Tankful Of Cheers - WheelsAsia Magazine

It was a horrendous experience, to say the least. Fifty-seven precious, hard-earned dollars and all I got was slightly more than a half tank of Shell Ron 95 petrol. At that rate petrol prices are slowly but surely climbing, that same amount of money could soon get me perhaps a quarter tank of fuel.

And I’m not even thinking of pumping Shell 98 or Heavens forbid, Shell V-Power. As a matter of fact, I can’t seem to remember the last time I treated my Toyota Picnic to Shell 98.

I am not alone in this dilemma; other motorists are also feeling the pinch of high petrol prices. Okay, perhaps I am over-reacting here because I’m getting something like 320-330 km for half a tank of fuel or about 10.7km per litre of petrol. Most Picnic owners would think I’m kidding with consumption figures like this. But I’m not. I know a fellow owner who is averaging 9km per litre on good days and he’s running on stock-standard 15-inch rims with Michelin “green” tyres while yours truly has 17-inch rims shod with high-performance rubbers. My Colleague who drives a Toyota Corolla (G9) is presently getting an average of 13km per litre. He too is feeling the pain of high fuel prices. And like me, he really has no grounds to complain about petrol costs. Let me explain why.

Up till six months ago, my Picnic was doing at best 10km per litre while Corolla was averaging 11.4km per litre. Both of us then put in Broquet fuel catalyst in-line units. By virtue of having a bigger engine, I settle for a B40 while the 1.6-litre Corolla made do with a B30. My consumption improved by about 5% to 10.3km per litre while the Corolla achieve 7% better consumption at 12.2km per litre.

Two months ago, we added another Broquet product, this time the in-tank pellets to determine how much extra savings we could squeeze out of the tank. While my colleague put in one unit of B/5T, comprising 5 pellets in one casing, I had two units of the B/5T. The outcome was pleasant one for us. (Actually any fuel savings is a pleasant outcome.) The Corolla is averaging 12.6-12.8km per litre, an improvement of about 5%. In the case of the Picnic, the MPV now gets about 10.6 to 10.8km per litre, an improvement of about 4%.

On paper these percentages may not seem much but when you are at the cashier’s counter digging forlornly into your fast-thinning wallet, every little percentage point helps. We reckoned that we would possibly be able to obtain higher savings if more pellets were dropped into the tank. Apparently, the in-tank units work by treating the fuel in the tank before it is burnt in the combustion chamber, it would be considerably more effective to have both the in-line and in-tank units working in unison, as was the case with the two Toyotas. The engine’s throttle response is noticeably smoother in both cars while acceleration in the Corolla has gone up a notch.

If you look at the big picture, the MPV achieved a total savings of 9% by having both the in-line & in-tank units while its saloon sibling is enjoying a combined improvement of 12.4%. Not bad actually considering that both of us could have been paying that much more at the pumps. Life does have its happy moments after all. Let’s cheer to that!