V Power just has some cleaning additives and is not higher octane. Our cars are built for 95 fuel anyways and you are not going to notice the difference day to day.

Only time I bothered with 99 is when going to the ring. €1.56 per litre if I remeber correctly in Belgium, over €100 for a full tank.

The e36 M3 has 98 octane as the recommended fuel but it also indicates that it will run without modification or damage on 95.

PS - running on 95 will result in a slight drop in power from factory specs as they would have all been calculated based on 98 octane.

Kin Mak wrote: V Power just has some cleaning additives and is not higher octane. Our cars are built for 95 fuel anyways and you are not going to notice the difference day to day.

WRONG....... it's 99 octane fuel.........over here it is anyway.

Optimax was 98. something , V Power is 99.

See here; http://www.shell.com/home/Framework?siteId=uk-en&FC2=/uk -en/tailored/shell_for_motorists/fuels/vpower_p/zzz_lhn.html &FC3=/uk-en/tailored/shell_for_motorists/fuels/vpower_p/ vpower_p_about_ga_1602.html - http://www.shell.com/home/Framework?siteId=uk-en&FC2=/uk -en/tailored/shell_for_motorists/fuels/vpower_p/zzz_lhn.html &FC3=/uk-en/tailored/shell_for_motorists/fuels/vpower_p/ vpower_p_about_ga_1602.html  

Edit ;  M3's is 'tuned' to run at least 98, it will run on 95 but will not produce same power. Believe it also has knock sensors so will take advantage of higher fuel octanes.

Yes but we are over here...  so 95 for us Irish folk.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-Power%C2%B0 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-Power%C2%B0

Kin Mak wrote: Yes but we are over here...  so 95 for us Irish folk. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-Power%C2%B0 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-Power%C2%B0

Didn't know that........... so how is it you guy's don't get the same as we do?

Thought you guy's were across the stream not the pond........

In which case  use normal 95 octane......but stay away from supermarkets.

Do you guy's not get BP Ultimate either?

Sorry chaps.

I have had jap cars over the years, they have always run better and had more MPG on V-power. or is that gone and its now called optimax. Which means it has to have a higher octane rating.

Yeah no high octane here... turbo cars will see a big difference in higher octane.

95 is fine though, it is the recomended octane in the BMW manual anyway.

I just give my car a bit of a treat when I can get my hands on some of the sweet stuff, won't go out of my way though.

@ m3sport..V power all the way, deffo a difference in car response.

I tend to think of it as a choice of tango fizzy juice or Red Bull..deffo gives my car wings..

First post, long term BMW driver. My philosophy is "the best isn't too good for my car". I always use original spare parts, buy my oil from BMW (SLX changed twice a year) put good tyres on my car. Even if it only makes a minimal difference in either performance or longevity I am willing to pay 4-5 cents extra per liter.

Larzyh

Limerick

'02 E46 Touring, Sapphire Black.

Second post!

Just in case it wasn't clear: V-Power on every fill-up!

There is being sensible and wasting money. I don't buy my oil from BMW, it costs €22 per litre from them. I get mine imported from Germany, about €14 a litre, same oil cheaper price. BMW don't make the oil, Castrol does.

Same goes with any other part, if I can get the same thing for cheaper I ain’t paying more for no reason.

A lot of people think more expensive is better which is nonsense, research and find out why something is better. Only if it is worth it then spend the money.

Oh yeah one more thing... Hi larzyh welcome to the board.

Fully agree with you there just ordered my clutch and Flywheel in the Uk and safed hundreds on the BMW dealer quote is still the same LUK stuff.

Next up will be cats and exhaust where the differencew is even bigger. Except I go for an Eisemann cat back system that is 

These parts are never prduced from BMW anyway so way not cut the middle man

I wouldn't even contemplate running an M3 on anything less than 97 RON, and would use VPower or the Optimax forerunner everytime.

I once had to use 95 RON in my first E46 M3 Coupe - and I swear I felt dirty for the remainder for the week...

V-Power is proven to give a marginal power gain and marginally better MPG.  Its fact.  So the marginal price difference is worth it.  Why bother with anything else unless you're stuck?

Expensive cars running on cheap fuel - it doesn't make any sense at all.

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?

Power gain is not noticable from 95 to 97 RON, not on the public road anyway driving like a sensible person.

I am not saying higher RON will not produce better results from the engine, but what I don't want m3sport to think is that 95 RON will do any harm to his car which is what people seem to be suggesting.

The ECU is mapped to intake 95 just fine, anything much lower and the engine will go into retard mode. 

So 95 RON and up good... higher better... up to a certain point.

p.s. also the comment on why use anything else unless you are stuck? Unfortunately we are stuck, we only get 95 RON here. Unless we resort to smuggling from the north.

Kin Mak, thank you for the welcome.

I didn't mean to imply that I think a part is necessarily better just because it is more expensive. I used to buy Castrol RS and I am aware that Castrol supply BMW with their oil, however I am not sure if it is the same formulation as the oil in the shops and BMW are very particular about SLX being the only oil suitable for the valvetronic engines. It buys me a degree of (perhaps false) peace of mind.

There are lots of spare parts supplied to BMW sold under other brand names (brake pads, clutches etc) but again, I get a degree of satisfaction and peace of mind by using BMW parts.

I do however use an independent mechanic mostly because of the somewhat arrogant attitude of my local BMW dealership.

Back to the original subject: I can't honestly say that I feel any difference in performance using V-Power but I don't feel any difference when I fill up with 98 ron when I drive to UK and Denmark. Mind you I still fill up using 98 when there, for the reasons above.

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!