Cold Weather Diesel Fuel Additive

In 20+ years of driving diesels I have never used anything.

The 6.4L Power Stroke I drive started this morning without protest. It was -3° F when it was started up. Drove it all day. Highest ambient temp was +6° F.

I am a believer that you don't need additives unless your truck is seldom driven and may still have summer fuel in it after the weather turns cold.

Keep winter blend in it and you are good to go. :)

I live in Montréal Canada and I have 2 diesel vehicules (Passat TDI and Touareg TDI). 48 hours ago, it was -25C and this morning, it was +6C with a lot of rain and tonight, it will go down to -15C so yes, I do add fuel additives for both of them to prevent moisture etc.
I use Power Service white bottle (Artic Formula).

The most important thing is to make sure that the fuel coming out of the pump has truly been winterized for the expected temps. I always bought my winter fuel from a source that sold lots of fuel to truckers. I didn't even care if I had to drive from town out to a station located on the interstate.

This is what I learned several years ago and I think it's still true. There are 2 ways that are used to winterize bulk #2 diesel.
1. Blend it with #1 diesel. The blend is adjusted as the weather gets colder. But #1 does not have as much lubricity as #2 so I always ran a higher dose of lubricity improvers. This is the much preferred method. I believe it is also more costly.
2. Treat it with chemicals. I really don't know how well this works, but I never trusted it. I believe I had problems due to running this type of 'treated' fuel.

In my experience, the people at the 'city' stations didn't know what I was talking about when I asked them if the diesel had been treated.

It's important to realize that you can plug in your vehicle overnight and it may start just fine in the morning. But in really cold weather inadequately treated fuel can gell up after you get out on the highway and run down the road with a -20 degree, 60 mph breeze blowing through the engine compartment, and over the fuel lines that run under the truck. This is what happened to me. The gelled fuel clogged the fuel filter after I had driven several miles. Stopped me dead in my tracks. Once this happens to you, you will do anything to make sure it doesn't happen again.

The other thing to be careful of is filling up at a station and then driving north into much colder weather. Especially if you also fill an auxiliary tank. That fuel might not be treated for the temps you're driving into.

Tim

I contacted Cummins regarding our Ram and the use of fuel additives. Below is their reply:

Cummins neither approves nor disapproves the use of Fuel Additives in our engines. We only recommend using them when there is a diagnosed need (i.e. winter gelling, algae infestation, etc.). However, we also recognize that customers may feel they need to use an additive. For this reason, Cummins Filtration (Fleetguard) has created several different additives that are completely safe to use in any Cummins engine.

If you are looking for an additive to prevent fuel gelation as well as clean injectors and provide lubricity, then I would recommend our Turbo Diesel All Season Fuel Additive (part number CC2588). Turbo Diesel provides a cetane boost for improved starting, stabilizes diesel fuel, cleans fuel injectors, optimizes fuel economy, enhances fuel lubricity, and is compatible with all types of diesel fuel including ULSD and biodiesel blends up to B20. It also prevents wax gelation and fuel line freezing, and reduces cold filter plugging point.

Since you are in Alaska, the winter additives in the Turbo Diesel could possibly not be enough to completely solve the fuel issues related to excessively cold ambient air temperatures. I would use the Turbo Diesel first to see how it works for your fuel, but if it proves to not be enough, we do have another additive made especially to treat fuel problems associated with cold climates. This additive would be our Winter Conditioner (part number CC2591), which prevents ice crystal formation along with preventing wax gelation and fuel line freezing, and reducing the cold filter plugging point. The Winter Conditioner has a more concentrated formula for preventing winter fuel issues, which makes it more effective in extreme temperatures than the Turbo Diesel.

Treatment rate for the Turbo Diesel is 1 pt: 30-50 gallons of diesel, and the Winter Conditoner treatment rate is 1 pt: 125 gallons. These additives can be used simultaneously as long as you adhere to the recommended treatment rates. Therefore, if the Turbo Diesel is not enough to prevent your fuel from gelling, you can use the Winter Conditioner along with the Turbo Diesel to still obtain the injector cleaning and lubricity enhancing qualities. As we do not sell to the public, you will need to contact your local Cummins Distributor or FleetGuard Retailer for pricing and availability information for these additives. I am including a link below from our website (cumminsfiltration.com) that will take you to our Retail Locator page. All you have to do is enter your location (City and State or Zip Code) and you will get a list of various options near you.
Please let me know if you have any additional questions.

http://www.cumminsfiltration.com/wrl/retaillocator.do?_locale=en



Thank you for choosing Cummins. Have a great day!

Kristin
Filtration Technical Assistance

I have used Power Service since day one. I feel that the added lubricity with ULS diesel is important for fuel pumps and injectors. I also use the white bottle beginning in October and ending in April and the grey bottle in the summer. You never know what is in the fuel and a little extra water might be a big issue at 10 below zero. Howe's is a good product also, I have used it in heavy trucks before. Power Service has a "red 911" product also that is supposed to work AFTER gelling up, but I sure would not want to test it out on the side of the road in -10!

...

Have #2 diesel in the tank year round, but don't drive it much in real cold weather. Previous owner says #2 no problem if product below is used.

Howes Diesel Treat. They even offer a free tow if you get stranded and are willing to jump through hoops for recovering up to a $500 tow.

Wes
...

boogie_4wheel wrote:
I've been using Howe's. Kept my truck running in -22*F.

X2 Thats all we use in our over the road trucks, too.

I didn't think you need to add anything for anti-geling as long as your running winter blended diesel. I have never had any problems with any fuel in the ten years I've owed my truck.

I do run some kind of lubricant additive however. I just started using optilube and did order the winter blend of their product. Since I'm adding a lubricant to the fuel, I'm a little bit concerned about changing the fuels blend.

Don

Drove my Dodge the other night for about 80 miles. The temp was -15 degrees. No additive, just the blended fuel that comes from the pump. I park my truck outside also, so nothing was very warm. No problems at all, although I was a bit nervous..Factory says not to use any additives.

B.O.

Never used any in the 10 years I have owned mine. Suppose to get to -12 tonite into Tue. morn. Did not use any last Christmas in Montana either. Nary a problem, at least not yet.