So i filled up at the local Phillips 66 last night and got $80.32 worth of "winterized" diesel. Drove straight home (.5 mile), parked her in the garage for the night. I leave for work today and start her up and let her run for about 20 mins. Everything is normal. I start to accelerate onto the main road and she starts spuddering, losing power, shooting out black smoke and white smoke.

I assume she is cold and just acting up. i shoot a lap around town to see if it gets any better. all gauges are where they should be. engine temp is perfect, but the truck is acting worse and worse. now i can here what appears to be the engine cutting out and the "diesel rattle" is super loud and out of sync.

i take her straight to the dealership and their first thought was that i had bad diesel in it. so i check my receipt to make sure i put diesel in it and not gas. sure enough, i had put 27 gallons of diesel in it. So the dealer said they would test the fuel and see what was going on.

apparently it was bad diesel b/c they are having to empty my tank, clean my lines, and my filters.

could it be anything besides bad diesel? they said they were 99% sure it was the cause...but you never know with the stealership.

now im out close to $400 (over $300 to fix her + $80 worth of diesel). HAPPY NEW YEAR!

anyone else ever get bad diesel from a station like that?

 

i haven't had bad diesel, but my wife got bad gas, as in there was a good 4litres of water in the tank right after filling up. didn't make it 3 km! the mechanic's didn't bill us because several other people had the same problem, and the gas station footed the bill. (kudos to them). maybe you can find someone else with the same prob that filled up there? if the diesel was that bad i'm sure your not the only one?

 

yea, that's what im hoping. i went in there to ask if anyone had complained about their diesel and the lady working said "no". then again, there are several people who work there throughout the day, so maybe someone said something to one of the other workers. im going to go back there tomorrow, but i dont have much hope for getting any money back.

 

Submit the receipt and repair bill for the work to your insurance company and they'll go after the fuel station for the reimbursement.

Or, go directly to the fuel station and speak with the owner.

 

Coal Train, i know you are one of the most experienced/knowledgeable members on here. have you ever heard of a problem like this from a fuel station? like i said, the dealer was 99% sure it was bad fuel, but you never know with them. also, it was their very first tank of winterized diesel and it took about 12-15 minutes to dispense 27 gallons. could the filters in the pump have something to do with it?

everything makes sense that it is the fuel bc it was spuddering and dying like it was running out of gas, i had filled it up the night before and it sat for about 18 hours before being driven again, and it was a different type of diesel (winterized) than i had been putting in. maybe im just paranoid?

 

Bad fuel is THE number one cause. Water is HORRIBLE on diesel injectors.

From what you're describing, that's exactly what I would have told you it was before I even looked at it.

As soon as somone tells me they just filled up and the truck started running like crap, the first thing I tell them is get a fuel sample, FAST!

Your warranty WILL NOT cover damage caused by fuel. YOUR insurance and the fuel stations insurance WILL. That's why you need to keep your receipts whenever you buy fuel.

Here's what folks need to understand about water in the fuel....

1 - By the time the Water In Fuel Light comes on (if at all), it's already too late.

2 - Water cannot be compressed (at least to the extent that fuel can be) and when it gets put into a high pressure system like a Common Rail, it becomes an abrasive and basically turns into a 20,000 psi water jet. It absolutely DESTROYS injector nozzles.

I wouldn't be surprised if they come back and told you that you need new injectors. It's highly likely that the damage is done.

I cannot stress enough how important it is to avoid fuel stations that don't do a lot diesel business.

 

it appears that the culprit is kerosene. the mechanic emptied about six 5 gallon buckets of bright yellow liquid and a kerosene smell. it is also very oily and has no diesel characteristics except for a VERY slight green haze at the top of the liquid (which you can barely see if you hold it up to the light).

i know they have a kerosene pump next to the diesel pump, but i know 100% that i used the diesel pump (i have receipt to prove it). i am going to take a sample of the "diesel" back to the station along with the receipt and see if i can get it resolved.

it would be wise for them to do it bc it is a small town (12,000) and 3 out of the 4 trucks in our fleet use their diesel for the majority of fill ups. (well over $10,000 a year).

the mechanic said he did not see any water in the liquid (which i was glad to hear). he said that there may not be many complaints bc some diesels will actually run kerosene (especially if they are just topping off with a half tank or less). idk if this is true, but i had almost a completely full tank (27 gallons of it). which is probably why my truck got home alright after filling up. also, the fact that it idled for warm-up about 20 mins before driving probably purged the good diesel out of the lines and started bringing in the kerosene when i started driving.

thoughts?

 

In the older 12V trucks, 7.3 IDI's, 6.2 and 6.5 GM's, kerosene wasn't too bad if you added a qt of 2 stroke to it for some lubrication.

If your truck had been a 24V, you'd be looking at a new injection pump.

Depending on how far you went with it, you may not be out of the woods yet.

Kerosene has almost no lubrication properties compared to #2 diesel, so I'd still be worried about damage to the pump and injectors.

 

my truck is a 24V isn't it? idk, the mechanic flushed everything and emptied the tank. he told me to change the fuel filter one more time after my next fill up. it seems to be running fine. it appears i have full power, and she is singing her normal song. the mechanic drove it around a while and got it up to 80 without any problems.

the thing is, they went and got more diesel from the same station and it had the same color and look to it, but it actually smelled like diesel. idk if maybe the diesel had settled when i filled up. don't they usually put some kerosene in diesel to keep them from gel-ing up? it just makes me uneasy that it doesn't have the green dye in it like normal diesel. im freakin out over here.

as far as injectors go, i havent noticed any unusual white smoke other than "cold smoke". i guess i'll just have to keep an eye out for it. are there any tell-tale sign of bad pump or injectors? sorry, not really mechanically inclined here.

 

Your truck is a 24V, but it's a Common Rail.

When someone references a 24V, they normally mean the 98.5 - 02 trucks that had the VP44 injection pump.

With the winter blend fuel, the do migh some kerosene in with to lower the freeze temperature. Mixed it's not bad, if it was all kerosene that would be bad.

Just keep and eye on it.