Another parallel would be to purchase "Cheap Home-Brand Dishwashing Liquid" - whilst you pay only half the price of a Quality Concentrate Brand such as "Cussons" - you have to use twice to three times as much to get even close to the same washing result as the more expensive brand, and even if you do use more it still doesn't seem to match the quality and performance of the name brand concentrate. "Cheap Fuels" are the similes to "Cheap Dishwashing Liquids" - you pay less to purchase them initially, but then you have to use twice to three times as much to get the same realised result.

With the insurgence of the "Shop-a-Docket", "Percentage-off-your-Mortgage" and "In-Store-Discount" schemes it is very tempting to shop at these supporting outlets in order to "Save-a-Buck" and Fill up at the same time. But don't be mislead, remember these big corporations offering these discounts are usually "in-it" for themselves. Whilst you may save 4c at the bowsers, or 3% off your home loan repayment, or even get 2 chocolate bars for $3 ... you are paying implicitly in some other way.

Do you really think Big Corporations care about you and your savings? NO!! They're only "in-it" for themselves and luring you to always shop at "their" outlets and then also fill-up at "their" associated bowsers. So what's all this got to do with "Me and my Super6" - you may ask?

To be honest with you, we really couldn't care less about who's offering what scheme at what enticement to give you some feeling of saving, even though you end up paying elsewhere in some sly way ... but for the fact that you are also Purchasing Inferior Quality Fuel to further "kick you in the pants" in your false sense of saving excursion. We wouldn't be so worried if Companies Associated with BP, Mobil and some limited others were involving themselves in the scheme ... but have you noticed they are not ?

Why you may ask? This is because their Fuel Quality is "Far Superior" to the other "Cheapo Outlets" that they do not need to get involved in these "Pseudo Saving Schemes" in order to entice people to purchase from their bowsers. Take for example BP Ultimate or Mobil Synergy 8000 that are True 98RON Premium Fuels that outperform other claimed High Performance High Octane competitors.

Obviously the above claims and examples are not to be taken literally, they are only used as metaphors to try and demonstrate the layman equivalent of the difference in fuel quality. We feel BP Ultimate 98+RON Premium and Mobil Synergy 8000 are so superior and so far in front of the competitions so called High Performance Premiums that we felt it was worthwhile taking the time out of our day to report out findings to you.

What we have found and had increasing reports of is that in particular Shell Optimax has a tendency to make Super6's misfire, hesitate, backfire and detonate on idle, mid-throttle and power. We could assign the detonation issue to the lesser octane, but the other issues are somewhat more difficult to explain. We have heard rumours of the Shell Optimax having only 22 days shelf-life compared to the BP Ultimate 43 day shelf-life, meaning by the time it's manufactured to the time it gets transported to the bowsers, then into your tank and used up, it's shelf-life is almost up, meaning you are using fuel which is almost off ... and yes, just in case you didn't know, fuel definitely does go off!!

It's like purchasing "Meat from a Butcher" or purchasing "Meat from the local Deli" ... you know the Butcher is going to have the freshest most tender meat that will taste better and keep longer than the meat from the local deli.

• Cleaner Burning
• Smoother idle
• Superiors Performance
• No Detonation
• Better Throttle Response
• Improved Economy
• Better for the Environment

Most may not be aware, but a Supercharged V6 is a much underrated High Performance Engine that is very demanding on quality fuels. The incredible temperature outputted from the supercharger and relatively high compression for forced induction application is very hard on fuel for sustaining performance whilst avoiding detonation. The Super6 is fitted with "Twin-Knock sensors" that listen out for any incidence of detonation and quickly pull out timing at the onset via automatic Knock Retarding Software inbuilt to the ECM control. This automatic "Knock-Retard" quickly results in a loss of performance as timing is pulled out in order to suppress the incidence of detonation.

What most people don't know, and "this is the clincher" - is the presence of "Knock-Retard", in order to curb detonation, is not only detrimental to engine performance, but is also detrimental to "Fuel Economy" ... Yes, that's right, we said Fuel Economy !!

• Fuel Economy
• Knock Retard
• Engine Performance
• Fuel Quality

• Poor Economy
• Poor Performance
• Detonation/Pinging
• Head Gasket Failure
• Piston Damage
• Compete Engine Destruction

We have heard genuine reports of owners of turbo 4's and 6's that have substituted BP Ultimate for Shell Optimax, because they we almost out of fuel and there wasn't a BP Service Station nearby, that they had to put "something" in the tank to get them to a BP Servo and in even only putting in 10litres to suffice, have within minimal kilometres caused there engines almost catastrophic failure ranging from coughing and spluttering, to Blown Head Gaskets and even worse Broken Piston Ring Glands ... leading to imminent engine failure.

These are true reports; we have spoken to the owners first hand. We are in no way affiliated or associated with BP or Mobil and get absolutely no kick-backs or rewards of reporting the benefits of using these fuels. All we are here writing this article for is to try and help avoid the same thing happening to you and also educate the masses on the difference between fuels qualities.

We ourselves were on the way back from a night's racing at the Motorplex down at Kwinana and had done so many passes we were almost out of fuel, so we had to find some fuel as quickly as possible on the way home. Due to the remoteness of the area at the time there wasn't an abundance of choices of fuel stations along the route home. The first one we came to was a Shell Servo so we filled up with their best Premium "Optimax" and due to the lack of clear signage stating otherwise, we naturally assumed was 98+RON like all of the other's. We only put $10 worth in the tank, just enough to comfortably make it to a BP Ultimate Servo to fill up.

As soon as we pulled out of the servo and booted it up the street it started "Pinging" - "Audibly" we may add!! That's serious ... when you can hear a Supercharged V6 Engine Ping "Audibly" you know the detonation is SERVERE as it's even beyond the scope of the Knock-Sensors and Automatic Knock-Retard control to suppress the out of control detonation.

Typically if you get a bit of detonation with BP Ultimate 98+RON you can't actually hear it. You may notice a slight drop in pull or acceleration momentarily and it quite quickly recovers, but never any audible detonation. When you can hear audible detonation is a Super6 ... you know it's bad!! Even more interesting, with regards to the same journey, when we finally did find a BP 98+RON Ultimate Servo and filled it right up to the brim, we noticed when we drove away it was still pinging slightly, no where near as bad as on Optimax alone, but there was still some presence of audible detonation.

We later found out that it took us a subsequent 2 further tankfuls to totally cure the audible detonation and get the purity of our BP Ultimate 98+RON Premium back up to scratch. It's almost as if the inferior premium was somewhat infecting the fuel with a virus that took many tankfuls to shake.

These are real world examples; again, we have no reason to push the BP Ultimate 98+RON Premium, other than to help you out with maintaining performance, economy and reliability. Normally we wouldn't promote something that was more expensive than another, just for the sake of spending the extra, unless if there was something dramatically different about it ... and let us tell you, there is something dramatically different with BP Ultimate 98+RON Premium compared to other fuels we have tested.

We must stress the factor that if you are going to run BP Ultimate 98+RON Premium, don't even bother running "cocktail blends" of ½ BP Ultimate and ½ Regular Unleaded or other Premiums, it's just no point.

You have to run a STRICT DIET of BP Ultimate 98+RON Premium to get the justice out of the resulting difference. This means running it on a continuous basis and not substituting it or skipping filling it with other fuels because you get lazy or want to save a buck again. If you are going to even bother, you have to do it properly, or not at all.

In the rarest of incidences where you may not have a BP close by and you are almost out of fuel, only put in $5 or $10 ... just enough to get you to a BP Servo and FILL UP straight away to try and offset the inferior premium.