Whats the Price of Farm Diesel vice Highway Diesel now??
 

Whats the Price of Farm Diesel vice Highway Diesel??

Just curious. I mean without the Truck tax, farm diesel must be what, say 3.50 a gallon?

If this goes on maybe I will go into Farming. I dont have much of a Green Thumb, in fact both of mine are smashed pretty badly. Maybe I could grow Synthetic Oil Trees or something...

Off road diesel is just exempted from taxes, so I'd imagine it is somwhere around $0.75-$1.00 a gallon less.

BUT, most of it has red dye in it, and if you get caught running it in a road vehicle the fines get pretty steep REALLY fast. I've heard numbers in the $1,000-$5,000 per gallon range for EVERY gallon in your tank.

Not something I want to mess around with. If you can get it without dye in it, they'd have no way to prove its off road fuel though...

any chemists willing to take this project on?:D

yah some kind of catalyst to change its color back, that would be awesome.

I was quoted 4.69/gal. yesterday to fill the bulk tank with off-road at the farm.
I said no thanks, I'll wait a week or two to see what happens. I may be sorry, but at these prices probably won't be farming too much longer.

Down in WV the off-road stuff was selling at $3.69. It is the good old high sulfur stuff at some pumps (>500ppm)! Other places it is ULSD with dye added.

I ran the SDL on the high sulfur stuff while I was working on it-- I figured I was off the road so why not. It ran like a dream! The stuff was dyed red, but looked like regular road diesel with Marvel Mystery Oil or ATF in it.

I am thinking of getting five gallons of it to mix with the regular ULSD. I wonder how strong the dye would be then.

Carry a bottle of MMO in the trunk and say the red is from that.

BTW the last batch of road taxed ULSD I bought last week was dyed bright blue! Looked like the color of 'blue' ice pops...

How much of the tax is federal vs state? Does states exempt farm diesel from it's taxes, too, as a rule?

As far as the sulphur content goes, it seems like these older cars would run just as well of maybe better on the higher sulphur fuel. Does that make any difference?

For a current listing of diesel prices across North America, see this site:
http://www.flyingj.com/fuel/diesel_CF.cfm

There is only one entry for dyed diesel at the moment (for somewhere in Idaho), but it is ~$1.50 less than regular diesel.

$1000 for the first offense and $3000 for each offense there after regardless of gallons UNLESS they catch you with a AGST or UST full then its a different fine schedule

In Tennessee the Farm Diesel is 38 cents less than highway diesel and and it is dyed red. The good thing is that it is available in the old high sulphur or USLD.
Al

I'd be somewhat surprised if a Mercedes diesel has ever been checked for off-road diesel fuel. I think that privilege is mainly reserved for big rigs.

Enforcement for dyed fuel has been hit an miss since the 90's. The IRS was put in charge of it and they tried to pass it off to states. Some states are active and others don't do anything (aka Mississippi). The IRS was content with doing it and collecting the $$'s but they had no authority to stop vehicles so they were forced to either work along side enforcement officers or hand over the authority to test.

I use an unmanned card lock station that vends red, blue diesel and kero all out of the same pump.

Should be about the same price as home heating oil, correct? Delivery in quantity (how farmer's usually get their fuel) makes it about the same price as pump diesel.

If they see the diesel badge on the rear end, they have probable cause. Now, debadged, law enforcement probably can't tell a 300SD from a 450SEL 6.9, even with the big soot marks.