Bit of a weird one this.
We have a number of diesel cars in the household, and I've always used some kind of additive with every fill. Often these additives are just 2-EHN with some kind of lubricant. Some of them, such as my regular Archoil 6900-D Max advertise their lubricant as being a high quality ester and contain other niceties like ferrocene. I seldom, if ever notice any difference between them, or between running with and without an additive. I've always put this down to my daily drivers always being on the new side of life and having these additives used since day one. But it gives me the warm fuzzies and makes me feel like I'm doing good by our vehicles.
There's an additive available to us over here called Dipetane, it's apparently made in Ireland and is advertised as a 'fuel lubricant'. They also say it's a 'non-additive' pre-combustion fuel treatment. All in all, sounds suspicious to me and I take these remarks with a truck load of salt. BUT, there's thousands of people who swear by it. There's even a fuel retailer in Ireland that sells a premium diesel that's pre-treated with this stuff. The SDS just lists 99% 'Distillates (Petroleum),Hydrotreated Heavy Paraffinic' and nothing else. Dipetane themselves also say it's nothing that isn't already in the fuel.
We bought an old Volvo some months ago. It has a 2.4 litre turbocharged 5 cylinder diesel engine with 149k on the clock. It drives very well, it's very smooth, returns expected fuel economy, makes warbly 5 pot noises and is plenty powerful. It did however have a stumble or a 'miss' for a few seconds on a cold start. There was a code stored for the glow plugs so I replaced them early days, but the stumble remained. I suspected that the fuel injectors had 'dirty' nozzles and were unable to atomise the diesel correctly making it harder to combust when cold. I had been using Stabil diesel stabilizer in the Volvo since we bought it for around 2,000miles in it which made no discernible difference. The Stabil was coming to the end so it was time to stock up on additive again. This time, despite my snake-oil expectations and general reservations, I decided to try Dipetane.
Dipetane is a crystal clear, unexpectedly thick and has no smell. The bottle has increments printed on the side, each increment is enough to treat 20 litres of fuel. Not the easiest of stuff to pour and measure, but it works. I do prefer the squeezy measuring bottles like Stabil or Archoil has though.
Anyway, I treated a full tank in the Volvo back last week and my Wife has done ~200 miles in it since. I started the car from cold 3 times over the weekend for various reasons and the cold start stumble has completely gone away. I could say the car seems a little quieter, a little smoother and a little more grunty low down but those things are subjective, conditional and my butt dyno is of unknown accuracy. But the cold start stumble is a simple yes or no situation and I can say with 100% certainty that it's gone altogether.
So I'm curious, anyone have any idea what this stuff is likely to be? Is there anything similar on the market in the US?
Dipetane Website
Dipetane SDS
We have a number of diesel cars in the household, and I've always used some kind of additive with every fill. Often these additives are just 2-EHN with some kind of lubricant. Some of them, such as my regular Archoil 6900-D Max advertise their lubricant as being a high quality ester and contain other niceties like ferrocene. I seldom, if ever notice any difference between them, or between running with and without an additive. I've always put this down to my daily drivers always being on the new side of life and having these additives used since day one. But it gives me the warm fuzzies and makes me feel like I'm doing good by our vehicles.
There's an additive available to us over here called Dipetane, it's apparently made in Ireland and is advertised as a 'fuel lubricant'. They also say it's a 'non-additive' pre-combustion fuel treatment. All in all, sounds suspicious to me and I take these remarks with a truck load of salt. BUT, there's thousands of people who swear by it. There's even a fuel retailer in Ireland that sells a premium diesel that's pre-treated with this stuff. The SDS just lists 99% 'Distillates (Petroleum),Hydrotreated Heavy Paraffinic' and nothing else. Dipetane themselves also say it's nothing that isn't already in the fuel.
We bought an old Volvo some months ago. It has a 2.4 litre turbocharged 5 cylinder diesel engine with 149k on the clock. It drives very well, it's very smooth, returns expected fuel economy, makes warbly 5 pot noises and is plenty powerful. It did however have a stumble or a 'miss' for a few seconds on a cold start. There was a code stored for the glow plugs so I replaced them early days, but the stumble remained. I suspected that the fuel injectors had 'dirty' nozzles and were unable to atomise the diesel correctly making it harder to combust when cold. I had been using Stabil diesel stabilizer in the Volvo since we bought it for around 2,000miles in it which made no discernible difference. The Stabil was coming to the end so it was time to stock up on additive again. This time, despite my snake-oil expectations and general reservations, I decided to try Dipetane.
Dipetane is a crystal clear, unexpectedly thick and has no smell. The bottle has increments printed on the side, each increment is enough to treat 20 litres of fuel. Not the easiest of stuff to pour and measure, but it works. I do prefer the squeezy measuring bottles like Stabil or Archoil has though.
Anyway, I treated a full tank in the Volvo back last week and my Wife has done ~200 miles in it since. I started the car from cold 3 times over the weekend for various reasons and the cold start stumble has completely gone away. I could say the car seems a little quieter, a little smoother and a little more grunty low down but those things are subjective, conditional and my butt dyno is of unknown accuracy. But the cold start stumble is a simple yes or no situation and I can say with 100% certainty that it's gone altogether.
So I'm curious, anyone have any idea what this stuff is likely to be? Is there anything similar on the market in the US?
Dipetane Website
Dipetane SDS
