As we approach late March, I have been wondering, if winter blend fuel is less efficient for us to use in our trucks, then why would the oil companies even bother to switch over? Its not like its money out of their pockets. It would be to their advantage to keep us running the mix all year, as well as pull the sulfer from it, and anything else they can do to make it of a lower quality. Lower efficiency=more sales=fatter bonuses, pensions, ect. And a side question, how can we really tell, (color, ect.) when the changeover occurs? I would think that if a refinery has overstock coming into late may or june, we wouldnt see a possible switch until then.

 

The truth is very few stations carry a blend anymore.
It's just straight #2 with anti-gel additive.
Cheaper and easier plus they don't have to haul and pump around another type of fuel.

 

Ahh.. if thats the case then, I would assume that they would quit putting in the anti gel in the summer, to cut down on production costs. Makes sense now.

 

Bill,

Why would this cause a 1-2 MPG drop during the winter blend months? Just the cold air?

I don't see the drop because I pull the engine fan and that will pretty much make up for it.

 

Here in Oregon we blend the winter fuel as we are loading our tankers. Drivers will hook up too the Kerosene arm & load X amount of gals into a compartment, then hook up the diesel arm & do the same. As too % of each depends on how cold of an area the load is going to. When we get closer to spring the % of the mix is less.

 

You get the mpg drop in the winter from extended idling, incomplete warm ups and cold air. This interesting Cummins mpg guide even says colder air causes more aerodynamic drag--
http://www.everytime.cummins.com/eve...Whitepaper.pdf