We are not really that far off in our opinions. I am fully aware that for certain purposes, gelling obviously and lubricity too, that there could well be value in additives especially when you have no control over your fuel source. Based on word of mouth advice here, I added 2 stroke oil to my tractor fuel for a while. Seemed reasonable. Cost was no biggie and I didn't see any harm.
The two areas that interest me most with regard to additive claims are their effects on longevity of the engine (and maintenance) and especially the claims on increased power or efficiency (MPG). Those are the areas that seem ripe for controlled studies to prove the claims and, as I noted earlier, I can find virtually nothing but anecdotal claims to bolster the manufacturer's claims. I appreciate that you are not making MPG claims (but some otherwise very well trusted TBN members are). The MPG claim just seems like such a trivial problem to prove or disprove that I am shocked there isn't any really good data on it. Why would an additive company not do such a study with a well recognized independent research organization? If the claims were proven they would markedly increase sales. They could use the data to lobby governments to require their additive in fuel. The benefits to the manufacturer of a scientifically proven enhancement of efficiency or power are simply HUGE, so why aren't those simple studies done? I am a skeptic and I believe they probably have been done but do not come close to supporting the manufacturer's claims and therefore are burying in a desk somewhere.
Longevity of engine life and lowered maintenance costs (fuel injectors etc) are also areas that have huge economic implications for individuals, companies and indeed the world. If routine use of a specific additive can be shown to decrease maintenance costs by even ten percent I would imagine everyone would adopt such an additive. So why isn't there "hard" data available to back up the claims of the additive companies? You raised Stanadyne as an example. I know bupkis about Stanadyne (or injectors) but why wouldn't a big company like that do longevity studies and publish them? Measuring lubricity gives you a laboratory number but not a real world outcome of importance. The wear index used in measuring lubricity has I am sure been standardized but what is the correlation between lubricity and real world wear? Is highly lubricating fuel any better than a fuel that has medium lubricity? Is there a cut off after which enhancing lubricity does not further good (and might cause unintended bad things)? Or, is lubricity the single most important factor in engine life and "more is better"?
I'm just arguing that DATA not anecdotes or "experience" should be the ultimate driver of decisions regarding whether to use and which additive to use. I come at this issue not as a diesel mechanic or owner of a fleet of diesel vehicles. I am basically applying the "evidence based practice" model that is standard for virtually every decision in my professional field to this decision making process. I think that "evidence based" standard can and should fit to resolve this issue.
I hear you IT - properly controlled studies are valuable, and something I would welcome.
Power (as in societal) and Politics unfortunately never seem that distant from Oil. The Engine Manfacturer Assoc. got beat, and didn't get the Wear Scar limit that they wanted legislated. It just comes down to money..... Big Oil could pay for better additives, but of course they'd sooner add to their bottom line instead.
I look at diesel additives for mainly 3 things - adding Lubrication, Cleaning properties, and Water management.
As injector geometries became smaller, at the same time as fuel rail pressure went up, it became even more critical to manage tiny water droplets. Stanadyne's approach was to de-emulsify (I prefer to think of it as coagulate) these tiny water particles into larger ones, so that a standard fuel separator/filter could do it's job more completely.
Hit an injector tip with a big enough glob of water, and you can basically blow the tip right off. Spendy :dollarsign: problem.
There are other additive strategies for dealing with water issues in fuel - I'm not saying anything one way or the other about them here, just that I liked the approach that Stanadyne took.
Lubrication - with Sulphur gone, I believe that adding some replacement lube is a good strategy.
Cleaning properties - discussing this here has reminded me to do some reading over the Winter...... I'd like to learn more about what detergency levels (if any) are mandated in diesel fuel.
I'd pay for an additive that delivers on at least 2 of the above criteria. If my injectors stay clean over the long haul, I won't say No to my fuel mileage
not declining - but to me that is just icing on the cake....
The way I look at it, nobody has more at stake than me, in terms of keeping my engines running for as long as possible.
Rgds, D.
