Hot Shots EDT and LX4 and Better Diesel FBC every tank

 

Nothing. If you look in the owner’s manual, Ford recommends their own brand of additives if needed.

 

Here's the spill about additives from my 22 OM:

Seems like you don't have to use any additives, unless it is Ford's additives. But, of course they still reserve the right not to honor your warranty. Then again, even if you never let a drop of anything other than diesel straight from a pump touch your truck, they (FORD) will still be able to find a reason to deny your warranty on a fuel related warranty claim... they can always find something.

Some people never use additives, some people do sometimes, and others use it every time they fill up. Who know's who's right... there are too many variables at play to say if they work or not. So, we're all right!

 

Motorcraft PM-22a in summer, PM-23a in winter.

 

Why do you need any additive?

 

Have used ford PM-22 mostly, and lately, STA-BIL All Season Diesel Treatment. Both allegedly have no alcohol so water isn't forced through H20 separator.

 

As listed in the Ford manual

Use Motorcraft® cetane booster or an equivalent cetane booster additive if you suspect fuel has low cetane. Use Motorcraft® anti-gel and performance improver or an equivalent additive if there is fuel gelling.

 

Well since you asked.

See Bosch's report on diesel fuel lubricity here. Why do we care what Bosch thinks? They manufacture our CP4 high pressure fuel pump that Ford uses. The lubricity measurement is done using a standard HFRR test that in simple terms intentionally creates friction between a ball bearing and a plate in a controlled fashion with diesel fuel as a lubricant, and then measures the resulting wear scar. For rated service life of Bosch high pressure fuel pumps they prescribe a maximum wear scar of 460 micrometers.

Fuel manufacturers use the exact same test as one of the benchmarks for target performance when they formulate their fuels. However US manufacturers target a test result of 520 micrometers, which is a result that Bosch has concluded is not good enough. As a result you can expect the service life bell curve of all Bosch's high pressure fuel pumps in the US to shift shorter, resulting in more premature failures. This study was done back in 2003 and predicted what we see today across all of the big 3, a too-common premature failure of CP4 HPFPs.

Ford will never ever admit that they know the pumps they're using with the fuels we have available are a combination more likely to fail prematurely. Even offering lubricity additives would effectively be admission. That would be begging for a very expensive class action lawsuit. Feigning ignorance gives room for benefit of the doubt which in the grand scheme is less damaging to pocketbooks and reputation than the uptick in the number of people who will have problems. Presumably they've determined that the cost benefit of going with something else isn't favorable, they're sticking with the CP4 for now.

So you have some choices. Just go with what Ford says, and by the averages you'll still probably be fine. There have been some bad stories about Ford unreasonably denying CP4 failure warranties on some very questionable basis' like "the tech smelled something" and disregarding actual lab analysis of the fuel that showed it was only diesel, calling the person's bluff about going to court over it. But like anything else it's the bad stories that you hear about and there could be 1,000 honored warranties to every bad story.

Or you can decide that on this one you're not going to trust Ford and take your own actions to mitigate the risk. For my part, while I still like Ford a lot, this is an area where I believe they're willingly transferring the risk to owners so I don't really trust them to do us right on the warranty side, when they're doing us dirty on the equipment side. I use additives that add lubricity and have shown to bring the same fuel that tests in the 520-530 micron range down to the 350-400 range. This puts them well within spec for normal service life. In addition I'm spending some extra to put a diaper on the CP4 so if it defecates the cradle so to speak, the problem is contained at the pump and doesn't destroy $10,000 worth of equipment downstream. And that's really the kicker. Risk is measured by multiplying likelihood with impact. Even with low likelihood a high enough impact still comes out to a risk value high enough to act on. If cost of the might-happen failure weren't so high then I wouldn't willingly put myself out of the terms of the warranty. I don't usually bother with this kind of stuff, but this one is big enough that my own risk acceptance threshold is crossed. A different but similar comparison is buying lottery tickets, I don't ever buy them except every now and then the lump-sum minus tax payout divided by the odds ends up where every chance to play is worth more $ than the cost of the chance. Cross that threshold and I get involved.

 

I run Stanadyne in mine, not a zealot about it but more often than not I do. Fairly reasonable price at the local TSC, they are a parker brand and I have had good luck with their products so I tend to stick with them.

The 6.0 crowd was a huge fan of their oil additive or at least it was a few years back. Bill at powerstrokehelp claimed it did everything except cure male pattern baldness, would help me out a lot if it did... Don't see it much outside of the HEUI world however.

 

that would be a good thing . which one uses bio soy and how can we verify.

advantage of bio soy is no heavy metals so your o2 and nox sensros wont get contaminated.

 

There are numerous articles stating that as little as 2% Biodiesel brings lubricity to within spec. Most of the fuel we burn in our area is B5 to B10. In the cold months most places here add anti-gel. I fill up and go. I have more pressing things to worry about than obsessing over something that may or may not happen, and that I may or may not be able to control.

 

b5/b10 would be great for lube…but bad for water absorption . So I wouldn’t use a fuel lube additive but would use a water de-emulsifier, along with anti gel in winter. Would also do a cetane boost since bio has less btu than non bio. Bio has less emissions but more nox.

what part of the country ?

im in the nyc area and there is no pump avail b5 here.


thanks

 

Midwest, we have lots of it here.

 

Trust, but Verify.

Trust that the fuel you are getting every day has good Lubricity, and Anti-gel(for us salt belters), but verify by using a good additive. When Diesel is $5 a gallon, whats another $1.38? Thats what a 2 ounce shot costs of Hot Shots EDT. Thats every 3rd tank for me, two tanks is one shot, or $.69 since I fill at the half mark.

Cheap insurance.

 

When the #1 thing that takes out a CP4 is water.... y'all really rolling the dice with biodiesel. Good luck with that.