I know ppl keep asking about safeway/woolworths petrol, just wanted to add my experience

On a full tank my gf could get 450 k's and still have some left when she fills up. Recently a safeway fuel opened up nearby and safeway is near our house so we were using the dockets to get the petrol, this has been the last few months, maybe 3 tanks, now the gf gets about 350 before she fills up with around 45-8 ish litres.

This is a fairly significant drop in fuel consumption, and strangely enough, no noticeable drop in power at all (thats why i dont think its compression)

Having said this i am not ruling out that other engine components could have failed during this time, but its a bit of a co-incidence. Next tank will be shell so we will see whats going on.

Anyone else with similar experiences?

woolies use caltex fuel now

Back when I had my volvo I had to put 98 octane in it, so prices were *** expensive, especially when i was in moaning vale on a friday afternoon, so I tried 95 octane. It chewed threw that in about 300kms. Normally about 450 to a tank, but it isnt exactly the same situation, except fuel was from a BP, and I used to never go there

This is a fairly significant drop in fuel consumption
I think you mean significant increase in fuel consumption. :) And yeah, wouldn't surprise me at all, it's one of the reasons I only run 98 in my car. If you want to test/compare, I'd suggest running at least two consecutive tankfulls before switching fuels.

woolies use caltex fuel now

I can definately confirm that Woolies / Safeway exclusively use Caltex.
(My friend negotiated the deal)

-Dan

i got about 250kms from 40 L of reg unleaded in my 2,6 TR is this right?

I know that woolies don't have the fuel stations to make a significant profit from them (they are to draw cutstom into the sooperdoopermarket), but I would probably make a pretty good guess that they are getting the fuel from the wholesaler (in this case caltex) a lot cheaper than independantly owned stations. (Maybe someone else out there knows more about the details of wholesale petrol pricing structure).

If they are getting the fuel cheaper then the wholesaler would then be not making as much from it. With the price of petrol I would assume petrol comsumtion nationally has not grown significantly with the 4 cent off discount. Surely then there would be the possibility for their quality fuels to be a little less quality in order to cut costs? The petrol is probably still good but maybe not as good as it was.

I am pretty certain I get more km's from a tank getting my fuel from shell (with the 4cents off), than at woolies. We shop at woolworths 90% of the time as the coles in Dubbo sucks, so we dont end up with many coles 4cent off dockets.

Funny that - I get roughly 0.6-1 litres/100K better from Caltex than Shell.

I don't know why, there is no change in power, but the difference is completely repeatable.

Odd...

Cheers
Heath Young

I assume the Caltex is a woolies one?
Maybe it is just individual cases. Could be a number of reasons for differences.

On that note, what are you guys paying for petrol these days in Sydney area?
In Dubbo we usually get standard ULP for around 107 to 111 cents per litre. PULP is usually around 12 cents per litre dearer. Used to buy it a bit but not so much at the moment.

Caltex have always supplied woolworths / safeways with fuel. All petrol stations are actually owned by caltex however woolworths / safeways lease them and have branding / naming rights.

How do I know this? I've just done the valuations for most of them in Perth lol

I never pay attention to the fuel prices, usually I just rock up and fill.
If I dont do it now and get it out of the way, then i'll have to do it later, sort of thing.
My time is worth more to me than to save a measly $5.

Im using caltex vortex in mine at the moment, and they take the vouchers, and have got no probs with the fuel they supply me. Feels on par with BP Ultimate, and must be ok with my freakish 171hp readout at the recent dyno day. Store is on the way home from work, is cheap as chips (compared with other servos in midland wa, on average 3-4 cts cheaper per litre) and dont have to wait to line up lol

Back when I had my volvo I had to put 98 octane in it, so prices were *** expensive, especially when i was in moaning vale on a friday afternoon, so I tried 95 octane. It chewed threw that in about 300kms. Normally about 450 to a tank, but it isnt exactly the same situation, except fuel was from a BP, and I used to never go there

i swear mona vale and manly fuel is murder on prices, they charge an extra 10c than someone 10km away. Everytime i go there i always fill up somewhere else as im not pay 10c extra for some upmarket yuppi fuel

I'm using bp 98 octane atm and for no obvious increase in power, I'm getting about 50km less out of a 60L tank. If I fill up with $65-70 I'll usually get between 520 and 580 km before I have to fill up with the same amount (1998 3.0L V6).

The car gets better mileage and feels better on regular premium. I believe when mitsubishi designed these cars, they designed them for 92-95 octane fuel which means higher octane fuels will simply burn slightly more (due to a higher percentage of octane but the same ratio of fuel to air being injected). Theoretically, this should give more power assuming enough oxygen is in the mix, but for those (like myself) with a stock car, there is not enough oxygen available to make this effective and instead, the car runs rich.

If you have cold air induction, flowed air intake, high flow air filter or a CPU that can adjust mixture settings... that'd be nice, it'd make a huge difference. Untill then fuels with different properties will have a small impact on your performance and economy and general engine wear and tear, but not a huge amount (i.e. if your economy or performance is bad using a reputable premium fuel, you need to lighten your foot or have someone look at your engine).

I prefer premium because it's cleaner and your donk will last a lot longer on clean fuel, most mechanics will tell you that.

Caltex have always supplied woolworths / safeways with fuel. All petrol stations are actually owned by caltex however woolworths / safeways lease them and have branding / naming rights.

How do I know this? I've just done the valuations for most of them in Perth lol

I really hate to disagree with our esteemed Prez, BUT:

When Woolworths/Safeway first started their petrol stations, the fuel was imported from Indonesia, and the quality was totally crap. Add to this was the mixing with toluene which at the time was untaxed, and therefore made big profits for the company. They also added ethanol, which also was cheaper than the price per litre of petrol.

This is all well known, the company actually disclosed the origin of the fuel for some stupid reason.... ended up getting alot of bad press for the company, especially after some fairly catastrophic engine failure due to fuel.

So what you got was a low quality base fuel, with about 10% toluene and 10% Ethanol. Most cars ran like **** on this mix, but the people who took advantage of this the most (battlers that have older cars more tolerant to bad fuel) found that their vehicles ran this lower quality fuel ok.

For quite a while now (since the Ethanol and Toluene debarcles, plus some bad press on Woolies fuel in the media) they have been sourcing their fuel from Caltex. Their basic unleaded is okay, but not as good as Shell or BP. I find their Premium fairly good, and the 98 Octane is very good.

Everything else I agree with though.