General Diesel Rhino Fuel Additive

[Shadeyman]

Originally Posted by skyship007

Bio is a negative factor in gell point terms as wax starts to form in unheated fuel filters around minus 5C and all EU fuel sold in winter in the UK has enough additives to be good for minus 15C even at Tesco. The limit is minus 21C in Germany and minus 23C in Austria and Switzerland.

The Bio diesel is only added as part of the go green game, although with traces of veggie oil and the bio part is good news for the entire fuel system. Very little or no lubricant additives are used in any fuel that has more than 2% Bio content, although some is used in winter mix to meet current EU standards.

Sulphur contamination is not an issue if the fuel has enough Bio, BUT it's bad news in the long term to spend too much time at idle, because the Sulphur fails to form a gas and form acids like Suphuric acid that are not good for exhaust valve seats, valve guides or compression ring wear rates. It also contaminates the engine oil to some extent and is one of the reasons why the oil change intervals of petrol cars in the USA is less than that of the same car in the EU (The other is the use of lighter engine oils).

I'm not 100% sure but I read somewhere that high sulphur fuels turn engine oil black because of the sulphuric acid created at low engine temps.

[skyship007]

Sulphur contamination can turn oil black because traces of acid that form around the rings finish up in the oil where they react with the Calcium and Magnesium sulphate detergent and dispersant additives. That results in those detergents running out earlier in the oil change interval. Oddly enough it won't cause the oil to turn black until a good deposit of sludge has formed a few oil changes later if the engine is subject to too long an OCI or lots of time at idle.