Optimax whenever possible, BP ultimate if desperate.

 

Tesco 99 is only 93.9p per litre at the local Tesco, compared to 96.9p for Optimax.

What's more, you get your club card points and vouchers for schools on top

 

WTF! Nowt up T'North for Tesco 99?

 

I'm with flat4 Sainsbury's Super

 

Always stuck with Optimax until recently but now Tesco 99RON has come to a store near me, I've started putting that in - you get extra '5p off per litre voucher' if you purchase £50 groceries in store first - so that was 88.9p per litre today for me.

I'm not much of a racer in general, and pride myself on averaging 28-32 MPG, but the old bugeye didn't half fly away from standstill at the lights coming home tonight - which sort of took us by surprise 'cause I didn't really put my foot down - certainly left everyone else way back in my rear view mirror. Like the beast awakening.

 

Thanks for finding this info and site - helps to reassure me that Tesco 99RON has the additives that put it on a par with quality brands like Optimax (which is my close second choice now).

 

I tried BP Ultimate first about six months ago and the car didn't run as well as it did on Optimax, so I stuck with Shell. However I recently heard on BP adverts on the radio that Ultimate had been improved so I decided to give it another go. This time my car ran identically on Ultimate as it did on Optimax. Also Sainsbury's petrol is supplied by BP and there SUL is BP Ultimate and it costs 91.9 per litre, about 8p a litre cheaper than Optimax from my local Shell garage.

 

I think Shell's position in the marketplace is soon to change if they don't have a pricing restructure soon. To be honest, I rarely used them until they had Optimax and was quite happy adding octane booster to my much cheaper fuel never worrying where the next Shell station would be on my, often long, journeys.

 

I doubt they'll be too worried when they've just shown profits of £10billion in the last nine months!!!!!!

S.

 

Yeah but now you've got Tesco's doing 99 octane just up the road from you, so forget Shell I reckon. Yarmouth Tesco's 99 is always cheaper than anywhere else in East Anglia and it's only 3 or 4 p more per litre than normal unleaded. In fact IIRC last time I filled up at Tesco's Super 99 was a couple of pence LESS than diesel - result!

A couple of years ago I asked Shell why Optimax was always 6p/litre more than normal Shell unleaded and pointed out that on a 50-60 litre tank it worked out the same or slightly less to simply buy cheaper supermarket unleaded then stick in octane booster. Their response was basically that they couldn't care less and that their product was good value in the market place especially because of its 'additives'. At the time, if you needed high octane fuel there was nowhere else you could go, so Optimax cornered the market.

Needless to say the instant Tesco's came out with Super 99, I switched to them. I've no loyalty to Shell; why should I? They've ripped us all off for years charging 6p/litre more than normal UL - we just needed the octane and had no choice!

BP's effort with 'Ultimate' is laughable. Several years AFTER 98 Optimax came out, they're charging between 6 and 11 p a litre more for 97 octane fuel with 'additives'. And the worst thing is in all their promo material they're making out like they've reinvented the wheel! Nice one BP, your marketing department should be collecting their P45s already. What they're forgetting is that a lot of the very people who actually USE super unleaded, are also car enthusiasts who KNOW a little bit about fuel grades and DON'T just fill up with any old stuff anyway.

Coming away from the finale of the Wales Rally GB at the Cardiff stadium, I was running on empty, having forgotten the octane booster, and not found a single petrol station in Wales that sold any form of super unleaded. So when I clocked a BP station on the way out of Cardiff, I pulled in and started filling up, assuming it would be pricey but the normal unleaded price was 96.9 so I guessed it would come out at 102 or thereabouts. Then as I watched the numbers going round, I saw that they were charging 108.9 per litre and I stopped right there.

I went in and asked what the hell was going on and why 'Ultimate' with its silly 'Try Me Now' label was 12p/litre more than normal UL. 'Company policy' 'nothing we can do' etc etc. So I paid up, kept the receipt and went off fuming. Less than a mile up the same road was a BP/Safeway garage. I went in there, and not only was the baseline UL price less at 93.9, but their Ultimate was the standard 6p/l premium which came out at 99.9. Still a rip off but at least consistent with how I normally get ripped off!

