Had a Deere 350G roll in Monday, hard start below 40 but ran fine once it caught. Swapped the filter, pulled a sample, water was in spec but cloud point on his fuel was way too high for where he's at. Told him to start cuttin with 1 before overnight lows hit freezin, and quit toppin off his onsite tank til spring. Grid heater was cyclin fine, glow relay clickin, so nothin electrical to chase. Which honestly Ill take. Common rail stuff gets real unforgiving when it dont wanna light off. Old 3116s and 6BTs youd crank em half the winter on straight 2 and theyd fire, these new ones sneeze at 20 and throw 4 codes. What blend ratio you guys startin your customers on this year?
Early season if needed 20% is where I started.
Sounds like a classic cold fuel issue. Since the grid heater and relay are working, checking fuel cloud point was the right move. Modern common rail systems are much less forgiving than older mechanical engines. We usually recommend adjusting #1/#2 diesel blend before the first hard freeze rather than waiting for startup issues.
We don’t blend. We’ll be switching to ULSD#1 in two weeks, or so.
I wish #1 was available here, it's all blend.
Blending gets complicated at a rack because it’s hard to manage the metrics. How much of each product, some places sell gross, some net, registers have to be re-calibrated for the density, the density changes, etc. Storage becomes a problem. Cloud point isn’t a set thing. You can ask the refinery to make whatever cloud point you want for the region you are in. Sometimes they screw up and don’t supply was ordered.
Yeah we're all blend here too, no straight #1 available. 20% sounds about right.
Thanks for the input. Curious if you see much variation load-to-load up your way, or is the winter spec pretty consistent once they switch over?
It’s very consistent except for the cetane number, which is historically below ASTM spec. But, that is easy enough to addditize for.