Opinions on what is the best fuel for alfa romeos

[alfalove]

hi guys i thought i would open a thread seeking opionions on which is the best fuel these days for our Alfa Romeos, please post any opinions and suggestions...

[ateco]

Very interesting, I believe BP is reliable, V Power has been known to improve vehicle performance just the other day I spoke to a gentleman who fuels up his Porsche 911 with Caltex and he claims he would never use anything else, funny because I thought Porsche recommend Mobil. Alfas are very temperamental these days judging by the amount breaking down on highways so I guess the right fuel is very important, At the moment id have to say that BP 98 OCTANT or SHELL V POWER are at the top of the list, they have done wonders for my 159.

[John Hanslow]

We have had a lot of discussion & opinion over the last year or so on this topic.  I suppose its like buying a car, you get the best you can afford.

Premium fuel must be used and BP 98 Ultimate or similar with Caltex, Mobile or Shell would be the same.  I religiously used BP until recently and now trying Mobile to se if there is any difference. 

Also previously there was a problem with Shell 98 as it just did not give the Alfa  (and BMW) V6 engines any 'get up and go' but the formulation has now been improved. 

No matter what car I drive, I stay away from independant service stations due to the low rent imported fuel they have - as exposed frequently in the news.

Cheers.

[alfagtv100 (Biggus)]

I have been told BP and Mobil are some of the better fuels to run on.  They don't appear to give my 159 and 105 any issues.
There was some related discussion in this thread.
http://www.alfaclubvic.org.au/forum/index.php?topic=3003.0

Hey Ateco,
"Alfas are very temperamental these days judging by the amount breaking down on highways so I guess the right fuel is very important".
How often do you really see a broken down Alfa at the side of the road?  I am not saying it doesn't happen.  However, I think they would be on par with most other manufacturers.  Especially the late model vehicles

Cheers,
Marco.

[Barry Edmunds]

Ateco
I agree with Marco, where are all these Alfas that you see broken down?
In my daily travels I rarely if ever see any Alfas on the side of the road but frequently see other makes, supposedly more reliable than Alfas, stranded or left by the road side.
Barry

[Prana69]

I've not been the owner of an Alfa for long enough to give an opinion on how this brand responds to various fuel brands, but I have always used PULP 98 in all my cars (whether the manufacturer stipulates it or not).  My cars being:

1996 Nissan Maxima
2005 Holden Commodore SV6
Audi A3
Alfa 156 JTS (just 2 weeks).

This is my order of preference:

1. Caltex Vortex 98 - I have found this to be consistently the best for performance and economy.
2. Shell Vortex 98 - I just don't get the performance gain that I have noticed with Caltex.
3. BP Ultimate - I felt this over-rated.  Performance felt no better than 95 RON and economy gain was negligible.

I have only used the Mobil 8000 in my wife's Audi A3 - it's such a low powered car that it is hard to comment on "performance" (it doesn't have any!).  Seems smooth though.

I also do not buy from independents.  I like the idea of supporting independents, but I have concerns about quality control.

On a different note, I did my own test of the "driving hard = less fuel economy" argument and my conclusion was that it really makes little difference.  It was no controlled scientific experiement but on 2 occasions I filled up and drove my Maxima really hard - hard acceleration when taking off, late braking - really punished the car.  Then on another two tanks I drove very conservatively, always slow progressive acceleration and gentle braking.  And I noticed no statistically significant difference in fuel economy - I got about 13.75l/100km driving hard and 13.6l/100km driving gentle.  Hard driving probably has negative impacts elsewhere (engine / component wear, tyres, brakes etc) but it certainly wasn't reflected in fuel economy.

Ah, anyway....

Different people probably have different experiences of best fuel for their car.  I'm happy with Vortex 98 but I'm open to trying the other brands in my 156 if others have had good experiences with them.

Dave
P69er

[spieret]

Most independants buy from BP

[Prana69]

Re: "Most independants buy from BP".

Interesting.  Is BP then responsible for the contaminated fuel that has been found at several independent fuel stations around Melbourne last week?

P69

[ateco]

not sure havnt heard anything about who is responsible yet, i own a tow truck company in Keillor so i get a good idea of which manufacturer breaks down more than others because its my job to clean it up, weather it be petrol or problem related and Alfa is most definitely up their, Alfas are good cars even if mine broke down every second day i would keep it because i have driven many cars and none have kept me as excited as my alfa.

[pep105]

bugger 98. lets go get some Avgas!

Now your talkin !!!!

Ive used Mobil Snergy 8000 in my 105 and other cars and have had no issues, works for me, used to use Shell when it was Optimax.

Speaking of Alfas breaking down, my 147 was towed away once (no its wasnt a selespeed!  )the oil pump packed it in after 44000km) so speaking to the towie he believed Alfas werent any worse than any other European car in his experience (he did a bit of work for Lance Dixon), he went on to say that Saabs were on top of the list as he picked up 3 or 4 of those a week. Dunno maybe he could sense my devastation.

My sisters first experience with a brand new Merc resulted in it being towed away after 16kms (from the dealer to my parents house) on the day she picked it up! (catastrophic gearbox failure)

P.S True story both of them!

