Fuel Additive - anyone using??? - Diesel Forum

PagosaRob · 07-30-2008, 10:57 AM

Hi All,
Newbie here. Thanks for helping me with this. First a disclaimer that I did search for this topic prior to posting and found little. I hope I'm not opening a can of worms here but.......

My question is anyone using a fuel additive with each tank? If so, what are you using and what results have you seen.

prosthogod · 07-30-2008, 11:16 AM

I've used RBP, Lucas oils, and now XPD summer. can't see any difference in any of them and noe difference in mpg, in my opinion a waiste but the manual says you need to.

dieselpwrdude · 07-30-2008, 11:33 AM

I use diesel kleen,its cheap.Seems to work ok and does increase my mileage a little.Only use it once a month or sometimes twice,it cant hurt.

slurrr · 07-30-2008, 12:42 PM

I also use Diesel Kleen since around 3,000miles, every tank since then, seems to be about a .5 mpg increase, currently have 18,000 miles

midwestman · 07-30-2008, 12:56 PM

I use a treatment in every tank. I have used fuel teatments since I put in my Baby Swamps which was about 200,000 miles ago. Last fall I took my truck to the strip and ran a 15.6 @93mph in 2wheel drive. I am using Schaffers summer treatment now. 1 gallon treats 4000 gallons of fuel. I have a test of several different fuel treatments that I found last summer. Send me a pm and I will email you a copy of it.

Good Luck
Midwestman
John

CMB430 · 07-30-2008, 01:19 PM

I use 12 oz of Diesel Kleen in each tank. I get about 0.5 mpg more and have 1/2 the regens when compared to a tank without.

08KINGRANCHF250 · 08-02-2008, 11:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CMB430

I use 12 oz of Diesel Kleen in each tank. I get about 0.5 mpg more and have 1/2 the regens when compared to a tank without.

I have noticed the same thing about less regens when using diesel kleen. I have almost 3000 miles now and have only noticed about 4 regens. I add 8oz to every tank.

timid1 · 08-02-2008, 01:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by prosthogod

I've used RBP, Lucas oils, and now XPD summer. can't see any difference in any of them and noe difference in mpg, in my opinion a waiste but the manual says you need to.

I don't think the manual does. It's very specific about what instances you might need to, but a blanket statement like this just simply isn't true.

snakyjake · 08-02-2008, 08:42 PM

The best fuel additive for lubrication is biodiesel (even B5 helps a lot). 2nd best is two-stroke oil.

BigDogOil · 08-02-2008, 09:02 PM

I have talked to the Ford service department and they recommend that you use in the 2008 6.4 liter is a Ford Power Stroke Cetane Booster & Performance Improver, you put 4 oz in a 25 gallons of fuel. It is formulated for this particular engine and I realize it is made and sold by Ford but a 20 oz bottle here in Canada is $11 and some change. I can't tell you at this moment if it has helped with mileage of not as I'm really hard on the throttle. Don't know if this helps out anyone, when I'm finished playing with my newly installed tuner i'll start to check mileages.

PagosaRob · 08-03-2008, 07:42 AM

I posed this same question to my Service Manager. His response was that the 6.4 was designed around the ULSD and didn't feel there was much to be gained by using an additive. But he also said using the Ford additive every 4th tank would aid keeping it lubricated. The Ford additive treats 4 tanks (120 gal) and is $10. With ULSD at $4.69 what's another $2.50 for piece of mind.

MPD56 · 08-03-2008, 03:06 PM

PagosaRob: This is my first diesel engine so I’ll give my 2 cents, In Canada at the Ford dealer, a bottle of cetane boost is $12.50, I was on vacation in the United States and bought 6 bottles of cetane boost (@ $7.00) at a Michigan Ford dealer. Usually I don’t run the tank empty so one bottle will give me 5 tanks. Today where I live a U.S. gallon of diesel fuel would cost me $5.75. So here are my thoughts on using additives, Ford recommends that you use ULSD fuel with a 45 cetane rating which I haven’t found yet and I’ve went through over 20 tanks so far. Also the additive is a cleaner, so it’s doing more then one job for $1.40 a tank or add $.05 to a U.S. gallon of diesel fuel.

So saying that: I do a lot of different driving, so I can’t say if it helps the MPG but I’m sure it doesn’t hurt the MPG. I do know that the engine seems to sound and run better, because I skip a few tanks to see. So looking at the big picture, at a $1.40 worth of additive a tank or $.70 every other tank for an engine that cost me $10,000.00, I am going to keep using the fuel additive, and when I find an additive that is better then Fords (and I’m sure there is!!), I’ll will be using that. Just to add some more math, I have burnt over 500 gallons U.S. at the cost of $2875.00 and the additive cost me less then $35.00. If I drove 5000 miles and got 10mpg without the additive and 10.5mpg with it, I could drive 250 miles more and I would save $101.91 every 5000 miles (250miles/10.5mpg x $5.75 - $35.00 = $101.91), of course this is an old man’s math and I’m sorry about the length, but also since I’m on a roll, if I did get .5mpg more with using additive, it would pay for it’s self in 51.85 miles and that is not counting the other good things it suppose to do . I’m not an employee of Ford, a Mechanic or a math teacher. So if I’m blinded by using this “Snake Oil” please enlighten me. You have a great day.

MPD56

timid1 · 08-03-2008, 06:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigDogOil

I have talked to the Ford service department and they recommend that you use in the 2008 6.4 liter is a Ford Power Stroke Cetane Booster & Performance Improver, you put 4 oz in a 25 gallons of fuel. It is formulated for this particular engine and I realize it is made and sold by Ford but a 20 oz bottle here in Canada is $11 and some change. I can't tell you at this moment if it has helped with mileage of not as I'm really hard on the throttle. Don't know if this helps out anyone, when I'm finished playing with my newly installed tuner i'll start to check mileages.

That's awesome. A Ford service department recommending Ford cetane booster.

Why doesn't that surprise me?

You're not going to notice a difference within just a few tanks. And you're certainly not going to know if it had any effect if you use a tuner. In order for you to KNOW what had an effect on your mileage, you'd need to maintain a log of a lot of different things. And you have to minimize your variables. Oh, and gassing up at different gas stations will throw a wrench into your calculations.

bwoods · 08-03-2008, 06:39 PM

i have been using stanadyne in every tank on my 01 psd it has close to 180,000 miles and i get a little over 400 miles to a tank. its a 24 gallon tank.

**jsmichael** · 08-03-2008, 08:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PagosaRob

Hi All,
Newbie here. Thanks for helping me with this. First a disclaimer that I did search for this topic prior to posting and found little. I hope I'm not opening a can of worms here but.......

My question is anyone using a fuel additive with each tank? If so, what are you using and what results have you seen.

I usually go with the Power Service additives, both in my former '99 Super Duty and now in my '08 truck. I'll use Diesel Kleen in the summer months and the Diesel Fuel Supplement for the winter months. I've also picked up a bottle of the Ford Cetane Booster additive but haven't used it yet.

If you live in a colder climate where temps get in the single digits or colder, then I'd recommend something with the anti-gel additives. Stanadyne has decent additives as well, but they cost more than the Power Service additives which I can pick up at my International dealer.

I've also heard a story where the Stanadyne additive would start gelling before the Power Service additives do, but I think that was at temps below -20 degrees F.