Fuel grade?

[sandybandy]

Hi,
What are your opinions on super unleaded vs normal unleaded. Are there any noticable gains for paying the extra. The owners manual says 98ron but 95 will do. Personally I have tried both but couldn't come to any clear conclusions.

[M3John]

Hi there welcome to PistonHeads

Not too sure about gains as such. But, i do know that if i put regular unleaded in mine then it runs like a pig...definatly ticks over nicer on the 98 octaine stuff !

M3John.

Edited by M3John on Friday 23 February 14:37

[M5Dave]

Ditto M3John, when I had my M3 Evo it used to pink horrenously on 95 Ron, and run beautifully on 98.

M5 sounds ok on either, but according to the manual runs at reduced power on 95 Ron, and it drinks it even faster than it does the 98, so the cheaper stuff is a false economy.

[sandybandy]

I drove from hampshire to Scotland in my M3 for our hol's last summer. Filled up with 98 before we set off, average was 29 (all motorway). Did the same on the way back but with 95 and got the same result. Whats that all about then?

[brenmona]

sandybandy said:

I drove from hampshire to Scotland in my M3 for our hol's last summer. Filled up with 98 before we set off, average was 29 (all motorway). Did the same on the way back but with 95 and got the same result. Whats that all about then?

The wind must have been behind you ;-)

[R_U_LOCAL]

I noticed a huge difference between fuel grades in my evo. When running on 95RON petrol, it pinks badly up to about 4000 rpm, and seems distinctly tardy, whereas on Shell V-Power, which is, I'm led to believe, 99RON, it pulls strongly and cleanly from low revs right up to the red line and is far more pleasent to drive.

MPG? No idea.

I wouldn't have bought an M-Power car if I were a skinflint.

[Philrose]

I use Shell V Power in my M Roadster and I get about 25 miles more per tank. I used to get about 200 miles per tank using standard unleaded but now I get around 220 -230. Same trips and same driving style.

[GTRene]

here another one, I always put ron 98 in my tank of all my cars but since V-power the M-power cars run even better also better then the special BP stuff
V-power is realy good, engine runs a bit better and fuel consumption also! you save a "lot" but the engine needs to elarn the new fuel so in the begin one tank orso and after that it works, though I also put the German V-power Ron 100 in the tank and you realy feel the difference...more grunt(in Holland its Ron97...)
GTRene

[mpwr321bhp]

All four of my M3 3.0Ls alwasy pinked, unless running on optimax. but as its expensive sometimes i mixed and matched. Basically every other fill up ended up being optimax. (v-powr now)