There are several stations in the little town I live in, 1 has 50/50 blend, 2 treat and the other has #1 and #2 non treated pumps. I buy the 50/50 and treat on top of it and do not have any issues. I am helping a buddy that bought the "treated" and tomorrow draining the tank to get rid of the gallon of 911 he put in it and see how many injectors we have to do. I run the white bottle with the 50/50 and do not have any issues. My 03 6.0 sits outside all of the time, but my 03 7.3 E-450 sits in the heated shop every night. New filters every fall which is usually around 12-15K and I have not had a problem. I would have a hard time relying on some else treating the fuel. I know if it put it in that its done.

 

And with engine temps in the 130+ range it probably would thaw out the filter on top of the engine.

Drain the hfcm and see what you get, then maybe pull that filter?

Sent from my Sprint PC36100 using IB AutoGroup

 

Wow I have never heard of this problem fueling in Canada! All stations switch to winter fuel in the fall before the cold starts. Only people who have a full tank of summer diesel and try to run in the winter have trouble. Diesel contains waxes (that's what gives the energy) when the fuel gets cold the wax starts to crystallize and the first place it catches and hangs up is the fuel filters. As it gets colder the fuel continues to cloud and gel to lines are affected. Only solution get it to a warm place, warm the fuel - drain it and put in proper winter diesel. I always fuel at high volume places - generally if the big rigs are fueling you should be good to go.

 

Should post the King soopers station to avoid....

Josh

 

King Soopers
hwy 34 & 11th Ave
Greeley/Evans Co

 

I've been dealing with an odd idle issue on a friend's truck... IIRC he may have mentioned using King Soopers fuel in Loveland and Fort Collins.

Josh

 

While it can get cold here on the Colorado plains, we've been seeing extremely cold temps. Far below what we're used to. It was -26 the other morning when I went to work.

 

Not the one I fuel at. I can guarantee you that most of the other stations here in Northern Colorado get their diesel from the same supplier in Denver. So it's not a King Soopers fuel station issue.

 

Not even close.

For instance Shraders is fueled by Team Petroleum out of Fort Collins. Team Letroleum is a subsidiary of Dooley Oil in Larimie and Cheyenne.

7/11 Citgo is also fueled by Team Petroleum.

As is Sandys Shell and Conoco stations.

I haven't heard of anyone else in the area with gelled filters except the OP. We have over 70 diesel trucks, including 20 parked in Greeley, none of which use any additional additives and none of those gelled.

Josh

 

First off, I didn't say everyone uses the same supplier. And for the record, Team and Dooley are not refiners. Just wholesalers. They buy it from whoever has it the cheapest. That would be one of the refineries in either Denver or Cheyenne, where everyone else gets their fuel. Secondly, how many refiners are there in Denver? Two I believe. How many in Cheyenne? One or two there I think. For example, just because the truck that delivers the fuel may say Shell and the station is a Shell station, it doesn't mean that Shell refined it. I dealt with distribution from refineries and tank farms to gas stations and fuel wholesalers from 1990-1997 in another state. I know for a fact that all the major oil companies would buy and trade gasoline and diesel with other oil companies when they weren't able to get product from their own refinery. And that happens often in a lot of places. The Front Range included. They'll just put their own additive in. And that was less than 5 gallons per 9,000 gallon truck load of gasoline (7,500 for diesel). When Shell oil first had low sulfur diesel around 1990, I saw many truck loads of it sold to to their competitors.

Last I checked, King Soopers doesn't have their own refinery. So they buy it from a wholesaler. And I can guarantee that wholesaler sells it to a lot more places than King Soopers. So the next time you see a Groendyke company tanker truck delivering fuel to a King Soopers, ask the driver what rack he loads diesel from for King Soopers. And ask him who else gets diesel from that same rack. I bet you'll be surprised.

Why my truck, the OP's and my co-worker's truck gelled and others didn't, couldn't tell you why. If you want to go buy fuel from a more expensive retailer, knock yourself out. But like I said before, I was in petroleum distribution for 7 years and I can tell you and it doesn't matter who's name is own the sign at the gas station. It often all comes from the same few refiners.

 

Well, looks like the problem is officially solved. After idling the truck for about 30-45 minutes last night, I left it plugged in for the night and that was it. True test would be this morning. Got up, it fired right up as usual, gave it a couple minutes to warm up and took it for a drive. At first I was really concerned as it seemed to really run like a dog. Then I remembered that I reverted the chip to stock setting. WHEW!

Thanks for all the help on this one. HUGE lessons learned here for me.

You guys rock.

 

Glad you got it fixed. Even though my truck seemed to be running fine yesterday, I'm still going to change my fuel filters. I'm gonna let it warm up a little more today before I got and change them.

 

I just went out and looked at my filters. They looked excellent and no signs of any wax. I'm wondering if I had some moisture somewhere in the fuel system and it just froze up with the -26 temps we were seeing that morning.