BP Petrol shennanigans

[charleville]

I usually fill up my boat at a BP servo en route to the boat ramp and have always just grabbed the filler hose from the green bowser as I thought that this was traditionally full strength standard ULP. BP is a bit dearer than other brands, especially with shopping dockets, but what the heck, I trust the quality of their fuel.

I got a bit of a surprise last week when there appeared to be something different about the colours and labeling at the pumps. :-/

On reading the fine print on the bowsers, it seems that the green pump is the 10% ethanol blend and that the standard 100% petrol is now called Premium Unleaded and which comes out of a yellow pump. What I would have once called the premium higher octane stuff is called Ultimate.

See their website which shows this as being their "new look fuels"
http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9014055&contentId=7027036

Now I don't have any gripe with BP calling their high octane stuff whatever they like but it seems duplicit to me that they now call standard undiluted unleaded petrol, "Premium ULP". I stood there for a few minutes trying to ascertain if this was the high octane stuff and whatever happened to standard ULP?

From memory, the big price board on the post facing the street showed the 10% ethanol price not the standard ULP price. That will confuse the punters, for sure! :o


Am I a little behind the times with this nomenclature for BP fuel? Am I wrong in thinking that BP is risking a lot of public trust in reclassifying ethanol fuel that I would not want to put in my boat as standard ULP and that 100% petrol is now "premium" petrol simply because it is proper petrol?


There did seem to be a very sizeable difference in price between their 'all petrol' petrol and the ethanol blend.


Is this what all the petrol companies are now doing? It would be nice to know 'cos I ain't about to start putting ethanol in my outboard!>:(


If they want to bugger around with the names, I wish that they would follow Coca Cola's lead and call it "Classic ULP", not "Premium ULP" 'cos it ain't premium!



.

[Greg P]

They have been doing it for a while now by stealth, I nearly got caught filling my tank.


http://www.ausfish.com.au/vforum/showpost.php?p=668481&postcount=10

[Timmy94]

Yeh thats pretty shit, I'd hate to be breaking down just because of a screwed up label on the pump.

[FNQCairns]

I like the BP also, from memory they have a 91, 95 and then their supercalifragilisticxpdal..... 98?? so what they have done is the 91 now contains ethanol where before it didn't and the 95 is the next cheapestl grade free of the poison....sucks 95 is too much octane to run my outboard, coming to s servo near me, who to turn to now??

cheers fnq

[Blackened]

G'day

FNQ is on the money.,

On the pumps at BP manly, the there's a sticker placed there by the servo saying the ethanol blend is NOT suitable for boats, so the choice is 95 or ultimate(98).

Dave

[captain rednut]

avoid confusion and buy elsewhere? i just found out we been running that crap in our cars, not happi and yes its my fault ! i didnt read there poor labelling system that didnt mean much to me anyway, i just saw the word ethanol. not happi

[trev1]

I got caught out with the 10% ethanol fuel, put a tank through my outboard and now I have internal corosion probs with the carbies. They had filled their ground tanks before they labelled the pumps with the ethanol blend and now every 2nd trip ens up with one of the 4 carbies not idling due to white furry crap (aluminium oxide) blocking the idle circuit.

[Scott nthQld]

BP usually has their octane rating (RON) displayed on their pumps, for your reference, BP normal unleaded is 92 RON, BP premium is 95 RON, and their BP Ultimate is 98 RON, so really they have 3 diff types, premium is usually 3-4c more than standard unleaded and their Ultimate is another 3-4c on top of that. If I were you I would avoid the ethanol blend altogether for a few reasons.

1. They still haven't proven it will not cause damage to an engine, especially an outboard and if you use this fuel and it is not 'suited' to your engine, this will void the warranty, if it is discovered.

2. Worse fuel economy

3. It may appear cheaper per litre, but when you take into account the fuel economy and how much extra fuel you would actually use compared to normal unleaded, it works out more expensive in the long run.

4. The 10% blend they use may produce less emissions when burnt, which is why they like to call it a 'green' (blerk, hate that word, makes me fell dirty), however, it uses more energy, and therefore more green house gases are emitted during manufacture than standard unleaded. So this is yet another example of the green groups playing BS up to be better then sliced bread.

5. the cane farmers (the ethanol used in fuel comes from sugar cane) are actually getting less for their cane if they were to make ethanol rather than sugar last I heard. This is because there is not enough demand (because of the reasons above) and they can't get the prices up.

So there's 5 good reasons to not use ethanol and stick it to the man so to speak.

[jman2016]

My mercury 2 stroke manual says "don't use ethanol based fuel". Ok I won't;D

I'm assuming you can put 10% ethanol based in modern engines after say 1990.

So i'm assuming modern 4 strokes eg. Honda that uses car based 4 stroke engine shouldn't be a problem?

Only problems I see is engine will run lean and ethanol likes to absorb water.

