I stumbled across this product which would allow a person to test for water in the fuel at the station in about 5 minutes.
Hmmm, kinda interesting...

Water Test Kit for Oil, SVO, WVO, Biodiesel - Water Tester - Utah Biodiesel Supply

 

Interesting comparison of water in B20 vs. water in #2 diesel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lh4qhXc_5s

 

Very nice Bob. It would be cool if there was a listing of all the states that mandated the use of bio fuel whether it be B5 or B20.

 

Thanks for sharing the link. After buying the kit, the testing supplies seem to be quite reasonable, about $1.20 per test.

 

I've always wanted to do chemistry at the pump.

 

Excellent find! I do believe this is what is causing all the HPFP paranoia/problems. I'd say post that on one of those out of control threads but I don't think it will help any......

 

I am wondering what the dealers use to determine water in fuel before denying warranty coverage.

 

That's a good point. I wonder the same thing.

 

We have to test each load of Crude Oil before we load it into the tankers from the Oil well.

We take 100 ml of crude, mix with 100 ml of Stoddards Solvent, heat it to 140° and then spin it in a centrifuge. any water or solids of course spins out and can be seen in the bottom of the vials. We have to reject any load that shows .5% of any type of or combination of contaminates.

The heater and centrifuge we use are not as cheap as this product, I'm sure that testing diesel for water would be no different, (Much of our crude oil almost looks like diesel straight out of the ground.) But I'm not sure I'd want to tie up a fuel pump at a gas station while I took the sample, heated and spun it with other customers waiting in line to fuel their trucks. But it is something you can do with any sample you pulled from your filter at home.

The referenced test in the post above would identify water, but would not show any solids or other contaminates, Since it uses a reaction with water to produce Hydrogen gas that it measures.

The pipelines we unload into also test for water as we unload. So they test on the fly as we pump. Not sure what technology they use to test oil flowing past at 10 barrels a minute.

As a hauler we have to test every load and make sure. If we load 200 barrels of oil on a tanker and the pipeline won't accept it because it has too much water, we have BOUGHT that 200 barrel load of oil. Thats a $20,000+ mistake.

 

There was a document for the procedure they do posted but I am not sure where it is. It basically says to drain the DCFM and look for water, let the fuel filters sit and check for white crystal formation indication DEF in fuel. The rest is checking various components for rust indicating water. It's an 11 page document.

Maybe someone can post a link.

 

This is the document that most people are referring to:

6.7L Diesel Fuel System Contamination Diagnosis

 

Sorry Link doesn't work

 

Somehow that embedded Youtube video closed a div tag prematurely and blew up the rest of this thread. Everything is looking strange right after that post.

 

Uh, rust, and water is clear. Urea is mostly water, and leaves crystals. Gasoline has a different smell.