Is ULSD a magic pill or what?
 

Well, I'm just kidding about the magic pill, but last Friday I finally got my hands on some ULSD for the first time, and my '96 E300D had the honor of being the first one of my cars to try it. I must say I'm impressed. I can't comment on the fuel economy yet and I have read reports of mileage dropping with ULSD, but what's amazing is that so far I can't smell the exhaust anymore. Usually the way I sample it is by putting my hand under the exhaust and then smelling my hand. With LSD, there was always a diesel smell, kind of that typical sweet, bus-like smell. But with ULSD I could hardly smell anything. I guess that sweet diesel smell was from the sulphur. Another amazing thing that I have a hard time believing is that my IP's o-rings stopped leaking on ULSD, at least for now. I guess they were swollen and the ULSD, with its seal shrinking tendency, reversed the aging process somehow, but who knows. Has anyone experienced anything unusual with ULSD or any mileage drops?

Interesting, no more diesel smell. That's the one thing I hated about diesels, I'm glad it's going away.

I like the smell when B100 is used. :cool:

I'll miss the smell. Always reminded me of boating. :(

I filled yesterday for the 2nd time with (Shell) ULSD. I was concerned that MPG was going to be way off but it wasn't the case. Fuel calcuation showed my 2nd best MPG ever. Smoking is virtually non-existant on this 2nd fill. Not the case with the initial fill...probably purging dirty fuel. Odor is minimal. Car runs nice :)

Brand new spin-on clogged after 300 miles on ULSD. :(

Any lubricity concerns folks? Do the engines run and sound the same as before? Better worse?

My mpg seems to have dropped, but I'm not 100% certain it's the fuel. My current tank is being tested...

I liked the smell of diesel exhaust in the morning....it always smelled less caustic than gasoline emissions!...almost sweet...;)

I have not had any measurable changes in performance or economy that I can attribute to ULD, B20 or ULSD that I have used. Through the area I travel
in New England, changes in topography and elevation have much more of an effect on my fuel economy than changes in fuel. I live at 80ft. elevation and in two hours travel time I could be making a business call at 3,000ft.

I don't know how accurate it is but I have checked witht he diesel shops around here and their line seems to be wait and see. They don't think it will have an issue but because it is so new, they don't know for sure. I think I ran a tank and the sound was about the same.

Not sure why anyone cares about the should but I can't really tell the difference. Even less sure about why anyone goes sniffing their exhaust to see what it smells like. I could care less what it smells like since I am driving the car and the exhaust is pointing towards the rear and not into the cab.

You haven't been behind a UPS truck for any distance then. They can be most foul; ULSD will be a godsend if it removes that horrible stench.

I ran the 240D on ULSD last year when the ARCO pump had it.....they then switched it back to #2 after a few months. It's hard to determine any difference due to inconsistent driving locations for each tankfull. It did still smell like diesel and the fuel was blue! It ran fine but I had been blending it with a cube of SVO and filling the rest with ULSD.

The Chevron i got ULSD more recently in the W123 240D is clear or close to it. I have yet to run a full tank through it but it appears to be yielding near the 30mpg mark but i'll have to see at fillup time.

I noticed better mileage and less diesel smell, more of a burnt smell than on normal diesel. And the fuel is blue.

are all shells selling ULSD? i filled up with shell diesel(cheaper than my local stuff when i was out of town) and i had better milage that week.. i got 27 mpg instead of 24.. woo

ULSD...

I have gone through two spin on and two prefilters. Little black spots of crud are flowing to the prefilters. And even finer particulates are being caught by the main.

When my filters aren't clogged, there is no smoke, no matter how hard the flogging, and they start in the morning faster than I ever remember. Feels like I added a bottle of Diesel Kleen to the tanks as far as response.

No smell, consistent performance, and a MASSIVE improvement in highway power (engine speeds in excess of 3.5K rpm).

I replaced my filters 4000 miles (one week) ago and now I'm getting more black in the pre-filter. I just picked up a bottle of biocide to try to kill off these little critters, time to order a few more filters. :o

All these clogged filters are telling me that ULSD has a good cleaning ability. I've been using fuel additives for a long time to keep my fuel system clean so I should have no problem with filter clogging. ULSD is also supposed to have a higher cetane index than LSD so it should run quieter. Since I use a cetane booster (both with ULSD and the old LSD) the cetane index of the fuel in my tank was probably already as high as it could be, so I didn't notice any difference in sound when I tried ULSD.

About lubricity, there's an ASTM standard that requires a minimum level of lubricity, and this level is no lower than what it was with LSD. In fact it could even be higher now, but I'm not sure about that.

aklim, the main reason I occasionally sniff my exhaust is to evaluate the quality of combustion. The fact the ULSD smells less tells me that it burns cleaner, and it's probably better for the engine too. Plus it's nice not to have any smell in the garage when pulling in.

Someone else here once upon a time said this... "Diesel fumes in the morning smell like Victory!"

I prefer napalm. ;)

How do you know if they switched to ULSD in your area? I have not noticed any change with my cars.

