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I know that Costco are fantastic for many, many things but now we can add fuel to the list.
My local one has just opened its own fuel station right next door and it's fab.
No shop, pay at the pump only, masses of space, long hoses and - very best of all - currently 6p/L less than Sainsburys!
[it's for use by Costco members only though]
Yes. Never used it though. (Liverpool)
Usually too busy eating when I leave Costco.
Yes in Bristol
Love the Jalapeño bagels too
Yes........Lakeside Thurrock. Been there probably for a year now
Yes, also Bristol.
I can also confirm the hoses are long enough to reach around a large pickup without scratching it, so you can fill from either side, while eating an 27" pizza and admiring your new 78" LED TV
It can also consistently cheaper than the fuel cards we have.
Cheap diesel ruins engines doesn't it? Sounds like more trouble than it's worth.
[it's for use by Costco members only though]
How do they enforce that ? Do you need to use your Costco card to make it work ?
How do they enforce that ? Do you need to use your Costco card to make it work ?
yes need to use your card first
Cheap diesel ruins engines doesn't it?
No such thing. If you fill up in the south it comes from Fawley, if you fill up in Manchester it comes from Stanlow etc, regardless of what franchise owns the forecourt.
They might chuck some additives in the tank to make v-power etc but its all the same diesel/petrol. And it's all made as cheap as possible to meet the spec from whatever the refinery has to blend.
The only one that comes from a specific place is the propper full-fat v-power petrol that only Fawley (IIRC) makes (and mostly only available in the south as a result).
Why do you think Costco is so great? Yes, they have their own brand for some things, but the rest is just branded stuff you buy in vast quantities. It's usually not much cheaper, there's own brand or generic elsewhere that's often cheaper, and you have to transport and store it all.
I used to think it was great - then did the smart shopping and realized I just bought larger quantities of stuff I didn't really need to buy.
Are you sure that's really true though thisisnotaspoon? I can tell the difference when I don't use shell or BP and when I fill up with v-power deisel it makes the engine positively purr!
the rest is just branded stuff you buy in vast quantities
Yep. Price of membership can be saved in just buying a bale of loo roll, or washing detergent in amusingly large bottles.
Or filling up once.
It's not a shopping utopia, it's a no-frills supermarket. Nothing too groundbreaking; but worth it.
Plus the customer service is second to none.
I bought a TV from there with a 3 year warranty (when everyone else was still doing 1 year) and it blew up 4.5 years later..... They still gave me my money back without hesitation.
One Xmas I accidentally left a smoked salmon in the trolley in the car park. I rang to see if anyone had found it, they hadn't but they still credited my account with the cost of the salmon even though it was my fault!
I have a family of 5 and we eat everything we buy... It must needs breaking down into smaller portions.
The quality of the food is good.
And the pizzas are awesome 🙂
They are currently building a fuel station at the Manchester Trafford Park store
The pizza's are great.
The meat is brilliant quality.
The bread is horrible.
Buy the stuff you like; leave the stuff you don't. It's just shopping.
Massive hot dog with onions, drink and free refills for £1.50 😈
Their white T shirts are the best. Figures may be just a bit out but about £15 for 6. They are brilliant quality and look good. For under £4 each, an near throw away price.
Are you sure that's really true though thisisnotaspoon? I can tell the difference when I don't use shell or BP and when I fill up with v-power deisel it makes the engine positively purr!
Its mostly in your head.
The calorific value of the fuel is down to the base fuel as it makes up the bulk of it.
The additives added are either detergents to clean out the engine, octane/cetane additives which control how hot the fuel has to be before it combusts, surfactants which help it atomise in the injectors, etc.
So yep, expensive fuel is just the same as the cheap stuff, with some addded redex.
Just look at who owns the refineries in this country (the few that are left) , it's not the same companies that own the forecourts. And even the ones that do have a finger in both pies, Esso aren't trucking diesel from Fawley to the highlands.
thisisnotaspoon - Member
Its mostly in your head.
Except when it's not. My old TDCI Mondeo really didn't like supermarket fuel, VERY smokey on startup and would cut-out or stall very easily until it got a bit of heat into it. Put Esso/Shell/BP/etc in it and it was absolutely fine. Yes it's just additives but they can make a difference alright
This is the only car I've ever noticed such an obvious effect admittedly but was a bit of an eye opener. These days I only use Super, to assist with #makingprogress of course
Maybe older tech cars were not as good at adapting to different quality fuels as they are now?
I also notice the difference using the more expensive diesel in my galaxy...especially starting on cold mornings.
