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Cetane at pump suppose to be min 40 Diesel shop said it runs low 30's

S

schiker

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I was reading my John Deere owners manual and it says Diesel fuel should be min 45 Cetane.

Pump Diesel is suppose to be min 40 Cetane correct?

A local Stanadyne shop says around here NW South Carolina pump Diesel runs in the low to mid 30's Cetane ?????

Any comments on that information. He said Govt lets the refinery's / distributors get away with it because to get it to 40 would cost even more ( and they allow low Cetane to reduce pump cost and so as not to stimy the economy I guess). ?????????

Gggrrrrr besides PFFP 8+ Cetane boost is there any better way to raise Diesel Cetane 6 pts plus.

I usually use Stanadyne Performance Formula but I don't think it raises it but about 4 pts +/- iirc. And the JD pump is made by Stanadyne too so I think that is the prefferred additive for the pump.
 
Are you being sarcastic? 22-24 mpg is great compared to my 16-17 mpg. I am just repeating something I heard. And trying to guage accuracy of information. I have no real evidence that the information is accurate. The shop has been in business for a long time and is reputable as far as I know. Several techs have Stanadyne certificates and a few Diploma's on the wall from IP schools. They do a fair business.

I was talking to them in general about fuel and said I had recently read about if fuel smells like a rotten egg then it is stale and old. I recently bought some offroad fuel that did not smell good like normal Diesel. And I wanted to up the Cetane. They said yep and real old fuel smells worst than a babies diaper and they get IP's that have sat for a long time and they are horrid smelling. They strongly suggested not trying to buy offroad fuel to save money unless the station turns over fuel. That its best to get fresh fuel every time. Its not worth the small savings and its the same fuel just dyed. I can see that and have read similar on many forums about buying truck stop fuel many times and can tell a difference in my truck's performance smoothness vs fuel quality.

Then we spoke further about the 45 min Cetane JD recommendation. I questioned how close the pump posted 40 minumum was and that's when they said 40 ha it is usually low 30's. from what they see. I don't know if they test it or send it off or what.

Anyone heard similar or different?
 
I work for one of the BIG 3 refineries and work in a unit that makes Diesel our specs. are 40 min on cetane usally run higher not sure what it is at the pumps. But it is expencive as HELL and no we don't get discounts (cheap Bastards)
 
Eddie: Could you explain the refinery process in layman's term to us. I know it is probably pretty extensive, but in simple terms. Is the process more costly than unleaded fuel? Is there a reason why #2 diesel is more than regular unleaded?
 
IIRC years ago the refining process(cracking?) could not get near as much gasoline out of a barrel of oil and there was a lot of left over by product(diesel) so diesel was relatively cheap...now with more advanced cracking techniques there is much less diesel left over from the refining process so less diesel = higer costs...add to that the increase in diesel vehicles on the road and now the added demand for a lesser supply of diesel increases the costs to the consumer...
 
Pep has nailed a large part! We have added equipment and another reactor to get sulfur specs down to gov standards with the reactor being filled with several million dollars in catalyst. More equipt. Further process more money to make product.
 
I understand. But as compared to making regular unleaded gasoline, does it cost more to produce a gallon or regular unleaded or a gallon of diesel?
 
Tough to answer that I'm on the operations side and not business side. I do know they pay us the same for running the unit that produce either one.
 
I wonder how much the Cetane values decay with time? And how much distribution contamination/decay effects the fuel? Once at the filling station there seems to be a pretty good variation in fuel quality. And I suspect its a bit complicated and longer story of fuel supply, storage, and distribution. Old fuel probably gets sold cheaper as distributors probably have some expiration date or turn over schedule and or tank maintance to schedule and plan. Factors of demand and holidays weather etc. And the whole gamit of bulk additive packages. Just the fact that fuel is commodity traded I think affects "distribution turn over". There is a big distributor in the next town over that has s big tank farm and I can see fuel sitting for a while and affecting smaller stations.

