Diesel Fuels

Read in a few other threads people mentioning $hitty diesel fuel. I would like to know how people are defining "$hitty"
Are you guys describing the Cetane rating, lack or too much sulphur, water contamination, toluene or other addatives, dirt, algae????

Is the problem the supplier, the transporter or the local servo storage tanks?

How do you know it's no good? loss of power, poor economy, more smoke,smell, color, taste?

I only fuel up at 2 servo's, both mobil and having a longrange tank lets me go where ever I need and back again on the same tank of fuel. I only go off the sound of the motor.

I have only had one tank of BP fuel and I thought the turbo was going to blow.

Dave.

I've found the best performance, smoothness of running and fuel economy from Shell fuel, generally one that also services trucks (high turnover = fresher fuel in tanks).

I've used BP, and while I don't have too many problems with the fuel, I won't stop at a BP if there's a Shell nearby.

I have used Caltex and find it okay, at least they TELL you there's a little biodiesel in it. The engine doesn't seem to perform as well as it does with Shell.

I've bought from Mobil, I don't have any particular qualms with Mobil Mobil but I do have issues with 'Mobil Products' Mobil because they're probably tossing bio in it.

I refuse to buy from Liberty, Farmers' Fuel, Metro, 7-Eleven or any other "cheapy" service station for two reasons: first, every piece of advice I've had about fuel from those places says they have up to 20% biodiesel and some of the servos have that mixed in by the tanker driver. Second, they don't always service trucks, so their fuel turnover is low.

The one that turns this on its head is the Shell service station in Wilcannia. I paid 150.9cpl and instead of getting near 400km to a tank (towing), I barely scraped in over 230km. We made it to Cobar - just - and had to refuel. There is a BP at Wilcannia as well, on one of the side streets - but on the main drag it's a Shell, and they have a truck bowser too. I am convinced that the owner either has tanks full of crap, or he adds crap to the fuel himself so he can make a bigger profit. I don't care any more - next time I'm up that way, I'm making sure I have plenty of fuel to get past the place without having to fill my tank with chocolate flavoured milk (which would have performed better than the crap Shell sells in Wilcannia).

I have only used Caltex Vortex diesel by preference. It smells like castor oil and provides good economy for 2cL more.
However the "free" fuel I now get from work is via a BP card so lets see what figures that returns in comparison

Aido said:

I have only used Caltex Vortex diesel by preference. It smells like castor oil and provides good economy for 2cL more.
However the "free" fuel I now get from work is via a BP card so lets see what figures that returns in comparison

Click to expand...

Now who's showing off?

Like Tony I use Shell when I can. I get 4c a litre off and they have told me they don't add bio.

In a previous occupation I tested a lot of diesel, it was supplied by Shell at the time and was good quality.

I Don't care what flavour goes into my Nav as long as it's diesel. I don't care much about 4 cent vouchers unless they are in the car come fuel time and I don't pick a day to fuel up because it's supposedly cheap, (living in regional Vic it's never cheap).

At one time or another during the trip to Perth I used each of the big 4 fuel companies (Shell, Mobil, BP and Caltex) and without taking it down to nit picking economy, noise, and all the rest were all pretty much the same.

I've used bio unleaded in previous cars and had absolutely no problems with it however the Commodore that filled up at the same servo at the same time as my Forrestor (across the Nullarbor in 08) did have a little issue which didn't stop the car just slow it down.

I do avoid pure Bio in the Nav however I consider the rest to be pretty much the same as each other and therefore don't bother too much as long as the place has diesel.

08KINGCAB said:

Read in a few other threads people mentioning $hitty diesel fuel. I would like to know how people are defining "$hitty"
Are you guys describing the Cetane rating, lack or too much sulphur, water contamination, toluene or other addatives, dirt, algae????

Is the problem the supplier, the transporter or the local servo storage tanks?

How do you know it's no good? loss of power, poor economy, more smoke,smell, color, taste?

