Vacation

image courtesy of residenciadelpaseo.com

We're headed on vacation again, so we'll be absent from the blog for a couple of weeks. When we get back we'll continue to post helpful information and tips on moving in and around the Boston area!

Diesel Additive, Part 1

Here's another post by our always informative owner, Ezekiel.

Image courtesy of bajaquest.com

We use a diesel additive in our trucks to promote longer engine life, low temperature reliability and better fuel economy. Due to the multiple reasons and benefits of additive this will be a multi-part blog post, with each post focusing on a different element. It's easy to see the financial benefit of getting more miles out of each gallon of fuel and each diesel engine, but there's more to it than that.

ULSD-Ultra Low Sulfer Diesel

Since '06 fueling stations in North America have been selling ULSD. Sulfur content in diesel has a number of effects. One is pollution, the sulfer content in diesel is one of the main contributing factors to the soot that is emitted from a diesel engine. Another effect that sulfer has is that it is a lubricating agent in the operation of the diesel engine. When you drop the sulfer content of your fuel,  the level of lubricity also goes down. Lubricity of fuel impacts engine wear in that a higher lubricity diesel will coat the cylinder walls of the engine with a greater film of oil, thereby enhancing the movement of the pistons and reducing the wear between the piston and the cylinder wall. Lower sulfer content can therefore cause premature wear on moving parts (not just the cylinders, but also other moving parts that come in contact with fuel, like injectors). The fuel companies, the government and the engine manufacturers had come to an agreement about how much lubricity a ULSD fuel should have. Hypothetically at that level there is enough lubricity where premature engine wear is not a factor, however some might dispute that. The real problem with ULSD fuel is that the lubricity agents that they add to the fuel for use in diesel engines is added late in the transportation scheme, so sometimes the lubricity agent is not fully mixed in so you can get very low dosages at the pump, which would potentially lead to low level engine damage. Based on this study we use Optilube XPD in the winter and Optilube summer formula in the warmer months.