Any reason not to run B20?

[Chris142]

A Chevron station in town that sells the highest price gas also sells B20 diesel a full $1 less than the other stations that sell regular diesel.

A 20 gallon fill would save me a full $20.

I'm thinking that my old mechanical 6.9 diesel won't care what fuel it gets and for that kind of savings why not?

 

[blufeb95]

B20 is less harsh than B100, but the older rubber lines and seals in your fuel system may degrade using biodiesel unless you replace them with a compatible rubber fuel lines and viton seals.

 

[Rand]

Would you run 15% ethanol in your gas vehicles?

its more likely a NEW diesel wouldnt mind b20 than an old one.

 

[Cujet]

It has a bit less energy content, on the order of 2%. I know there are many claims of "no difference in MPG", but every time I use any significant blend of biodiesel I get worse MPG. This has been universal, from a Jetta TDI to modern Cummins powered moving trucks. However, I don't see any other downside.

 

[mattwithcats]

Biodiesel has a Cetane of 50, regular diesel is 40, so it is a little thinner.
You get about 80% power from bio verses regular diesel.

There are three main types, Under 20%, Over 20%, and 20%...

Under 20% is used as a lubricity agent, Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel is stiff, and biodiesel up to 20% is used to make it flow better. Emissions are a little better, and there should be no compatibility problems.

Over 20% has a few problems...
The first, it can act as a cleaning agent on your fuel tank
All the sludge left behind by regular diesel gets loosened up, and can clog your fuel filter, .
Watch "This Old House" on PBS where they remove a home heating oil tank from a basement.
Sludge on the walls and bottom of the tank looks like pudding,
The local food service company ran 100% bio in a few trucks as a test,
they went through three fuel filters on most trucks before the sludge was cleaned out...
After that, they ran fine.
100% bio can have a bad effect on gaskets too.
The higher Centane can dissolve old (made before mid 1990's) gaskets, however most modern tractors use material that is proof to the solvent effect.

And then there is 20%
20% is the magic number for percentage of emissions decrease..
that is if you plot out how much the emissions improves as more bio is added,
it works out to a bell curve
Your fuel filter may look a little gunky, but it should run with no compatibility problems in a machine built after the mid '90's

 

[JMJNet]

I have not had any problem using B20.
B100, on the other hand, caused the fuel filter to clog up.
It was fine after the filter change as indicated above.

 

[tnt_motorsports]

If you are going to use B20 I’d suggest changing your fuel filter after a little while. Biodiesel has a tendency to clean crap out of the tank.

Just my $0.02

 

[Chris142]

If you are going to use B20 I’d suggest changing your fuel filter after a little while. Biodiesel has a tendency to clean crap out of the tank.

Just my $0.02

I run 2 filters. A spin on water separator ahead of the OEM filter. I have spares.

I filled both tanks tonight. Already seems to run smoother and definitely much less smoke

 

[tnt_motorsports]

I find my truck doesn’t diesel as much on B20. I like to run regular diesel but it’s getting hard to find around here. I get better mileage with regular diesel.

On a side note I changed my fuel filters and cut them open today. They looked the cleanest I’ve seen and I went 10k miles. I couldn’t believe it.

Just my $0.02