North American TDI on ULSD?

rkweiss

Active member
Joined
Oct 4, 2002
Location
Oxford, England
TDI
'03 Jetta Wagon TDI (American import)
Anybody know of any forseeable problems of an American TDI running on ULSD? More to the point, I am taking my American TDI to Europe and want to know if it will have any probs. running on the diesel over there.

Never would have crossed my mind, but a guy asked me "Hey, won't you have to have your car retuned to run over there?"

Just wondering. Thanks.
 

dieseldorf

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Oct 11, 2000
Location
MA
TDI
ex- 1996 wagon, ex-2000 Jetta
rkweiss said:

Anybody know of any forseeable problems of an American TDI running on ULSD?
yeah, I can think of 1 problem. Your TDI will never want to return to NA.
 

philh

Veteran Member
Joined
Dec 14, 2000
Location
Houston, TX
TDI
2003 Jetta Wagon
I could be wrong, but I thought the sulfur in the fuel acts as a lubricant. I don't know if they compensate for this with some other additives at the pump. So, you might want to make sure you use some kind of additive while over there. You already know it's a good idea anyways...
 

rkweiss

Active member
Joined
Oct 4, 2002
Location
Oxford, England
TDI
'03 Jetta Wagon TDI (American import)
Sorry, I was a bad TDIClub member and failed to heed advice to check the FAQs. In FAQ it states quite clearly that all modern diesels will run fine on ULSD.
 

MITBeta

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Feb 24, 2001
Location
Boston's Metro South-West
TDI
2001 Jetta TDI, 2004 Sprinter CDI Passenger (Mid/High), former: 1996 Passat TDI Variant
philh said:
I could be wrong, but I thought the sulfur in the fuel acts as a lubricant. I don't know if they compensate for this with some other additives at the pump. So, you might want to make sure you use some kind of additive while over there.
The sulfur itself is not a lubricant, but the process of de-sulfurizing the fuel also makes the fuel less lubricious. I spoke with a rep for Sprague Energy, which supplies ULSD to the Boston mass transit buses, and he said that they use and additive to compensate for this. The additive is put in at the refinery and that the end user should not have to worry about it. I can only imagine that other companies do the same thing or they'll be paying for A LOT of injection pumps.
 

fishbone

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 15, 2002
Location
So.Ca.
TDI
jetta 02 black
We have ulsd here in CA.You won t have any problems. In fact
it runs a little smoother on ulsd. I put a additive in just to make sure.
 

jjvincent

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 3, 2002
Location
Bethlehem, PA
TDI
Jetta, 2K, Green
The sulfur debate sounds just like the fears when lead was eliminated from gasoline. All of the gloom and doom of how cars were going to have valve seat problems. When lead was eliminated, all of those fears were laid to rest. There are many older 70's cars running around in the southwest US and their engines survived. Actually, it's better for engines to run without lead. (I know that people still want lead for octane reasons but you can buy high octane unleaded so that's no excuse). I remember taking engines apart years ago and spending hours scraping the lead out of the pistons and heads. Today, that just doesn't happen.
Also, my father said that back in the 40's that there was a big fear in using detergent oil. Once all oil became "detergent" the fears were gone. It's amazing how certain fears are finally laid to rest (or sometimes get recycled).
 
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