May favorite: "Diesel smoke makes me horny!" :D

Pump guy at local truckstop tells me they have switched over, but I haven't noticed much difference. Yeah, I think the smell is toned down a bit, but otherwise, I don't know. Hard to tell, because I just had a new (used) turbo put on, which had a big positive effect on power.

I've been adding a little Power Service since he told me that, just to put my mind at ease with regard to lubricity. I know it should be fine in theory, but I'll let others be the guinea pigs. :D

In my state and I believe most states do this too, there are stickers on the pumps indicating ULSD. If there's no sticker, it's probably LSD (up to 500 ppm sulphur) unless you're in California that has nothing but ULSD and stickers are not required.

I assume it's national, I've seen identical stickers in about 10 different states recently. My recent cross-county trip indicates that about 50% of the pumps have ULSD stickers now, but I suspect most of the LSD is really ULSD by now anyway.

I belive October 1 was the switchover date, (except for CA which has already switched over) so all pumps shoud be pumping ULSD irregardless of sticker.

I thought it was October 15, but I'm not certain.

I'll be filling my first tank of ULSD tomorrow morning. Report back on the results later. I kinda like the smell, and will probably miss it, even more when I get biodiesel production going.

You guys dont get a smell with ULSD???!!!

I still get that raw stench of diesel, and california is now set with all ULSD pumps wether the pumps have stickers or not its ULSD your pumping by law.

Do you remember what old diesel smelled like (the stuff you could still smell on your hands 2 days later)? ULSD has practically no smell compared to the old stuff.

Same deal here in the south bay. Diesel still smells like diesel, same smoke too when on dino. I think I have run 1 or 2 tanks and haven't noticed much of a difference. Maybe california has a different blend as always.

maybe we dont notice a difference since we got "carb" diesel instead of 500ppm diesel for the longest time. Carb diesel was for all the carb states and had lower ppm then the "federal" states. But of course ULSD has much lower ppm then carb diesel.

Still get the smell on my hands from the shell station, and they were one of the first ones to get ULSD. The passat still smokes like it did on the previous diesel and the smell is still there. There is no smell present in the passat with biodiesel of any blend even as low as B5!

The MB's though i havent noticed a difference, some claim ULSD smells like painter thinner? i still smell the plain old diesel smell ive been used to though. And the MB's still blow out black clounds when you floor them on the highway:D

With biodiesel you get a small white puff:rolleyes:

To me the ULSD has a slight chemical smell, nothing like the old stuff. Maybe the cali stuff is different. :confused:

I couldn't help but laugh about the clogged fuel filters. My 87 300SDL only had about 160K when I switched to B100 for the summer. I went thought the first pre filter in about a tank, then another in another tank. It really cleaned out the fuel system. Today, I changed the main filter, and immediately noticed the difference. Probably should have changed it sooner, but it's been less than 10K on that filter.

If you really want to get a clean system, run B100 for a couple of tanks and carry several spare filters....:)

check this site
 

check out this site, it gives the dates and such .http://www.chevron.com/products/prodserv/fuels/diesel/ulsd.shtml

By the way, diesel is a carcinagin so dont sniff too often.

In our fire houses they installed elaborate exhaust systems to suck out the fumes.

Too many guys getting cancer :mad: :mad:

Steve

Yes, minor lubricity concerns. It's so subjective to say whether the car runs "better". Some seem to think so. It's to early for me to declare, I'm only on my 2nd tank (per pump label).

Lubricity issue:

ASTM spec D975 calls out a minimum of 520 microns (HFRR)

The FIP manufacturing group wants a minimum spec of 460 microns. You can see a gap. So, for those who don't consider the FIP to be a disposable component, you may wish to use an additive that will improve overall lubricity in the fuel system. :)

FWIW, once the refiners settle into producing S15 (ULSD), we should be buying the best D2 product ever available in N America.

+ + ahhh sacrilige !!!! JK but i LOVE the smell of diesel.:wacko:

I looked at the pump when I got fuel today and it had the LSD diesel sticker on it.

San francisco fire department is running on biodiesel now that the SF co-op opened up. You could smell it when they are passing by too!

I thought it is going to have to conform to ATSM spec irrespective of what the FIP group wants?

It conforms to the ASTM spec. The equipment mfrs want better lubricity as their bare minimum.

I drove my ULSD car again this morning and I'm getting the seat of the pants feeling that the car has slightly less power now because of the fuel, which was apparent to me right after filling up but I didn't really "confirm" it until today. According to the Chevron website ULSD has about 1% less energy content than LSD, but in my case it may be more as I doubt I could feel just 1%. On the TDI website I've read some info about certain distributors/retailers mixing in kerosene if there's a shortage of ULSD to meet the ULSD deadline. Something to watch out for I suppose. But once ULSD becomes commonplace and everyone settles in, there shouldn't be any such issues.

As I'm nearing to 3/4 of tank full, I'm feeling that my mileage is indeed lower than it was before. Normally I'd be around 150 miles by now, but I'm only at about 110. I suspect this station where I got the ULSD (and where I usually don't go) mixed some kerosene into the fuel.

has anyone ever tried this as a fuel?probably contains more hydrocarbon than fry oil.stand clear of the tailpipe upon ignition!:silly:

Anyone know when SC is getting this "new and improved" diesel?