Click to expand...

noticeable things are lack of power, increase in noise, exhaust smoke, fuel filters that come out black.
it does seam to have poor cetane rating ie lots of ignition lag. not sure if its just the bulk fuel or additive package each company adds to it or contamination from water and petrol.

i think someone mentioned on one of the forums that aussie diesel is 40 cetane (or 45) but our vehicles require 50 minimum. it was noted that some of the older motors which only require 40 cetane fuel run fine with no smoke compared to later model ones which blew smoke.
however that was a while ago i don't know what rating fuel is over there these days.

we had one of the small companies buy in good fuel which people started changing to so the big companies started buying in the good stuff to (out of singapore i think ??). also when the government made smoky vehicles illegal it really put the pressure on the fuel companies to supply good burning fuel.

a mate used to work at local gas station, they used to get things like tanker drivers accidentally pouring petrol into the diesel tanks. they had leaks in some of the tanks, so bad they used to pour methanol in to soak up the water. it wasn't till he blew the whistle on the manager that they pulled the tanks out and found an installation fault which meant that part of the pipes had rusted through.

Current Australian Diesel Quality Standards, taken from Diesel Fuel Quality Standard

I'm not saying that what comes out of the tank meets all these requirements, but the standard says cetane must be 46 minimum.

Edit: Eww picture is a bit small, go to link and check the table at the bottom for full size.

Eh I go where I need to go. I tend to go to caltex coz it's on the way to work, but i'm not fussed.

If you are buying from station branded X, are you actually getting their fuel? I vaguely recall hearing something on the radio that companies tend to buy what fuel is being refined in that state. There is this article that says the BP refinery in WA supplies most of the fuel to WA which makes the same assumption to me.

I guess the stations, trucks, storage centre's could be modifying it also.

I usually fill up at a United Servo, find that i can consistently achieve 650klms to a tank mixed driving. Second preference is Caltex, failing that Shell.

vsteve01 said:

Eh I go where I need to go. I tend to go to caltex coz it's on the way to work, but i'm not fussed.

If you are buying from station branded X, are you actually getting their fuel? I vaguely recall hearing something on the radio that companies tend to buy what fuel is being refined in that state. There is this article that says the BP refinery in WA supplies most of the fuel to WA which makes the same assumption to me.

I guess the stations, trucks, storage centre's could be modifying it also.

Click to expand...

yes the base fuel is often from just one place. but then each company adds its own additive pack to the base fuel.
the problem we have had is when they have faulty base fuel, then the problem becomes country wide !

i swear at times we get a tanker full of reject fuel

if your guys standard in 46 cetane and the vehicles minimum rating is 50 cetane then your always going to have problems. add in a little bit of water etc and it totally crap very quickly.

i will fill up when i need to and what ever happens to be closest thats what will go through mine, theres maybe been one or two tanks were i thought the enonomy was a bit low but nothing drastic. so all in all i think they are pretty much the same

Howdy guys , just noticed that the fuel in my car looks dirty - normally you can see through the diesel fuel in the pre filter glass bowl but at the moment it looks black ? Is this a bad tank of fuel ? I have never noticed this before as I always check for moister /water in the bowl !
Runs ok but i'm worried - does diesel fuel have different colours ? I thought it was always a greenish yellow colour ? But this looks black and when I opened the bleed screw the diesel looks dirty ! should I dump the tank ? any help please !

thats sounds bad.
whats it running like?
personally i would dump it. sounds like its got a lot of crap in it. also change fuel filter and check what the filter looks like.

before you sump it check what the fuel out of the tank is like. if thats ok its possible you have bug growing in the filter or you have fuel lines that are falling to pieces.

Yep, Black is bad. Could of got a load of fuel with algae in it, that can have a blackish colour.

I'd be on the safe side and drain it and change the filters.

I've got a BP and shel close to home and find in terms of price, she'll is all ways 4c dearer then BP. Makes the fuel dockets useless.

I know both of these stations have a high turn over and the BP services tricks as well. This is good for me.

Before the nav I had a patrol and religiously put BP in that with never an issue. Have tried caltex and shel with the nav and found no difference in economy but the car all ways feels better on a full tank of fuel.

My philosophy is don't by fuel from a station that gets a delivery of fuel from a truck that's not its own. BP servos get BP trucks, shel gets shel trucks so on and so on.

Still happy with 800km out of a tank. Can't wait the long range tank. !!!

I'll dump the tank today I think ! buggerit! thanks guys

On the farm 23yrs ago if we had to burn a animal diesel was the choice to ignite the timber it would whoosh like petrol now you have to hold the flame to it to get it to ignite.

I just got my car back from nissan last week after picking up a bad tank of fuel. I'm guessing it had algae in it, which choked the filter up bad and lined the tank.

The fuel itself seemed clean but the shit in the tank said otherwise. Driving around town was fine but on the highway try and load it up at about 2800rpm and it would drop in power big time and surge and carry on. What additives are people running to clean their systems, I think mine needs it now.

-Tyler