Hello, I am thinking of purchasing a new 2007 Ram Diesel Truck and I was wondering if anybody knows the answer to this question.

I heard that California is changing the fuel for diesels to low sulfur starting in 2007 and all new 2007 diesel will run on this fuel mix. My question is while traveling back from the Mid-West a Month ago all the Diesel pumps had a sticker on them stating that if you put this fuel into a 2007 Low Sulfur diesel truck it may damage or seize the engine "Warning"
So what does that mean? If I buy a 2007 Diesel in California and drive in through the midwest will I blow up my engine. It is confusing and does not make any sense to me. I hope I can get this straighted out.

Thank You,

Brian

 

Just confirm that your 2007 can run on both low sulfur and regular diesel fuels. The low sulfur reduces alot of the pollutions generated by the by this ingredient. In the Euro world where most cars are primarily diesel engines, their fuel is already low sulfur and their polluants are much less than what our gas engines put out.

I assume the high sulfur content may eventually gum up the internals of the low sulfur engine.

 

Diesel sold here in PA is already considered low sulfur diesel. Max sulfur of 500ppm . The Fed's are changing Highway Diesel to be Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel. This will have a max sulfur content of 15ppm. All 2007 and later engines will be required to use Very Low Sulfur Diesel. Cali. is required to begin selling ULSD by Sept. 1, 2006. Everywhere else will begin selling it Oct 1, 2006 with all diesel being sold required to be ULSD by Oct. 1, 2010.

This is what I found on Wikipedia. You can followup on it at EPA or Clean Diesel Alliance

 

i've been in germany for the past three years. the diff between driving a low sulfer eng and a reg diesel are like night and day. the low sulfer are almost like gas motors with the pick up/response but with the extra torque of a diesel, they are simply awesome. in my opinon, it might be better to wait for a few years till the rest of the states gets caught up. if you can get an engine that can run on both i would wonder what makes it able to (i have no idea). lower compresson, diff o-rings, computer fuel settings, and maybe fuel press are the things that come to mind. i would ask the sales person (maybe worth a discount) or the factory. be neat to know what you find, good luck.

 

Will the lower sulfur content lower the fuel economy out of the Diesels?

 

I do not think the sulfur will affect fuel mileage or power. I think the sulfur is more like a lubricant for the engine just like lead was for the old engines that used leaded gasoline. So basically the lead and sulfur are do nothing more than pollute our atmosphere more and these two compounds are highly toxic to us. I guess that is where acid rain comes from the concentrated sulfur content in the atmosphere in some countries that heavily uses this old type of diesel fuel?

I guess you can call this new diesel Un-sulfur Diesel just as we call Unleaded gasoline!

 

oh, where to begin. . . . . . .

first of all running LSD in an 07 vehicle designed to run only on ULSD will clog up the EGR's, particulate filters, and all the other emissions crap that is installed on Diesel engines that have them. ULSD has already shown up in alot of areas, California has been useing ULSD for quite some time now. early reports are a 10-15% mileage drop as opposed to LSD. ULSD is also more expensive due to more refineing to remove the sulfur. In the removal of the sulfur content the lubricative properties of Diesel goes down as well. Fuel companies do dump lubricants into the fuel, but not enough in my eyes.

the only vehicles that can run LSD and ULSD are those made before 1/1/07 since they do not have the emissions crap that require running ULSD.

if you do buy a Dodge CTD, if the build date is before 1/1/07 you will have the older 5.9L that has been a VERY trusty engine, however after 1/1/07 the newer 6.7L will be the new power plant. the main reason for this is to help ensure engine life, and power when all this power robbing emission crap is added. however with all this emission crap added one fillup of LSD fuel wont hurt things much, however after 2-3 full tanks of LSD and the particulate filter will have to be replaced.

 

Drew appears to have proven that this stuff will lower it. The simple fact is if it really had no real sacrifices to it, we would have done this a long time ago. My uncle (a farmer) just got a new tractor and he was complaining about how his new one doesn't feel quite as powerful as his old one despite having a more powerful engine. He claimed it was the extra emission regulations. He also complained that it used a lot more fuel than his old one.

It has been my experience that sulfur content is a good thing in terms of burning quality. When similar versions of these D@## regulations killed the coal mines in my area killed the coal mines because we had very high sulfur coal, the power plant had to get very low sulfur content coal elsewhere and the plant had the worst time getting the stuff to burn, so after all the coal mines already went under, they had to get shipments of higher sulfur coal just to make it work.

I have heard before that these theories about acid rain being caused by sulfur in fuel aren't completely accurate. The other thing I have heard from a friend of mine who is an environmentalist. The emissions of these engines allow the emission particles to be smaller and more harmful to our health.

Also from what I understand, having the "lubricative properties" is part of why diesels last as long as they do. The thing that annoys me about these stupid regulations is the groups pushing for this crap are never satisfied. Cars are way cleaner than they were back in the 80s, but that just isn't good enough. No, we have to keep doing this stuff while it kills the fuel economy and performance of our cars, and it appears it is going to start hindering the reliability as well.

It amazes me how some peoples' religions get to enforce on all their beliefs and rules on us despite the fact that the constitution never stated anything about this, and how other religions can't just maintain the rules and beliefs that have been with our country since our country's founding. Alright, I'm done![sm=rant.gif]