This instance of offroad fuel mentioned above was the worst smelling fuel I have ever smelled. In comparison I went to get some truck stop fuel from a high volume station and the fuel was really clear and foamy white and smelled good and oily Dieselly. Sometimes Diesel fuel has a yellowish or greenish hew but I have never smelled a rotten egg odor before.

In about 6 years I have only purchased bad fuel twice. Once off the interstate at an Exxon truck stop (mom and pop truck stop that had about 6 big truck lanes and I thought had a decent business) and this offroad purchase. The previous bad fuel just made my water in fuel light come on but ran ok in the truck and did not smell bad that I remember.
 
The higher cost of diesel is directly related to the higher amount of federal taxes placed on diesel fuel.

The fed tax on fuel in NY, CT, CA, and HI, IS ON AVG. .84 a gallon and 28 to 46 a gallon elsewhere.

Diesel was and is taxed at a higher rate, originally as an over the road tax placed on big rigs to supposedly cover the maintenance and repair of the highways.

But now the gen pub. drives more diesels than ever before and with the fed mandating LSD, may be adding to the additional strain of producing LSD.
 
Hey Eddie, so where do you refine (general area if that does not violate any company disclosure)? And do you know what direction the fuel heads in afterwards? And or if it stays in a certain distribution area / region???? I have read bits and pieces of regional distribution and gasoline variation for expected climate and weather of region. Does Diesel get refined any differently regionally that you know of?

I did not mean to tangent on economy of distribution but to point out that once refined price probably still fluctuates and affects sales and retail/distribution profit margins etc.

Take for instance Walmart can wait to the last minute and buy produce / perishables cheaper that is about to expire because they can distribute and more importantly sell it faster and make money on the "timeline" easier than other major chains.

Not to tangent further but for example Walmart seems to push milk expiration further or has less safety factor in sell by date than other grocery stores. And Walmart buys cheaper and sells cheaper again banking on this quick turn over "timeline". They might do this for gas and fuel too. How about others ?????

I'd like to know more on distribution side. Big chains around here like Flyin J, Pilot, and T/A truck stops have their own trucks and distribute to themselves vs others that are supplied from a distributor that may feed several if not all nearby stations (no matter what the sign says on the pump).
 
A long time ago a friend worked at a station and he had to record how many gallons each pump sold every day. I wonder if its kind of like Walmart the stations only own the fuel between the time its pumped and when its paid for or something like that ??? I know the stations seem to change the prices daily but don't get a tanker daily. So there is some type of commodity value going on there isn't there? Heard once that they have to price fuel to buy next tanker. A truck stop went under here because they said prices were causing them a cash flow problem waiting the 30 days for the major truck diesel cards to pay for fuel on credit.

How Walmart supposedly doesn't own some items as inventory until its scanned at register then sells it to you at the register within minutes???? And if it doesn't sell during the season then the mfg has to take excess inventory back. What happens when a distributor buys fuel at a high price and prices drops substaitially and doesn't go back up for a while????
 
I work around the new orleans La. Area we sell most of our fuels to the Florida and east cost. Believe or not most of our product don't even get sold were it is made. We also have to contract the fuel for the work trucks.
 
I have heard that before that its shipped elsewhere. Wonder if that is so it will help average out quality nation wide. Mixing fresh fuel with old seems to correct and bring up avg quality.

Or if its some mandated scheme to limit monolopy effect?
 
One of the local stations did a piece on the price of Diesel a couple summers ago when all fuel prices were through the roof. They said a big part of the problem (at least in the Houston area) was that when gas prices went up people bought less. So we sort of had a gasoline surplus but prices didn't fall for some reason. They said one of the refinery's said they would love to make more Diesel but as part of the process they would also end up making gasoline and at the moment they didn't have any place to put the gasoline.
 
one thing that EVERYBODY seems to forget in this whole fiasco of fuel pricing; especially diesel; is that we are involved in a WAR!! 99.5% of all military vehicles run on some form of diesel fuel. and at a rate of 4 TO 5 MILLION GALLONS A DAY being used by just the US military alone is going to put s strain on any market/supplier. as much as I hate this supply and demand theory crap; when you have a entity using that much of a product it doesnt leave much to go around for every one else.
 
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