The Quality of Diesel Fuel Articles | Automotive

In recent years diesel engines have pushed to improve performance and made a lot of head-way in delivering fuel to the combustion chamber. These advancements have improved the overall sound of the engine making it quiet and run much smoother. The engine is also become much more powerful in recent years. However the improvements of the diesel fuel have not been quite the same as the engine itself.

Diesel fuel has many improvements it can use in the coming years. Diesel fuel has problems with deterioration and starts to break down as soon as it is produced. No matter which type of diesel fuel you are working with it will break down and go through what is called "Oxidation". The molecules in diesel fuel will start to bond together and generate a gum or varnish substance and create slug in the bottom of the tank.

The smell and color of the diesel fuel will change and the sludge will cause your engine to smoke. Some of the small clusters or pieces of sludge will travel through the engine filtration into the combustion chamber. The clusters will grow bigger and only a minute group of molecules actually get burned. The rest will go into the exhaust increasing the smoke and smell coming from the exhaust.

Since so much sludge is left in the tank the overall damage can be great. The sludge can clog up the filters and cause the engine to break down. It is proven that 8 out of 10 engine failures are due to the quality of diesel fuel.

Society is increasing its interest in the diesel fuel and the power behind it. This driving interest in taking its toll on our quality of diesel fuel. The diesel fuel is not given enough time to settle. The diesel fuel used in the infantry was allowed long stretches of time and the fuel was able to settle and separate so that the good and clean fuel could be used. However with so many people requesting diesel fuel this process is not give the time it needs and all the parts are passed to you including the sludge!

The refinery methods are changing to accommodate the demand and it causing big problems for diesel users. In an effort to get more product out the refinery's are cutting some corners leaving us with more contamination in our fuel. This contamination is a large part of the damage to our engines. The collection of the sludge is getting into the filtration systems and damaging our engines.

The demand for diesel fuel is only growing and over the next decade we think the interest in diesel fuel will increase. We hope that the quality of diesel fuel will improve over the coming years. For those of you who use diesel fuel hoping for the less contaminated batch and paying better attention to your vehicle could be your only hope to avoid engine failure.