Vpower, or normal 95 petrol

Kin Mak wrote: So even though BMW says to use 95 RON you think it is not good enough? What do you think will happen to the engine running on 95 RON?

Except that BMW's E46 M3 specifies a recommend RON rating of 97.

Its in the manual.

Unless the Irish cars are different I am mystified.  The E46 M3 manual clearly states a recommend RON of 97.  Where does this 'designed to run on 95 RON' come from? 

Guys, in Southern Ireland we 100% can not get anything higher than 95RON, because it will not sell in high enough quantities for any garage to make it viable. The government has loaded so much extra tax on the higher RON fuel that it makes it prohibitively expensive...which is strange because cars are generally more fuel efficient on the higher grade stuff. We also do not have so many high performance motors on the roads and we are notoriously tight when it comes to maintaining cars (obviously not on this board), so why would we, in enough numbers, put really expensive fuel in when it works perfectly fine on the cheaper stuff - disregarding ROn numbers. It amazes me that people spend 70-80K on a car and skimp on the servicing........

Also, the Shell VPower stuff only has some sort of additives, but not extra Ron's as in the UK. Car manufacturers always reccomend the higher grade fuel, but it is of no consequence over here, as we only have 95.....the timimg on modern cars will adapt to the fuel. But, I don't think we have any of that crappy supermarket stuff, Tesco has maybe 5 outlets in the country, but I think that they buy it off of a mainstream supplier.........won't even get on to fuel additives to bring the rating up.

nn_dd wrote: ...We also do not have so many high performance motors on the roads...

....but there are a lot more now than on my last visit!

and we are notoriously tight when it comes to maintaining cars ....

....evidenced by the reluctance even to wash a car! Same goes for maintaining roads - they don't!