20% Bio Fuel at Flying J/Pilot

Use of anything higher than B5 will invalidate the warranty on our 2012 Dodge Dually. Because of the spread of bio diesel, we are probably going to have to buy a newer trucks since we are fulltimers and all this bio diesel will limit the states we can travel in.

That is strong evidence. Thank you, that eases my mind considerably.

Cummins suggested using special filters, do you do that in your trucks, or do you just use the regular fleetgard filters (or other "standard" fuel filters - you can tell I have a Cummins)

Ed Headington

eheading wrote:

SO---- I share your concern about the bio-diesel. I do not understand why the truckers are not screaming up a storm over this. It seems to me it is a legitimate concern and I know that now I am concerned!!!!!

I own and operate over the road trucks, and also farm and have LOTS of diesels. The reason truckers have NOT been "screaming up a storm", is because we have been getting it at pumps for YEARS, and it is not causing problems!

I guarantee you that if it was, they WOULD be screaming. The fact that they are NOT, tells one that they accept it, and have few problems with it.

A LOT of truckers like it, as it adds lubricity back into low sulfur diesel, which has little of its own.

Well, I have to admit that I thought you folks were making a mountain out of a molehill with this biodiesel question. So, I sent an email to Pilot/Flying J first to see if they were offering both biodiesel AND regular diesel. According to them, they are not. If they are selling biodiesel, that is all they are selling.

Next I sent an email off to Cummins. They were not at all encouraging. First they said that if you burn biodiesel, you should cut your fuel filter change intervals by 50%. In other words, if it was 10,000 miles, it is now 5,000 miles etc. They also warned about damage to gaskets and seals and didn't offer any reasonable solution to that problem.

SO---- I share your concern about the bio-diesel. I do not understand why the truckers are not screaming up a storm over this. It seems to me it is a legitimate concern and I know that now I am concerned!!!!!

Ed Headington

I apologize to all of you whom I thought were making mountains out of mole hills. And I am surprised this isn't located in the "Class A motorhome" forum.

Koda55 is touching on the same issue that I am questioning.

If higher levels of biodiesel (B20 as an example) are so harmful, how is it that the OTR trucking industry is apparently not concerned ?? Doesn't it seem logical they would be adversely affected to a much higher degree ? Yet I have read nothing.

Pretty strange koda, I have run B100 with FleetGuard filters 100,000 miles with no problems other than ones I caused.

I finally was able to locate someone that could answer my question of a special biodiesel fleet guard filter. It is fine up to biodiesel 20. It will handle that with no problem.
When I was an otr driver we used Pilot/flyingj quite a bit. You would think with all the talk about damaging engines they would be concerned. When I stopped for fuel I never looked to see what blend it was. I fueled where the company said to fuel. We changed our fuel filter every 15,000 miles, which was about every 4 weeks. Never noticed any difference in engine performance of mpg.

Enlighten me Wintersun, how does BD damage fuel filters? As far as my comment on the rubber, that was in response to a previous post.

I live where it gets cold and have never had a problem with Bio DSL that came from a station regardless of %. And DSL vehicles have had fuel heaters for as long as I know of and owned them, my first being a 85 GMC.

Raften wrote:
As far as I know no one has built a fuel system since the nineties with seals and hoses that would be damaged by BD.

Talk about a straw man argument. Biodiesel is also not known to cause cancer if drunk and does not cause hair loss or cause hair loss.

The damage is not to the seals and hoses but to the fuel filter and in turn to the high pressure common rail fuel injection system. Hoses are cheap, an injector repair costs $5,000 or more.

And add in the cost to have the fuel filter replaced if the fuel gels inside it or freezes.

Why do you suppose GM and others had to add a special warming element before they could say that one could burn B20 biodiesel in their trucks?

Some people are too gullible for words.