Fuel differences

In a recent newspaper, Shell was fined for innacurate bowsers. This is probably why there are differences, if you think you are buying a 100 litres and instead are only getting 97 litres, this will make a difference !

John,
Most stories I am aware of are about the octane rating of the fuel, especially the lead replacement sold by supermarket chains, ie, using normal ULP with an additive rather than higher octane. There was a story in the eastern states a while ago about "funny" diesel sold by independant outlets, where they were mixing products that did not attract duty with diesel and causing consumption problems etc. Many fuel outlets in Victoria now advertise "genuine" petrol and diesel sold here. Don't know if this will help you as the Shell outlets mentioned above probably had this sign as well
Rolande

Local Shell by far gives me the best result in economy..

We have 4 mobil servos with about 2-3klms stretch on Cranbourne road.. All owned by one bloke apparently.

Never had much problem, but the shell was more $$ than the others, but does make a difference.

YMMV

I think you'll find that most servos get their fuel from independent supliers that will have diferent read outs on their fule analasis sheets. So the Mobil your fuling up at would be buying their fule from a different independent suplier than say my local Mobil where I fill up.At least thats how thing work here in Nrthern NSW. Talking to some Diesel enginers the other day when I was getting my injector pump rebuilt and they reacon these low and Ultra low sulfhate diesels that alot of Servos are using now are (more enviromentaly friendly) are stuffing up peoples diesel engines cause the engines seals diaphrams etc where built for a diesel with a higher sulfhur content. The sulfhate acts as a protectant.
They also said that generally the qaulity of diesel has droped alot within the last 5 years.

RE: Consuption rates from different servos......I know when I use the diesel from the liberty instead of the Mobil here I get more Km to the Ltr but my vehical runs rough, blows smoke and has a big loss in power and generally lags. All depends on the supliers of the servos I think.

I have noticed that Shell gives my T/D Jack a 10% boost. I was using woolworths diesel but when Coles started discounting I went there...The pumps are easy to check... just put in 10 litres and read what the $$$ display says eg if fuel is $1 a litre then 10 litres should be $10 exactly....I found one that was charging about 15% over and reported it and the servo was fined... dont know what they do in other states.. Woolworths still have not supplied a TDS for their fuel. My 2002 Jack is designed to run on ULSD which Shell is so I'm hoping the seals etc wont go hard.....

There is a lot of fuel trading going on throughout Australia and it would be very difficult to know where your fuel came from. In QLD there is only BP and I think Caltex(used to be Ampol). For Shell and Mobil these two refiners supply fuel. In other states where there is no BP or Caltex the fuel is then supplied by the other refiners. To complicate things the fuel is now transported by independents Toll, Finemores etc there doesn't seem to be any company trucks anymore. Then you have the independents who buy fuel from anywhere they can get it. To know for certain where your fuel is coming from could be a bit difficult.

Then there is the independents who have been caught diluting their fuel with duty free tolulene.

G'day Jiarna,

Up here in Darwin practically all fuel comes across from Indonesia and it is a very dirty brew. I noticed a significant difference in performance and consumption in my diesel troopie a couple of years ago when I left the Territory and toured around Qld - cleaner fuel than the jungle juice we get up here.

Some years back all servos had periodic checks by inspectors from weights & measures - these checks were random, unannounced and accurate inspections to determine whether or not the public were being ripped off at the pump. I had a bit of an altercation with a BP proprietor a while ago after filling a brand new 20 litre jerry and according to the pump, it held 21.7 litres. I checked the exact quantity at home by decanting the fuel litre by litre (using the brides favourite kitchen measure) and by my calculations, I had only put in 19.8 litres - that meant a discrepancy of 1.9 litres, almost 10% inaccuracy at the pump.

Needless to say, the BP proprietor could not give a damn about the problem. It would appear that the weights & measures inspections don't happen these days.

Diesel 1