Dodgy Diesel

[marty16610]

Hi all. After many months of trouble free motoring i have found out a disturbing fact about the gal i bought. I bumped into the previous owner a while back and during our chat he told me he used to run the car on "cherry" diesel (red). This has got me wondering if this is why she smokes when i boot it, nearly failed last mot because of excessive smoke. Would any damage have been done to the cat ? and will using injector cleaner in the tank do any harm? . Car runs fine, good mpg, no power loss just lots of smoke under hard acceleration. Cheers guys and gals

[Andrew T]

I presume the previous owner had declared this and paid the required duty to HM Customs and Excise?

 

I inadvertently put a full tank of Farm Diesel through our Xantia and ran like a bag of S***e. It wouldn't idle smoothly or pull cleanly and it smoked a bit. Shortly afterwards it broke its timing belt tensioner, although I don't know if it was connected. A laboratory analysis of the fuel from this garage (on ITVs Trevor MacDonald Tonight, no less) showed it be nowhere near the quality of proper road Diesel. The garage is question was decolouring red Farm Diesel and selling it for road use. Following their exposure on National TV the Garage closed down. I gather this process was developed in Ireland by a certain well known Terrorist organisation as a way of raising funds.

 

Aside from the above, the practice of using Red Diesel in road cars is widespread enough for it to be worthwhile for HM C&E to take a mobile road fuel testing unit to the livestock markets around here.

[raymac]

Hi all. After many months of trouble free motoring i have found out a disturbing fact about the gal i bought. I bumped into the previous owner a while back and during our chat he told me he used to run the car on "cherry" diesel (red). This has got me wondering if this is why she smokes when i boot it, nearly failed last mot because of excessive smoke. Would any damage have been done to the cat ? and will using injector cleaner in the tank do any harm? . Car runs fine, good mpg, no power loss just lots of smoke under hard acceleration. Cheers guys and gals

 

I think most diesels blow quite a bit of smoke when you floor it, my gaffer had a brand new mondeo tdci 130bhp and when you floored it it left quite a bit of smoke behind and i also had the same with my audi 80 estate,as for nearly failing the mot i ahve been advised the best thing to do is before you take it for the mot give it a good run out on the motorway and that helps so i am told :angry:

[tim-spam]

Mine barely registered 1/5 of the smoke emission limit on its last MOT. Most modern diesels smoke very little indeed, although if the car is only ever used for short runs and is never driven hard, soot can build up in the exhaust over time and can be blown out during the MOT test, giving a poor result.

[soptom]

I presume the previous owner had declared this and paid the required duty to HM Customs and Excise?

What's that got to do with his question? There's no need to be so pretentious, it's irrelevant to the current owner if the previous one paid duty or not.

[cartman]

I inadvertently put a full tank of Farm Diesel through our Xantia and ran like a bag of S***e. It wouldn't idle smoothly or pull cleanly and it smoked a bit.

 

 

Can't see that being the diesel, A farmers combine harvester costs more than a ferrari...So i don't think they would run their machines on anything thats going to damage them.

[Guest peter312]

Forgive me if this is incorrect, but I was under the (naive) impression that it is possible to tell that a car has previously been run on red diesel, as the red dye in the diesel stains the innards of the fuel tank, engine etc.

 

Regards

 

Peter

 

p.s. Nice to see a fellow smirker, Marty.

[RADIOTWO]

Hi all. After many months of trouble free motoring i have found out a disturbing fact about the gal i bought. I bumped into the previous owner a while back and during our chat he told me he used to run the car on "cherry" diesel (red). This has got me wondering if this is why she smokes when i boot it, nearly failed last mot because of excessive smoke. Would any damage have been done to the cat ? and will using injector cleaner in the tank do any harm? . Car runs fine, good mpg, no power loss just lots of smoke under hard acceleration. Cheers guys and gals

 

 

JUST TO LET YOU KNOW ! IT MAKES NO DIFFRENCE RED OR WHITE, ITS ALL THE SAME WITH A DYE.

 

BUT AS FOR PERORMANCE ETC IT WON'T HARM THE CAR

 

THE ONLY HARM IS YOUR POCKET IF YOU GET CAUGHT USING IT ON THE PUBLIC ROAD

 

RADIOTWO

[NikpV]

ow - please don't shout :lol:

[gregers]

i was under the same impression as(radio two),im sure this has been covered years back(if it still exists :lol: )about the pros and cons etc specially losing your car if caught.

[anadin]

carnt see any harm done it is just a dye, try injector cleaner , i think they may do cat cleaner too, and change air filter if not recent

[Andrew T]

I inadvertently put a full tank of Farm Diesel through our Xantia and ran like a bag of S***e. It wouldn't idle smoothly or pull cleanly and it smoked a bit.

 

 

Can't see that being the diesel, A farmers combine harvester costs more than a ferrari...So i don't think they would run their machines on anything thats going to damage them.

it's possible that in my case it could have been the chemicals put in to recolour the diesel that caused the problem.

[marty16610]

Hi all. Just to clarify one point, ITS NOT ME USING RED DIESEL IT WAS PREVIOUS OWNER !!! Ive been looking up on the web and what i found is that red diesel contains a higher level of sulphur than regular pump diesel hence more smoke. I gave the car a full service when i got it and have done the air/fuel filters again since. i will put some injector cleaner through to see if it makes a difference.