I wrote to BP as soon as I got home and asked how they could justify two BP stations on the same road, a mile apart, charging such hugely different prices for the same product, and whether they condoned their new fancy product being sold at 12p/litre more. After a lot of correspondence with them their position is this:

Many BP petrol stations aren't their responsibility - they can charge what they like and BP have nothing to do with it. However, we the public have no way of knowing which these franchised BP stations are. They don't even recommend to them what the price differential of Ultimate should be.

This raises a more serious problem that if you fill up with Ultimate at a BP station (which may be a franchise meaning they have no control over them and only supply fuel and signage) an unscrupulous garage owner may sell you 95 normal unleaded instead. Apparently they would investigate any instance of this happening, but that directly contradicts what they told me that the running of these franchises is none of their business at all. They would not even refund me the £2.50 that represented the difference between the normal price of Ultimate and the extra that I had been forced to pay, as a gesture of goodwill.

So the moral of the tale is, don't trust ANY petrol companies. They're all crooks and they couldn't care less what you or I think, and they certainly don't deserve any loyalty from us. Buy whatever fuel will supply the most octane at the cheapest price and at the moment Tesco's are so far in front the others will never catch up unless they start taking notice that enthusiasts like us do count, we do buy a lot of fuel at higher prices than the general public and we can't be ignored.

If you live near a Tesco's petrol station that sells Super 99, then go out and buy it; ignore Shell, BP etc etc and only buy your fuel from Tesco's so that Tesco's notice that we're buying it, and the rest know that we won't be ripped off any more. We have a choice so make the most of it. If you don't live near a Tesco's that sells 99, email them and complain -tell them that you are buying 100 litres of fuel a week from Shell because you need the octane, and you will instantly switch to Tesco's once they start selling it near you at a lower cost than Optimax.

RANT OVER

 

You work just by a Shell garage that sells Optimax so that's good enough reason to use it

 

That's great news for them. However, It will concern them if next year they are $0.5 billion down on that figure in the same period. They'll probably look at making people redundant, like these large companies usually do

Don't get me wrong, the high price of oil is creating plenty of jobs/work in my town and a few of my friends are back in work, which I'm pleased about. I'm just fed up with paying too much for my fuel.

A very nice dissertation Nick

If it wasn't for the extra hassle of buying lots of octane booster I would never have bothered with high octane fuel in the first place. Now, I have a choice. I've got my preset maps on my laptop that I can make my own decision what fuel I'm going to use - and now it's normally 95 RON.

 

Just dropped a line to Tesco's asking when it'll be available up here.... Hopefully soon.. another case for the North South Divide..

 

Damn that was fast!

'Thank you for your email.

99 Octane Super unleaded petrol:

Unique to Tesco this grade is now available in 12 stores around the South
East.

It has a very high octane content and will benefit high performance vehicles.

The Participating Stores are:

Bedford 1
Cheshunt Extra
Crawley Hazelwick
Gallions Reach Extra
Gillingham
Lakeside
Ramsgate Manston
Salisbury 2
Sandhurst
Sevenoaks Riverhead
Stevenage
Winchester

97 Octane Super unleaded:

This is a standard super unleaded grade with an octane level of 97 RON compared to normal unleaded at 95 RON. Again this will benefit high performance vehicles, but not quite as hig a quality as the 99 octane product.

The Participating Stores are:

Ashby De La Zouch
Banbury
Bicester 2
Cardiff Extra
Culverhouse Cross
Neath Abbey
Penarth
Redditch Extra
Stratford Upon Avon
Warwick
Worcester 1
Worcester 2

Roll out of both of these grades to further stores will be dependent on how well they sell.'

OK you Southern shandy drinkers (), we all know you earn far more than the three goats and a chicken (with bird flu) we get a month... so get some 99 down ya!!!

 

LOL yeah I know how to talk, especially when it's something that really gets my goat. When I eventually get the Power FC in, I'll do the same and have a 95 octane setting for general travelling, like you, and a 101 octane setting for Tesco's Super + Octane Boost for the Nurburgring.

 

me too shell V power 100! its awesome. perk of germany. BP Ultimate 100 to if no shell about!