Good Feedback-
I found this Amsoil comparison to Howes- the fact that they don't compare to Power Service makes you wonder if PS is on parr or better? Amsoil also has a Cold Flow additive, not sure of the difference yet- just FYI.

The fine print says using Howes recommendation for above 0F. I think that chart is an advertisement. Why would the freeze up point be different in different cities?

X2

P.S. Power service has been around since at least the 70's. It is good stuff. Pricey. If I was headed to North Dakota in Jan I would use power service. If its 30-40 below in say Minot thats not the time to shut your truck off or use something your not sure about. Thats another problem I have with these big freight companies. Trucks wont idle. Computer shuts them down after 5 minutes. If your sleeping in a rest area at 40 below thats not a good time to shut your truck off in spite of those APU's.

another thing I wont do is let some office manager decide when and where I get fuel. Trucks burn ABOUT a gallon an hour idling at 1000 RPM. You get snowed in for three or four days, a 1/4 tank of fuel, its not good. Late winter in country where winter can get serious, its a bad idea to let your tanks drop below at least 100 gallons.

This thread reminds me of when I was at Happy Valley camp during building the TAPS line. Everything idled 24/7 gas and diesel all winter!

My Cummins didn't gel at -30, number two fuel and 2 cycle oil mix, I had a durapig and it gelled at -15

In WI, most sources of off road diesel have a "winter blend" all winter (typically 80% diesel : 20% gasoline). I use winter diesel plus a winter diesel additive (per recs) and usually have my tractor block heater warm up the block about 1 1/2 hours prior to use (on a timer).
I have an older 80 hp IH 766 (German diesel). This routine works very well for me, I never gel up whatever..

My supplier premixes No.1 and No.2 when neccesary and I also at the beginning of the cold season will spike everything with 911 and carry a bottle of red 911 in the trucks.

I seriously doubt they are adding 20% gas to diesel. would burn to hot. would ruin the engine in fact. it lights to easy. no spark plug in a diesel. heat from compression lights it. to much gas and it lights way before its supposed to. will also not lubricate like diesel.

just about every station gets treated fuel delivered to them. All they care about though is it doesnt gel in their underground tanks or pump filters. you never know for sure how cold it will stay liquid.

tac20, engine type has nothing to do with your fuel gelling up. when you froze at -15 it was because the station did not get fuel treated for colder weather. It may also have been water in the fuel filter.

Kansas is pretty far south of these parts, thus - your diesels don't get near as cold as diesels typically get up here.....just saying...

Tradervic I have trucked all over WI. I know about cold weather and diesel

I am willing to bet bet 100.00 to to the trapperman fund that gas stations/truckstops are not putting 20% gas in diesel up there.

TTT

Danny - Why do you think diesel is priced higher than unleaded fuel now? Also with summer coming they are already talking about fuel prices going up for summer blends - what in summer fuels cost more to make?

I never knew that diesel was taxed at 4x the rate as unleaded - just read about that - shows me again they are not concerned with inflation and prices - cut that tax would help a bit.......

Diesel costs more now because its low sulphur. Takes more crude and more refining to produce. Thank the EPA. I have no clue why its higher than gas or why all liquid fuel is higher in summer. The talking heads claim its because demand is higher in summer.

As someone who makes Diesel fuel daily, we have specs that the finished product need to meet. These specs are dictated by the pipeline accepting the product and change with the seasons.

One of these spec points is Sulfur. You can google when regulations changed, but many years ago there was a requirement to produce "ULSD" or Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel. Our spec on 2FO is 10ppm. This is a DRASTIC change from back in the day. In order to meet that requirement, considerable cost is involved. New equipment, new units, new reactors, new catalyst..this all adds to the cost. I remember when I was a kid, my grandpa had a 1983 Pontiac Bonneville and a 1984 Oldsmobile 98 Brougham, both had GM diesels, both got great mileage (mid 20's) and both were taken to 300k+ miles...eventually parts became hard to source, injection pumps etc and they were sent to the scrap yard. He loved them, better mpg than the other cars of the era and at that time, Diesel was always around .40 cents a gallon cheaper than gasoline.

Another spec(s) is/are Pour Point and Cloud. Again you can google these specs for fuel oil, they are the standard in the industry, but they change with the seasons. Viscosity must change as avg daily temps dip depending on the time of year. This is mainly done via ejection of additives into a rundown line or added to tanks before they ship into the pipeline.

