There has been a lot of discussion about the new ultra low sulfur fuels and how they may be damaging the fuel injection systems of older engines. You may ask yourself, what is it about sulfur that was good for engines? You mix it with water in the atmosphere and you have sulfuric acid. The same process takes place in your engine with condensation and fuel air mixture. Why in the world was sulfuric acid good for engines?
The thing is, the sulfur wasn’t good for anything. The process of removing the sulfur is the problem. During the process of filtering the sulfur from the diesel fuel, the refineries also filter out the lubricity components of the fuel. Those lubricating polymers then must be added back to the fuel as additives. This is not always done at the refinery. Sometimes it is done at the distribution level. This is not a perfect process and there have been cases of fuel being distributed with substandard lubricity content. It doesn’t matter if your engine is new or old, low levels of fuel lubricity will harm the fuel injection system in your engine. Be careful where you buy your fuel.
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