Morris Minor Owners Club

Is there any benefit in using Shell VPower as opposed to standard Shell ? VPower claims to protect and lubricate and give better performance. Although it is more expensive, annual mileage is low so is it worth putting it(or any other premium brand) in our old cars ?

Probably a waste of money on a standard Minor.............

Doesn’t it have less ethanol than standard petrol?

All fancy sound bites.
"DYNAFLEX Technology" means what exactly? No explanation given. Just catchphrases and sound bites with no hard facts.

There is nowhere on their website to compare actual facts of what's in the different grade fuels regards the % of this, that and the other.

Well not unless I want to spend ages searching out specific Safety Data Sheets, but I'm not that interested as there are loads to go through for each specific name of fuel.....

I always use shell fuel in my car only because my cars “seem” to run better on it, there is no scientific experiment, just a feeling.
However, a few years ago I ran company cars and 5 out of the 8 cars ran on supermarket fuel and the other 3 solely on shell.
At 90000 miles 5 of the cars all suffered with injector failure, usually one but sometimes two at £500 each.
The 3 cars that ran on shell fuel were sent back to the leasing company at 3 years old with 120000 miles on their clocks in fine order, and without costing anything other than normal servicing.

Now these were diesel and only ‘normal’ fuel, not Vmax, but that’s why I only use shell.

Pete

When I was covering 18K miles a year I refused to pay the extra cost for vPower. Now I'm doing a lot less, I have swapped to vPower. All three Minors "seem" to run better. They idle more smoothly and have better torque. Those are subjective, but measured is an improvement in mnpg, around 8%. Cheap supermarket fuel does not agree with the cars at all, even though it "should" be pretty much the same. Is vP{ower worth the extra? Who knows? Personal choice.

SteveClem wrote: ↑Mon Oct 14, 2019 11:10 am Doesn’t it have less ethanol than standard petrol?

Standard and V Power both have the E5 logo on the pump so I guess they’re the same?

Thanks for your observations.No clear answer though. I run my MGF and BMW on VPower and think they run smoother in suburban driving and a very slight improvement in mpg.VPower is 97 RON compared to Standard 95 RON. Dont know about Ethanol content and its reported bad effects on components(rubber/plastic etc). I suspect that with Fuel Injection there is a long term advantage but with an SU Carb ,I wonder? As I intend to keep the car I guess I will give it a try if only to probably help keep the jet clean and get the claimed lower running temperature and torque. Time will tell. Thanks again.

My 1098 is in original fettle so has the added complication of needing a lead substitute. I use Millers VSPe additive, which claims to be not only a lead substitute, but protects fuel system from adverse ethanol effects up to E10 concentration. In addition it claims to enhance fuel by "up to 2 Octane numbers". The car pulls vigorously and smoothly - of course I can't tell whether it's thanks to Millers, but it makes me feel I've some protection against those Ethanol nasties eating away at my fuel system innards!

Still, as I've said before, my Minor 1000 is also original and has not had any unleaded conversion. It is used more or less everyday and has taken us on foreign holidays and is only ever run on the cheapest supermarket fuel without any additives...... It has been used this way for years, runs without any problem, has good performance and frequently returns over 40mpg. I'm happy with that

I fill up all 4 cars only at Sainsburys or esso. I like collecting the nector points you see. its pays for our chrimbo dinner at the end of the year.

Ordinary 95 grade is more than enough for an old Morris Minor. You only need use 97 if you have a 1275cc engine - they had a higher compression ratio and to get the best out of them need the more potent bang water. But if the car is only used for very short journeys it will be asthmatic anyway.

We use Shell V-Power in our 1098 Traveller (and the MX5 and the XK8). All the cars seem to run smoother with it and given the relatively low mileage we do the extra cost is minimal. I wouldn't like to say if fuel consumption is improved or not, but it is no worse. We use it to keep the engine clean inside and when our cylinder head came off recently the mechanic commented how clean the engine was. I had a high mileage Merc E230 which was starting to sound like a bag of nails and on advice I ran a couple of tanks of V-Power through it and the engine was as good as new, so I periodically run a tank of V-Power diesel through the F-Pace as well. I am also led to believe that because of the way ethanol is added to fuel the V-Power does not, on average, have as much as regular fuel. The fuel companies only have to achieve 5% ethanol overall and given the relative volumes of regular vs V-Power sold the focus is on the regular fuel. That may be rubbish but other than the cost there is no downside to using V-Power.

I used to run my 1275gt fitted with a 1380cc screamer of an engine on Shell, On my minor I use normal unleaded.
Maybe Shell has some magic ingredient but for the power output and relatively low revs my minor does normal unleaded is fine for me.

Well, all that comes to my mind after reading all this chat about 95 RON, 97 RON, 99 RON etc etc.... is 1963.......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqgtsai ... adio=1&t=5

Hmm...just to bowl another googly, what do you all think about adding redex when you fill up?

ampwhu wrote: ↑Mon Oct 14, 2019 5:49 pm I fill up all 4 cars only at Sainsburys or esso. I like collecting the nector points you see. its pays for our chrimbo dinner at the end of the year.

For the same reason, I invariably fill up at Sainsburys. Regular unleaded in my every day car (a Ford Focus ecoboost). When I had my Minor I initially ran it on regular unleaded with a shot of Castrol Valvemaster but changed to super unleaded also with a shot of Castrol Valvemaster. Perhaps not necessary but I'm sure it promoted smoother running.

Now I have a Marina 1.8TC in the fleet. It doesn't run smoothly on regular unleaded and is definitely far better on super. As the B-Series engine is allegedly more prone to valve recession than the A-Series, it gets a shot of Valvemaster Plus just for the sake of caution.

SteveClem wrote: ↑Mon Nov 04, 2019 7:08 pm Hmm...just to bowl another googly, what do you all think about adding redex when you fill up?

The formula seems to have changed a few years ago so it is thinner and less oily now. I believe it is marketed more as a fuel system cleaner than upper cylinder lubricant. But, it won't do any harm. I don't even bother with Lead replacement additive anymore and I cover a few thousand miles per annum with many motorway journeys.

As a upper cylinder lubricant I use Wilko two stroke oil for my four stroke Honda engine. It works well and stops the valves sticking. Cheap too.

https://www.wilko.com/en-uk/wilko-500ml ... /p/0342802