 

 

 

peter312 - My missus is a BIG bon jovi fan and even has a smirk tattoo (on her arm) :lol:

[Andrew T]

I had a quick Google on this and found that White diesel has a minimum cetane rating of 51, red diesel around 45. I presume Cetane is the Diesel equivalent to the Octane rating for Petrol?

[marty16610]

So basically red diesel is low quality :lol:

 

Cetane Number.

 

"A percentage indicating the ignition quality of diesel fuels. It is actually a measure of a fuel's ignition delay. This is the time period between the start of injection and start of combustion (ignition) of the fuel. In a particular diesel engine, higher cetane fuels will have shorter ignition delay periods than lower cetane fuel"

 

 

Red and white cant be the same else why dye good fuel and sell it at a loss :D

[soptom]

I found this quote from someone who wrote to Shell.

 

"I put this question to Shell who stated quite unequivocally that at one time Red diesel was in fact identical to road diesel with a red marker added for tax identification purposes. Changes in Goverment requirements for more stringent standards for road diesel have meant that sulphur levels have been lowered, along with other modifications to road diesel. However and most importantly, Red diesel/heating oil/gas oil has remained exactly the same. Andrew Morris has kindly confirmed that this has certainly been the same for at least 10 years!"

 

Basically, red diesel is the same as normal diesel of ten years ago. If a car could use it then, it can use it now, however, a newer engine would be spec'd to run with less sulphur. Stricter emmisions testing would also cause problems.

[sparky Paul]

Red and white cant be the same else why dye good fuel and sell it at a loss :lol:

 

They don't - broadly speaking, red is the same price as white - only the duty (4.22p per litre) and VAT (5%) paid to HMCE is different, hence the difference in retail price.

 

Because there is a reduction in tax payable (approx 6p/litre) for ultra-low sulphur white diesel, it is usually ULS, but there is no need for red to be ULS as there is no financial incentive. Sulphur in fuel acts as a lubricant and combustion aid, so the reduced-sulphur fuels need to have chemical additives to improve the the lubricity and increase the cetane rating to compensate for the low sulphur content.

 

As I understand, in practise there is little difference in the actual performance of the two fuels.

[tim-spam]

Except , of course, that some emission controlled diesel engines running on high sulphur diesel produce sulphuric acid as a byproduct of the combustion process, which results in serious internal engine corrosion, particularly on the cylinder bores. Whether this is the case for VAG group diesel engines, I don't know.

 

Basically, using red diesel not only risks prosecution, it may also wreck your engine.

[Andrew T]

The offence is not in using it, but in using it and not declaring it and paying the duty.

 

During the Fuel crises in 2001 the widespread use of it in rural areas was suspected, and I recall tales of lorries being stopped and their Fuel tanks checked.

[Guest peter312]

Hi all. Just to clarify one point, ITS NOT ME USING RED DIESEL IT WAS PREVIOUS OWNER !!!

Totally understood. The point I was trying to make (albeit poorly, no doubt) was that if the tank and other bits in the engine are stained, this would be spotted if HM Customs did happen to check your car. They might then perhaps suspect, albeit incorrectly, that you had used red diesel.

 

Cheers

Peter

[anadin]

i think they just dip the tank , i couldnt imagine them dismantling you car at the roadside, but these days who knows, honestly dont worry , we would visit you in nik :lol: :D

[morticiaskeeper]

The offence is not in using it, but in using it and not declaring it and paying the duty.

 

During the Fuel crises in 2001 the widespread use of it in rural areas was suspected, and I recall tales of lorries being stopped and their Fuel tanks checked.

 

 

During the fuel crisis, certain hauliers were allowed to use red diesel, providing they kept meticulous records of its' use and paid a set amount of duty per litre used.

 

I was working for a Commercial Vehicle dealer and was told about this by a, shall we say, less than reputable haulier. Within a few days, I had seen the letter from HMC&E at a number of my customers.

 

We were alright, the local Ambulance service let us fill up from their tank and then invoiced us later. Because they were an emergency service, no one held up their deliveries.

[keith9534]

i think they just dip the tank , i couldnt imagine them dismantling you car at the roadside, but these days who knows, honestly dont worry , we would visit you in nik :lol: :lol:

 

 

They would be able to tell how long the red diesel was used in the car from the sample they take.....it would leave behind some indication (as a percentage of the fuel in the tank) for quite some time after.

 

However the more fuel that passes through the system the lower the percentage marker that would be left in the system.

 

And contrary to popular belief it doesn`t have to be "red" to be rebated fuel.....some clever people can take the red dye out (but it can still be detected by HM Revenue & Customs as the red dye also has chemical properties that re-agents detect)

[anadin]

probably , thinking about it they'd just look at the clear pipe before the pump, wasnt someone on flea bay selling blue dye ?

[marty16610]

probably , thinking about it they'd just look at the clear pipe before the pump, wasnt someone on flea bay selling blue dye ?

 

 

ive just checked the pipe mentioned and its definately got a pinky red tint to it. I think i better change it to be on the safe side.