South African fuel prices have surged to record highs in 2018.

The question, as a consumer I’ve asked is  – which brand of fuel gives me the most bang for my buck?

Assumptions

  • We will use a common passenger hatchback vehicle as the test vehicle –  the Hyundai i20, with one caveat – it’s a diesel. (Hyundai i20 CRDi 2013).
  • According to the vehicle stats, the car has a 45 litre tank but I consistently managed to fill up to just under 50 litres, assuming it has a reserve tank of 5 litres.
  • The official consumption of the vehicle 5l / 100km.
  • We used 50ppm diesel in all of the instances.
  • The vehicle is very economical with an expected range of between 800 – 900 kilometers.
Two Hyundai i20 cars
Two almost identical Hyundai i20’s. The one on the right is the test car.

Concept

  • Fill up with a full fuel tank at each of the major filling stations, namely Caltex, Engen, Shell, BP, Sasol and Total.
  • Must drive until the reserve fuel light comes on
  • It must be a combined cycle of urban and freeway driving
  • Filling up must be done at random or worst times of the day, ie. when it is hot or busy at the filling station.
The Hyundai i20 CRDi when it was still brand new.

How did it go?

Garage litres/100km km/litre Range (km)
Engen 5.5 18.2 895
Shell 5.6 17.7 877
Caltex 5.9 16.9 812
BP 5.9 16.9 709
Sasol 6 16.6 800
Total 6.2 16.1 792

 

Engen came out in clear first place, with Shell in a close second. Caltex did reasonably well with BP and Sasol to follow.

The worst of the lot was Total with 2.1 km less per litre than Engen.

This article will be expanded with more information.