Really, really dumb question about difference between off road and on road diesel fuel.

[CliffordK]

My guess is those with obvious construction or farm vehicles are much more likely to get red dye tested than on road semi trucks.
I've never seen it done

 

[SwingOak]

I have a 100 gallon aux/transfer tank and no, I don't make special trips to Costco just for fuel, but if I'm in the area (and need fuel), I stop there and fill up. Off road diesel today $3.29, Costco is $3.54, other stations nearby between $3.79-$3.99.

 

[Long Valley]

A couple of you guys mentioned using your home heating oil in your tractors. Just as everything else, a couple people told me it's the same stuff with dye; a couple people told me it's very different.
I do it to save some money, but especially for convienience. I put a pump on top of my home heating tank, and it saves a lot of lifting and filling jugs.
Is it the same fuel or not?

I believe (in Ontario) the furnace fuel has kerosene added to it for winter burning to avoid gelling?

The dyed diesel near me is 30-40 cents per gallon cheaper, so its not a great savings.

 

[Long Valley]

Interesting! Here in Canada we have farm diesel it is dyed kinda purple. Really same diesel except for the dye and less tax! We can use it in our trucks on road (registered as farm trucks).

In Ontario that is not allowed, even if registered as a farm truck. Any vehicle with a license plate is not allowed to run dyed diesel. Best to check your provincial regs.

Coloured fuel | Fuel Tax

Learn about fuel tax rules in Ontario. The types of fuel and who needs to register, report and pay fuel tax.This online book has multiple pages. Please click on the Table of Contents link above for additional information related to this topic.Gasoline Tax International Fuel Tax Agreement...

www.ontario.ca

 

[Richard]

Usually they will just check your exhaust pipe for the red dye
and the fee for red dye in the exhaust pipe was told $10,000

20 years ago when I was (only slightly) dumber than I am now...

The farm here was timbered. The guys doing the timbering were (in my mind) major jerks. They destroyed a lot of things supposed to be left behind as they drove their logging machinery around (far was selectively timbered). Still....I get that. Big machines, trees dragging behind them.

They would leave their trash all over the place. Lunch bags? tossed aside. Empty oil jugs (for chainsaws) lobbed into the woods. They evidently had to replace two of the huge tires on their big machine that would drag the trees from cut site to where their huge delimbing/cutting to length machine was.

As they were near finished, I started going out to start to clean things up, create burn piles... came across one of their HUGE slash piles. This thing was probably 100' long, 20' wide and looked to be 30' high but was probably 10' high. I noticed within the burn pile, covered up with a lot of slash, those two huge skidder tires.

After all the other trash I picked up behind them, I finally told them these were in a pile to be burned and need to be gone. His comment back was "nah, just burn them"

Well, I was not going to have the burnt carcas of them laying about for more decades PLUS, turns out it's illegal to burn tires like that.... he was ignoring me. I called Sheriff (or someone) and was told, I had to file a complaint on the land owner (my father in law) to initiate it and it would work down from there.....so I did it.

Mysteriously, a week or three later, the tires were gone.

I was still fuming at what these dolts tried to get away with (they also obsconded off with some very large rocks that were quarried off the farm,. laying there (that I was going to use).

Anyway....back to topic.... it was all I could do to keep from taking 5-gallons of off road diesel and dump it into his/their trucks..... then call the authorities with my "suspicion" that they were using off road in their vehicles. Didn't do it of course, but I was tempted. They would have earned the problems that might have brought them but, I'm generally, a decent person so didn't do it, in spite of all the crap they brought to their visit.

 

[GeneSimm7]

The only difference is the dye and price (due to extra taxes). I use highway diesel in my tractor all the time even though I could use off-road and save money, but I use the highway type in case of an emergency and I have to "borrow" some tractor fuel for my truck. I don't want to get caught with dyed fuel in my truck. Could be very expensive!

 

[Charliedeere]

Now I will admit, I don't know a darn thing about diesel fuels. Never touched a diesel motor, much less owned one before I bought my tractor several months ago. A friend of mine told me to use the off road diesel, since it is significantly cheaper, and basically the same as the on road stuff you would buy for passenger vehicles except for the colored dye to mark the off road stuff.

Then the other day another friend tells me that I shouldn't be using the off road diesel in my tractor, because there are significant deficiencies in the off road stuff, particularly lubrication of engine parts, that are detrimental to the engine.

So, who is correct?

And I sure do hope that there isn't going to be 50 percent saying one, and the other 50 percent saying the other is correct. :/

Where I live I can buy on road diesel cheaper than off road, as long as I buy it at certain retailers. The price of diesel varies widely depending on the retailer . Most truck stops it’s nearly $4 a gallon other service stations about $3.75, however I can buy at sams club for $3.40 to 3.60 per gallon. The last time I checked off road fuel it was around $4.00 per gallon.

 

[ruffdog]

Does cheap fuel price equate cheap fuel quality?

 

[boatmoter]

Now I will admit, I don't know a darn thing about diesel fuels. Never touched a diesel motor, much less owned one before I bought my tractor several months ago. A friend of mine told me to use the off road diesel, since it is significantly cheaper, and basically the same as the on road stuff you would buy for passenger vehicles except for the colored dye to mark the off road stuff.

Then the other day another friend tells me that I shouldn't be using the off road diesel in my tractor, because there are significant deficiencies in the off road stuff, particularly lubrication of engine parts, that are detrimental to the engine.

So, who is correct?

And I sure do hope that there isn't going to be 50 percent saying one, and the other 50 percent saying the other is correct. :/

only difference is off road has a dye in it. you do not want to get caught with the off road in your tagged on road vehicle,it can cost a lot of money and trouble. the off road does not have a road state tax on it so it's cheaper

 

[Up to the Axles]

A couple of you guys mentioned using your home heating oil in your tractors. Just as everything else, a couple people told me it's the same stuff with dye; a couple people told me it's very different.

Is it the same fuel or not?

I've been out of the pipeline business for many decade, so this data is pre-low sulfur, BUT:

We had tankage, as in 3-4 million gallons, for Kerosene, Diesel, and #2 Heating oil. (And of course, gasolines...) The #2 was a lower Cetane rating than Diesel, and did not have the lubricity of Diesel. The latter was important for high pressure injection pumps, i.e. engines vs. furnaces.

We also had Jet-A. Jet-A is just Kerosene held to the highest specs. When we got a tender of it, it went into a holding tank until the lab had tested a sample. There were about 12 separate tests run. If it flunked, it was transferred to the Kero tank. if it passed, it was pumped to the airports.

Interestingly, Conrail bought lots of Kero; they used it in their diesels. Further, the airlines used Jet-A in their refueling tankers {that pull up to the aircraft} and "ramp lice" - the dozens of aircraft tugs, huffers, baggage conveyors and tows, etc. They had a tax exemption and decided the higher price was offset by the costs of keeping 2 fuels on the field. It also made it impossible for anyone to load the wrong fuel into an aircraft. I assume both groups had done the math and decided this made sense to their bottom lines.

Oh, BTW nothing was dyed there. We sent it to a marketing terminal where they loaded the trucks; the dye was injected there.

So I'd assume that Heating oil still ain't Diesel.