Costco is good for laundry products and 40 branded loo rolls.
Yes it's just additives but they can make a difference alright
Anyway, Costco diesel is sold as having all the additives as super.
It's just as likely to be true as anywhere, and the psychological effects will be included. 😀
legend - Member
thisisnotaspoon - Member
Its mostly in your head.
Except when it's not. My old TDCI Mondeo really didn't like supermarket fuel, VERY smokey on startup and would cut-out or stall very easily until it got a bit of heat into it. Put Esso/Shell/BP/etc in it and it was absolutely fine. Yes it's just additives but they can make a difference alrightThis is the only car I've ever noticed such an obvious effect admittedly but was a bit of an eye opener. These days I only use Super, to assist with #makingprogress of course
The BS has started 🙄 My old Mondeo ran on nothing but Morrison's or Tesco finest diesel, no smoking or cutting out. My mate who now owns it still runs it on ASDA fuel and it's still going strong with over 140k miles on supermarket diesel.
Maybe your car had another problem like dirty MAF, blocked air filter, leaking boost pipe, EGR or just BS.
Just for reference the fuel deliveries for our local Tesco are in Esso tankers.
The BS has started
Totes, my life is so empty that I've started making up stories about what my old car used to do when it was cold started on cheapy fuel. 🙄
Its mostly in your head.
I get a noticeable improvement in mpg when using Shell V-Power in my 1.0l Ecoboost Focus. Acceleration / pull is noticeably better too, so there must be something going on.
I get a noticeable improvement in mpg when using Shell V-Power in my 1.0l Ecoboost Focus. Acceleration / pull is noticeably better too, so there must be something going on.
It cost you a fortune so you're trying to eek it out more (but see below, it might actually work in that engine).
Except when it's not. My old TDCI Mondeo really didn't like supermarket fuel, VERY smokey on startup and would cut-out or stall very easily until it got a bit of heat into it. Put Esso/Shell/BP/etc in it and it was absolutely fine. Yes it's just additives but they can make a difference alright
I don't disagree, but that's because an old diesel engine was likely to be coked and gummed up. Everything from carbon deposits in the EGR and exhaust, to bore glaze/varnishing. Countering those with a load of cleaner will bring the mpg back up and reduce smoke levels. But if you went back to normal diesel afterwards the difference would be less noticeable.
Maybe older tech cars were not as good at adapting to different quality fuels as they are now?
In theory any car with a knock sensor could adjust for different octane ratings by trial and error, advancing the ignition until it senses a knock, then backing off. Most car's these days have knock sensors as knocking is a good symptom that the engines going wrong so the ECU likes to know about it. Whether it does enough with that information to make a difference is another matter. Usually it just moderately retards the ignition until the conditions pass (i.e. it works on the assumption that the detonation is occurring as the pressure wave travels down the cylinder, pre igniting the mixture lower down before the flame front does) .
You advance the ignition so that the flame front and pressure wave hit the crown of the piston at just the right moment, so at closed throttle openings and higher RPM the ignition is sooner. The downside of adjusting the ignition advance is if it's advanced too far you blow the pistons apart, which is why race cars
a) have stronger pistons, con rods, cranks and even crank cases, so that blowing the engine up ceases to be the limiting factor in advancing the ignition
b) pre electronic ignition, race engines had the vacuum advance removed/blocked off, as the on/off nature of the throttle could lead to full vacuum and full RPM advance at the same time, another good reason to 'blip' the throttle on the downshifts on old cars, removes the vacuum from the distributor before you floor it in the next gear.
So you can't fully make use of higher octane ratings unless the engine is
a) built for it
b) tuned, or able to learn for it
c) you run it under those high RPM conditions, with lots of on/off throttle where detonation/pinking/pre-ignition becomes a piston melting problem.
Where it gets interesting/geeky/boring is with turbo's and direct injection. Here you effectively have very high compression in the engine, and the ability to put fuel in when you want it, and more importantly where you want it.
The injectors in ecoboost (and VW FSI, and others) are aimed at a depression in the piston during the compression stroke (not the intake), this means you can have a cylinder full of air, and a small area of stochiometric air/fuel around the spark plug. Ignite that and the flame never reaches the cylinder walls, resulting in lower NOx, and higher efficiency (what would have been waste heat into the cylinder, heats the excess air and expands it).
But, that means they can avoid the need for high octane fuels whilst still running lean with high compression at low loads (the holy grail of internal combustion conditions). Whether they then make use of the higher octane ratings to push that further I've no idea, but a turbo charged engine will be better built for it, so it's possible.