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Author Topic: Is Halfords octane booster a scam?  (Read 693 times)

Offline OllieVRS

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Is Halfords octane booster a scam?
« on: February 24, 2023, 04:05:53 pm »
 

Hi all,

Just to pre-face by saying I've run different Millers Octane boosters since buying the car, mostly the one on the right a it seems to be better value for alleged 'Octane NOs'. Buying them from Halfords cost €35 and €17 per bottle respectively, which if one bottle lasts 6 tanks that's pretty good value. I initially used to put just enough to get an estimated +3 octane numbers to 98, as all we get in (the Republic of) Ireland is 95.

The first red flag was the Dyno I did a year ago on a stock engine with a cold air intake (with a heat shield too), which I double dosed the octane booster that in theory should have gotten me 101 octane, but only resulted in 187hp, something you'd expect from a stock 2.0tfsi on 95. I wanted to be believe that the Dyno was off as I didn't want to accept that the octane booster didn't work. So I kept buying and using the stuff, double dosing always since then.

The second red flag was today, I visited Nisa Extra in Camlough, a neighboring town of Newry in Northern Ireland on the way back from Belfast. It's the only pump in NI that claims to have 99 octane, as everywhere else there only sells 95/97. I double checked with the manager first that it was in fact 99 octane and I paid 15p per litre more for it, filling up 2/3rds of my tank on it.

And by god it made a difference. I was travelling with 3 passengers and it was as if one of the passengers had gotten out of the car, it was that much faster.

Even thought it's not on pure 99, the car now feels like a rocket.

So that begs the question, is this Millers stuff a load of sh*te and I've been ripped off over and over again?

Cheers.
'06 Skoda Octavia vRS TFSI

Offline pudding

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Re: Is Halfords octane booster a scam?
« Reply #1 on: February 27, 2023, 10:05:48 am »
I used Millers CVL many years ago and it did absolutely nothing except turn my piston crowns and exhaust valves a rusty brown/orange colour  :stupid:


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Offline OllieVRS

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Re: Is Halfords octane booster a scam?
« Reply #2 on: March 02, 2023, 12:33:27 pm »
I used Millers CVL many years ago and it did absolutely nothing except turn my piston crowns and exhaust valves a rusty brown/orange colour  :stupid:

Thanks for the reply Pudding.

I do wish I lived in the UK where I could simply get 99 around the corner, but that's not possible here so I have to improvise.

The best value proposition I've decided on is buying 5 bottles of NF Sport Octane Booster, something very popular with the Japanese import community in Ireland. It's €16.4 per bottle with shipping when getting 5 bottles and each bottle raises 60 litres of 95 octane by 5 RON, so the plan is to use half a bottle every time the fuel light comes on.

In retrospect the Millers multishot has to be scam if it offers to 'treat 10 tanks with one bottle', which would be too good to be true for only €17. In comparison, all the 'proper' boosters cost €15-30 a bottle and that's for a single tank with the boost ranging from +4-6 RON.

Closing this topic as I've found the obvious solution, but I've got a few questions about track days so I'll ask that on a new thread.
'06 Skoda Octavia vRS TFSI