I don't own a 4 stroke and I don't know, hence the word 'assume' :-/

[rowanda]

Hi
I can confirm standard BP Unleaded is 91 octane. BP have replaced their standard ULP with a 10% ethanol blend still 91 octane. Their other options are still the same as they have had for years at premium 95 octane and Ultimate at 98.
BP's recommendation is not to use ULP with Ethanol in boats and small engines.
I have been using premium or Ultimate for about 10 years plus with no issues (96 model 115hp), also the other fuel companies are all doing the same because the government has given them ethanol targets to all the oil companies.(at least BP labels their pumps) I know Shell has got V-Power racing (100 octane) that contains 5% ethanol but is not labeled as it is under 10%!!!!!

[Synful]

From memory, the big price board on the post facing the street showed the 10% ethanol price not the standard ULP price. That will confuse the punters, for sure! :o

Geez Charlie; next you'll be wanting truth / accountability in advertising!!! :o
Mate the Woollies petrol stations used to pull that one quite regularly when they first started the 4c / litre off scheme - sneaky buggers :-/



Am I a little behind the times with this nomenclature for BP fuel? Am I wrong in thinking that BP is risking a lot of public trust in reclassifying ethanol fuel that I would not want to put in my boat as standard ULP and that 100% petrol is now "premium" petrol simply because it is proper petrol?


There did seem to be a very sizeable difference in price between their 'all petrol' petrol and the ethanol blend.

And there my friend, you have your "premium" unleaded with the price tag to go along with it!;D
I doubt that it will change as the governments are pushing the Ethanol bandwagon hard, particularly in QLD so I expect that you'll find it's 'sanctioned bastardry' to that degree.

[stevos]

I believe the main reason that ethanol fuel is not suitable for marine use is the the ethanol is prone to drawing in moisture from its surrounds. This happens pretty easily out on the water as you would imagine. I have been told that this added moisture produces leaner fuel which inturn burns hotter etc etc...

Other than that it will still run just as well in both 2 and 4 stroke engines. If your ever near a marina check out their pumps - they will never have any ethanol for this reason.

I have no problems running premium fuel in the car as it gets more km out of the same tank but will be either uping my outboard octane to 95 (hesitantly) or going elsewhere.

Cheers,

Steve

[charleville]

Geez Charlie; next you'll be wanting truth / accountability in advertising!!! :o


Yes, I do!

When I was in the big corporate world for many years in the marketing discipline, I learnt that advertising has to be attention getting,memorable and sell a benefit ...


....but it also has to be honest - because you cannot sell a lie. At least not in the long run.


Maybe BP globally has a corporate disposition in the wrong direction on such matters as might be inferred from media reports ...


"BP's reputation as one of Britain's biggest corporate success stories took a fresh battering yesterday after the oil giant confirmed that it is being investigated in the US for possible manipulation of the crude oil and petrol markets."
Refer:- http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20060830/ai_n16693394


It is good to see that the local BP operator in Manly is at least signing his pumps to alert boaties to the sins of using their "standard" grade ULP.

[Black_Rat]

I have a Shell on the way & Will look out for this :(

[rowanda]

the reason ethanol is not recommended for marine use is that it takes as little as 0.5% water in the fuel to seperate the ethanol from the fuel, and the mixture left won't burn, so no ethanol will ever be going in my boat.
As I said just watch out your local isn't selling E10 without labelling it, in the future all standard 91 will be 10% ethanol
BP sites selling E10 have their price boards labelled as E10 and you should get a 3 cent/litre discount on top of that (their bio-rewards scheme)

[PADDLES]

my suzuki manual states that warranty is void if fuel has greater than 10% ethanol. didn't know that the ethanol seperats from the fuel with water rowanda, why then was the old evinrude fuel conditioner just plain old alcohol?

[Roo]

no ethanol allowed in my zooki. its a bit of a shock to find out that the 5% blends aren't labelled!! I'd better do some checking!!
Funny tho', My Subaru started running like a rabid dog on 3 legs since i stated filling up at the local BP servo in Byron Bay.....I made the change back to the Shell near home and put a tank of Their Premium V power through and the rough bunny hopping at low revs smoothed out a lot but isn't completely gone!!! best get the 50,000 service done and have it checked out. Won't be going back to BP tho'.
cheers Roo.

[Noelm]

hhmm had the same problem with my Imprezza, tried some E10 and it went like crap, rough idle, a sort of miss/dead spot, but a drink of Premium and all is well again,you would no think it would make much difference huh!

[goggles]

interesting post and thanks to all, as a first time boat owner there is some useful information in there. Now have to go tip out 20 litres of fuel I bought from Bp on saturday.

[seamaid]

:o I am totally confused i going down to the evinrude dealer tomorrow to find out if i should give this sugar cane shit amiss,
Imagen a old buggar like me standing in front of the pumps like a stun mullet
bugger
GED

[ozbee]

the older bp servos still sell it without ethanol until they change the fuel pumps quote the new stuff stuffs them up he said , not a great sign ill go elsewhere thanks.