Singapore Expats

Chatting to a local rider yesterday, he reckons that Malaysian petrol, regardless of RON (but we are talking 95), is of lower quality than the expensive Sg stuff. He said he'd had issues in the past with his fuel injector.

Any basis to this or is it just more Sg mis-information to keep the might $ in Sg?

I've never had any issues and won't be changing my habits.

It's a common urban myth. I don't think there are major issues. I've bought sub standard (lower octane) petrol in Singapore that's caused my forester ECU to go into limp mode due to pinging... their 95 was more like 90.

Petrol is petrol is gasoline, so long as refined properly and with the correct octane boosting additives (ethanol, MTBE, tetra ethyl lead - now banned most places, toluene) added in the correct quantity. It's quite common for multiple brands of retail stations to get their petrol from the nearest refinery since the base product is all the same... unless the refinery is producing crap for everyone.

What does differ is the additional additive package that various retailers promote, and these additive packages can make a difference in things like deposits on injectors and valves. Having said that, I've never had an issue with motorcycle or automobile driving in Malaysia.

From time to time, there are instances when the petrol isn't up to the mark and causes minor issues. I have had several instances when presence of water in the fuel caused the CAT to cause the ECU to go into safe mode. Though resetting the ECU solves the problem.

This does not happen often, but it does happen. Personally, perhaps a couple of times a year.

The petrol there may not make a difference to the engine or performance, but it sure stinks the place up a lot more than in Singapore. Traffic fumes are way more smelly once you cross the border.

Could be the cars aren't as new on average as they are in Singapore. Or perhaps they don't tune them as well. Whatever the reason, the funk is pretty bad when you walk near the road for example.

Max Headroom wrote:The petrol there may not make a difference to the engine or performance, but it sure stinks the place up a lot more than in Singapore. Traffic fumes are way more smelly once you cross the border.

Could be the cars aren't as new on average as they are in Singapore. Or perhaps they don't tune them as well. Whatever the reason, the funk is pretty bad when you walk near the road for example.

It's probably the sulfur in the petrol. Malaysia is due to implement Euro 4M fuel standards for 95 RON petrol in Oct, 2018. Right now, this fuel can contain as much as 500 ppm sulfur. The new standard will be 50 ppm. By way of comparison, the current US standard is 10 ppm.

It costs money to remove sulfur from petrol, and Petronas has probably been in no rush to make a change until forced by government regulation.

The changes also reduce benzene content but this has less to do with combustion by products and more to do with reducing a known harmful chemical to the human body.

For a time I was occasionally using 92 RON in Sg but was mainly using 95 RON from Malaysia. I started to notice some difference in performance so changed to 95 in Sg. At the same time I adjusted the chain so it could have been down to that. The bike handles most grades of fuel.

PNGMK wrote:It's a common urban myth. I don't think there are major issues. I've bought sub standard (lower octane) petrol in Singapore that's caused my forester ECU to go into limp mode due to pinging... their 95 was more like 90.

I never had a problem from my Legacy either but finding 98 was tough.

A friend did have a problem out of Shell at 2nd Link but it was due to water leaking into the storage tank rather than petrol itself. I regularly stop at the same Shell and have been fine forever.

Are malaysian petrol worse for my car? In the case of purity.

Bluesky3000 wrote:Are malaysian petrol worse for my car? In the case of purity.

No. You see 50 year old cars in Malaysia running fine.