Even with these specs, in extreme cold for an extended period of time, you may experience gelling. Additionally things may not freeze in the tank, but if you are not a guy that is big on maintenance, and filters are clogged or due for a change, flows may not be adequate to prevent gelling.

I have driven Cummins 12V for the last 20 years, through all the weather of WI/MN and have never had a truck gel up on me. This could be just luck, but there have been plenty of chances, parked outside and not plugged in. It does happen though and I'm certianly not against additional additive by the owner as a preventative measure. As to the best brand/product I dont have any input on that one. Project Farm on Youtube did a comparison on that and you can check it out for the results.

Also, many times 1FO is added to 2FO before it even gets to the pipeline. And 2FO may be added to 1FO, as long as the specs of the finished product are close, it's shipped.

Daily I make 1FO, 2FO and JET fuel, depending on the season and demand I also make D-grade used primarily by agriculture, ships/tankers etc.

All products are very similar, if you know anything about basic distillation, the 2FO lets call that Diesel that you are buying at the truck stop, Dgrade is essentially the same product. 1FO and Jet are "lighter" with lower final boiling points, JET is in the middle but they actually want some sulfur for the turbine engines.

As for summer fuel price increase, thats supply and demand, costs to make do not increase, but with summer travel etc. They keep a vary close eye on traffic numbers etc. Its a market, when demand is high, costs go up, during Covid, traffic counts were the lowest they had been in many decades. Demand nearly non existent, crude prices cratered and were actually Negative per barrel, they just wanted someone to take them and were willing to pay to get rid of it, think about how crazy that is. This was never seen by the consumer. Everyone was so happy to see gas under $2/gal they never realized that it should have been .50/gal or less..this was pocketed and that is reflected in the 10k of refiners during that year...profits were good! (I didnt see any of that if you're wondering LOL).

The gas stations do not add anything to the product they receive. A refinery cuts product with other products up to a spec limit. This is is stored in large tanks (some may be 150k barrels, they're big) these tanks may enter the pipeline and get sent down to the coast, to tankers, to the airport, overseas etc. For local supply, blenders may inject certain "recipes" required or requested by customers...customers being your major gas stations etc. They all have their special "blend" that they claim benefits their customer. This is then loaded into tanker trucks and travel from the refinery to the "customer" aka gas stations.

OakRidgeTrapper,
Thanks for the detailed response, a lot of good information here. I found it interesting that when I watched the Project Farm You Tube Diesel Additive Comparison video, they utilized Amsoil 2-Stoke Oil as a comparison to others winter additives. It performed extremely well against corrosion and wear lubricity and only marginal against clouding and gelling (obviously not designed for that)- maybe this video predated Amsoil introductions of winter diesel additives but I plan to investigate that more as many of the additives mentioned above did not perform maybe as well as anticipated. Here's the link on Project Farm:

Interesting video. I dont really get the lubricity test though. Stuff burns in the cylinder. I dont know how you would test that. The real lubrication is engine oil. Nobody I know that runs the old engines from high sulphur days treats fuel to make up for the loss of lubricity in low sulphur fuel.

Howes and power service to prevent gelling. The results of that test did not surprise me. I knew they worked by using them. I was surprised the howes would not light easier though. I have changed a fuel filter on a job site a couple different times and filled the new filter with howes. Starts right up. Same with power service. The video did show something they need to put on the bottles. If you dont treat before you gel you will sit several hours after adding anything before it liquifies, And you need a lot of it. Remember to change your filters while you wait. Fill them with straight additive. If you have a manual pump on the fuel pump to operate at filter changes, dont pump it till you see the fuel in your tanks is liquid again.

Ether. Not suppose to use it in modern engines. You gel up, its -20F. Unless you wait for warmer weather, once your fuel liquifies again, after you pump up some pressure, a little ether will get things going again. In the old days we used it a LOT for cold weather starts. Sometimes its still what you need. Help from somebody spraying it or hitting the key either one is big plus if anybody is around. The person with the ether can give a little shot when the engine falters to keep it going for a bit to clear the fuel lines of gelled fuel. 20-30 seconds is usually enough. dont forget to change fuel filters.