[TFJ100]

I'm impressed by anybody who can say for sure that changing fuel makes such a big difference

Maybe on a race track, but unless you get to wring your car out, then it must be pretty hard to tell.

I try to put 98 in my 2001 GTV V6 (usually Shell) but couldn't tell you the difference on the open road compared to when I run 95. Same for my family wagon (2004 Subaru Outback 3 litre), which pretty much always runs 95.

They both have more power than I can use.

In regards to the other point about reliability, the comments are all qualitative. JD power always rated Alfas pretty poor, but they always get high re-buy rates because people know what they are getting. From 159s onwards, they seem to approach Japanese levels of reliability, and my car (bought with 152k on it, and 2 years later with 160k on it) has only broken down once, and I confirmed it delivered spec power at the recent dyno day. However the one breakdown cost me $5k, so it seems you can't win

[WilliamB1750]

Re: "Most independants buy from BP".

Interesting.  Is BP then responsible for the contaminated fuel that has been found at several independent fuel stations around Melbourne last week?

P69

A couple of us here work in the fuel distribution side of things in Victoria, and the biggest thing about that story is nobody tried to name a source and we haven't heard anymore about it.
Personally I work out of the Mobil terminal at Yarraville, delivering to BP (there is a joint venture thing going with BP and Mobil).
As I understand it the biggest thing with fuel economy is to do with the specific gravity of each fuel, ulp (91 oct) is lighter Pulp (95 oct) is a bit heavier, and 98 is heavier again.
The octane rating is for the anti knock (ping) quality of the fuel. This used to be more critical in days gone by becuse of the tuning of each vehicle with carbs and points etc
Most modern cars are able to use most fuels efficiently but I believe you can have trouble with "grey imports" because they are set up for somewhere else.

Personally I use 98 octane in the 1750 with a valve saver for the anti knock qualitys, 95 octane in my 02 Commodore, because the economy is about the same as 98, and 98 in my 08 motorcycle, because it revs harder than any of the cars. But most of my driving/riding is on freeways so I get the benefit of the extra economy, if I was doing the daily suburban grind I would use a standard ulp in the Commodore.
I choose BP 98 over Mobil because it has a "cleaning" addative in it that Mobil 8000 doesn't. 

[101phil]

For me I can't say what fuel is best as I only run 98 in both cars.

When I first bought my XR6 I would do every 2nd or 3rd fill on 98 the rest was normal 91. I noticed a marked difference of fuel economy, in city driving to the tune of 400 for the 91 and up to 480 for 98.. When I started only using 98 the same driving I got to 510, so I stayed with 98 only at that stage it was Optimax (shell was down the road). Now Im either using Vortex 98 or V-Power depedning on which direction Im travelling, cant say I have noticed a difference between the two as the Alfa has only ever been filled up using 98.

[Stuart Thomson]

OK it's time to do some mythbusting here...

We'll start with the carburetor equipped cars first.
When your car is tuned it is tuned for whatever fuel is in the car, as carbies work by a venturi effect the amount of fuel drawn into the engine is volume related.  What this means is that unless the viscosity of the fuel changes dramatically, the amount of fuel drawn into the engine will be the same for a given throttle position, so the high specific gravity (density) of the newer high octane fuels will have no effect on fuel economy.  If you rejet the carby for the higher density fuel it should make a difference, but just changing fuel will have no discernible effect.  If you go to a higher octane fuel and then retune the car, advancing the ignition, your engine should produce more horsepower, hence you may be easier on the throttle, really hard to judge unless it's on a dyno though.

Now for the fuel injected cars...
Moving to 98 over 95 will only make a difference if your engine management system has a map for that octane rating.  Due to the higher density of some of the 95 and 98 fuels, combined with the feedback from the O2 sensor in the exhaust, your fuel economy should be better with either of these fuels.  I'm not sure of the density difference between 95 and 98 octane fuel, so I can't comment on the merits of using 98 vs 95.  No Alfa should be run on 91 octane fuel, the engines just weren't designed for such low octane fuel.  Most newer management systems have an algorith for detecting the fuel octane rating (basically it measures the advance of the ignition curve and matches it to a programmed one), so to reiterate, if it doesn't have a map for the 98 or 100 octane, it can't use the extra ignition advance possible.

Now for the additives...
Unless the valve saver mentioned also has an octane booster it is not necessary, Alfa's have been using hardened valve seats for ages, they run fine on unleaded.  If you are unsure about your engine ask someone, they will confirm the presence or absence of hardened valve seats.  AFAIK all engines from at least the 105 series have had hardened valve seats, possibly much earlier (I don't know much about the 101 and earlier series cars).

So, what do I use?  Caltex 98, the GTA runs that little bit better on 98 than 95, and the Caltex is on the way to work, and I shop at Safeway, hence get a few cents a litre off.

Has the car broken down because of a fuel problem?  Yes, apparently you need to add fuel to them to keep them running, DOH!

Cheers
Stuart

[Ray Pignataro]

Stuart you should be a scientist. very informative thanks