Does anybody here use heavy duty diesel antifreeze? I keep noticing it in stores. Prestone, MotoMaster, Wal-Mart, and Recochem all make HD Diesel antifreeze. Is it only for commerical diesels? How is this stuff different from regular antifreeze?

I see Rotella ELC in pep boys but never tried it.

Somebody please explain to me why you need special antifreeze for a diesel? How many years have they been run sucessfully on the standard product?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm almost certain that I read that diesels are more thermally effiecient than gasoline engines, thus they run cooler. That is why they take so long to warm up in winter. Since that is likely the case, I can't think of any reason diesels would need different coolant.

They run just as hot as gas cars.. the reason they are picky in the winter is because they are totally dependant on heat for running, the heat from the last explosion is what makes the next explosion happen.. there are no sparkplugs to ignite the fuel.

Turbo:
I must clarify my earlier statment. To "run cooler" was a vague way for me to have described my actual thoughts, as I'm sure the operating temperature of a gasoline engine is about the same as that of a diesel engine.
Diesel engines extract about ~40% of fuel combustion as kinetic energy compared to ~25% for a gasoline egine, which means that a diesel engine is only "throwing away" ~60% of the combustion energy as heat, compared to ~75% from a gasoline engine. (This is also why diesels take longer to warm up during winter; the metal of a gasoline engine will be at operating temperature sooner after startup than a that of a diesel engine.)
THUS our diesels require the cooling systems to dissapate much less heat energy per revolution than gasoline engines do. Think of the cooling system as the means by which the wasted heat energy is disposed of. This is why I don't think my 300D needs better coolant than a 300E. Furthermore, a 300D is a passenger vehicle, not a big rig; this is why I wouldn't use HD Diesel coolant.