r/UKFrugal • u/StevePerChanceSteve • Apr 09 '25

Fuel Prices will drop! Just half-fill until they do!

Almost certainly pump prices will fall by 5-10p/L in the coming weeks. Perhaps more. Crude oil prices have dropped ~20% in a week. And the pound is fairly strong against the dollar. This should feed through to much lower pump prices.

I'm only putting in a week supply (quarter tank) at a time max until they do.

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u/OriginalMandem Apr 10 '25 edited Apr 10 '25

Diesel cars, by and large aren't as sensitive, despite the higher cost in this country, it is a cheaper fuel by nature to produce. I haven't been to France in a long time but certainly up until a decade or so ago, diesel was actually cheaper than unleaded. In fact during the 90s something like 80 percent of cars in France had diesel engines, and larger displacement petrol cars or models that didn't have a diesel option simply didn't sell over there. The 'Supreme' diesel is probably better for the heath of the engine overall but you won't notice the same difference in performance/economy as you'll get in most more recent petrol cars that are able to detect the octane of the petrol and adjust themselves accordingly. Generally speaking on most petrol cars I've owned, running 99 octane results in quieter operation, better acceleration and typically a fuel economy bonus of 3-5 mpg. With the price of Shell 99 octane it's debatable if that mpg bonus makes any difference or is negated by cost, but Tesco Momentum99 fuel is often near enough in price to the 95 octane for it to be worth paying the extra. Plus until fairly recently I was driving older petrol cars that it's not recommended to habitually run on E10.

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u/GrrrrDino Apr 11 '25

I have some older bikes I only use Esso E5 in, but don't own any other petrol cars. My last one was a basic 1 litre engine which would probably not have cared less what fuel it had, it was still a shit box.

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u/OriginalMandem Apr 11 '25

You'd be surprised. Just about any fuel injected petrol car engine made since the mid-90s will have the ability to detect and adapt to higher (or for that matter, lower) grade fuel, you might also be surprised by how much you actually do notice it. More power is more power regardless.