars (Golf GTI Mk5, Golf GTI Edition 35, Subaru Impreza) but no improvement on a naturally aspirated car (Renault Clio of some variety).
Yes these are two I have seen. As I've stated before that cars not tuned for 98 still produce more bhp despite being tuned for 95..... According to tests on a Dyno anyway
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Just had a look whilst filling up with shell nitro, it says min. 95 ron. In my language that means using 98 Ron is better :smiley:
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Well, not according to the manual.
Please see the generic Fuel page in your owner's manual: (155 in this Skoda one as I don't have the GTI yet)
https://mediaportal.skoda-auto.com/resource/documentation/manuals/en/Fabia/05-2011/Manual/A05_Fabia_OwnersManual.pdf
The bit that interests us GTI users:
Prescribed fuel - unleaded petrol min. 95 RON
Use unleaded petrol with the octane rating 95 RON.
If unleaded petrol with the octane rating 95 RON is not available, you can use petrol with the octane rating 91 RON in an emergency. You must continue driving at medium engine speeds and minimum engine load. High engine revs or a greater engine load can cause major damage to the engine! Refuel as soon as possible with petrol of the prescribed octane number.
Even in case of necessity, you must not use petrol of a lower octane rating than 91 RON, otherwise the engine can be severely damaged!
You can find further information on refuelling page 156, “Refuelling”.
Unleaded petrol with higher octane number
You can make unlimited use of unleaded petrol which has a higher octane number than the one prescribed.
In vehicles with prescribed unleaded petrol 95/91 RON, the use of petrol with a higher octane number than 95 RON does not result in a noticeable power increase or a lower fuel consumption.
On vehicles with prescribed unleaded petrol min. 95 RON, the use of petrol with a higher octane number than 95 RON does not result in a power increase or a lower fuel consumption.
Maybe someone who already has the GTI manual can confirm?
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Well, not according to the manual.
<snip>
Maybe someone who already has the GTI manual can confirm?
That's what the manual says. In fact it's the same handbook for all Mk 7 Golfs...