Alternative Fuel

Companies and most O/O have fuel cards and tend to be able to buy their fuel at a price much lower than the price on the pump. I myself no longer drive so I dont know the current rate. Those whom use the fuel cards will have to respond, yet I am only taking a guess here that it is 40 cents off the pump price.

You can be like Willie Nelson whom tried to supply bio-fuel for the masses. Yet a rule of thumb says, to try something that is unproven may mean time spent along the road broke down for trying something new.

 

The exhaust treatment systems are so expensive to repair and certainly if they ever get wind that an "alternative fuel" was used, that truck will never get any type of engine or other system work covered under warranty. That idea alone will exclude all but those with much older equipment which are becoming quite rare these days.

 

I've never heard of mixing diesel and water. I've always been told water + fuel = blown injector tips.

 

You would be better served working with the engine manufacturers directly. I don't care how long my truck is out of warranty, I am not going to run something that it was not designed to run. If something is damaged it gets real expensive real quick. Are you willing to cover repairs and down time? Who determines what caused the damage? If a truck has 800k miles and blows up, what caused it? The mileage or your fuel?

 

All I can tell you for sure is engine manufacturers and truck builders have gotten warranty denial reasoning down to a science. They spend 80% of their time looking for ways to deny a warranty claim due to "Improper or unauthorized" application, use, maintenance, fuel, or lubrication product.

If they find the driver had Irritable Bowel Syndrome for a time back in 2014, they will deny a DPF component warranty claim just based on that.

 

Another consideration is performance of your fuel. Will horsepower suffer as a result of the fuel being diluted?

 

I think would have to hurt fuel economy, while you might be upping the compression you still lose power density in the fuel.

 

Most O/O's that don't have the technical know-how to produce alternative fuels on their own are wary of them to the point of superstition. Those that do will run water/methanol injection or propane injection they set up on their own, usually for more power on engines without emission controls, whether they came from the factory that way or not.

What you're probably going to want to look for is a small fleet that does its own fueling, usually vocational fleets, where they've relegated fuel purchase to a bean counter that only sees the bottom line and hasn't had dirt under their nails a day in their life. They've usually got 500-1000 gallon above ground fuel tanks sitting out back, so they're easy to find.