Adding anti gel fluid to my fuel tanks.

I know for gasoline they do change the fuel. I drive an old 95 Jeep Wrangler and she tends to like the winter fuel better than the summer stuff.

 

That's a lot more complicated to answer than you would imagine. Really depends when you're buying the fuel. You can fairly safely go down into the teens with fuel right out of the nozzle up in the Northern Plains, but doing the same thing with fuel from say Oklahoma is going to get you in a world of hurt.

The fuel up in the northern states, even though it's labeled as #2, will have some percentage of #1 in it.

So, in the south, if it's going to be much below freezing I'm treating. In the North, I don't really treat until it's below 20 for extended periods of the day.

 

If your fuel was bought north of I 70 I wouldn’t worry about it. We run in temps down to 0 Fahrenheit and don’t even buy additives unless we’ll be dropping a reefer somewhere it might stay very cold or we still have southern fuel in tanks. But we only buy fuel at large chain truck stops. If you buy a lot of substandard fuel, you could have filters that will easily gel at 15 degrees f without additives.

 

I’ll go ‘safe’ over ‘sorry’ here.

Dose ‘em up driver!

 

Our company used to issue fuel treatment bottles at the terminal but stopped because too many drivers were using them needlessly given the quality of fuel we run. I agree an "better safe than sorry", but it's also a good idea to be aware of your fuel situation and realize most #2 fuel sold in northern states and Canada is treated to protect down to AT LEAST +10F without any additional supplements and assuming you always buy quality fuel and don't have your filters already half clogged with wax as it is.

But I can tell you, if you have a southern fuel, you better dose with additive if your shut your engine off overnight (APU) at temps at or near +10F, and if you're going to dose, or need to dose, the recommended dosage is often not enough. I might recommend you double the recommended dosage because prescribed dosage was not adequate after overnight at +5F with Texas fuel.

If your truck does lose power, hopefully you have room for a half tank or more of fuel. Stop somewhere (up north with winter fuel) with underground tanks and top off. Your power should resume in about 15 minutes or less of normal operation.

 

I’m up north.... I don’t add anything unless the highs for the day are below 20F..... and -20F for lows the truck doesn’t shut off......

But as others have said it really depends on where you bought fuel....

 

I used that stuff once, and never again.

Put it in and shortly after everything froze up.
There was some water in the fuel system and the anti-gel just forced it out and it turned into ice crystals, clogging up everything. It cost me many hours getting all the filters changed, when simply idling the truck would have avoided it.

 

I live in pa and the fuels seem to be good and always treated from the manufacture. I don’t use any of that costly stuff. I fuel every other day and temps can get down to single digits around here. My old early 2000 era cat fires right up in zero degree weather with no water seperator and no addiditives and never has trouble. She does sound pretty angry when she fires but treated diesels sound same way. No I don’t plug it in at night either. My old Cummins Ram truck doesn’t need treatment or heat to start so old cat shouldn’t either. Sub zero temps might require additives. Just my opinion though

 

Depends on when and where you are getting fuel, and what temperatures you are going to see.

During late fall to early spring, most truck stops above I40 put some antigel in their fuel.

I always add antigel when the temp gets below 15 F. I will add antigel at 32F if I fueled below I40, or will be stopping somewhere very cold to overnight during the warmer parts of the year (mountains on the west coast or in Vermont can get below freezing at night during nearly the whole year.)

Fuel is different too. Pure diesel will stay liquid at lower temperatures than biodiesel blends.

Some will say I use too much antigel. They might be right. But I would rather use it and not need it, rather than need it and not use it.

 

Something that should be pointed out is that the newer trucks with the high pressure common rail fuel systems return substantially less warm fuel than most if the earlier designs. My Series 60 returned enough fuel and kept the tanks warm enough that I only treated below zero. That's not the case with this DD13.