Cheap diesel!

AARodriguez Corp.

TDIClub Enthusiast, Vendor , w/Business number
Joined
Nov 30, 2008
Location
South East USA
TDI
2009 JSW and Golf 2004 TDI
I always fill up with diesel from a premium station like shell, or chevron, paying roughly $3.00 per gallon for their fuel. A smaller local gas station is selling diesel for $2.39 a gallon. Obviously this will not be the same quality, so if I was to start purchasing it, I would get a good additive for each tank of fuel. Between our 4 tdi's, soon to be 5, we are driving each of them 7500-10,000 miles per month. So I'm not saving nickels and dimes, but at the same time fuel pumps and engines aren't cheap.

Opinions?
 

40X40

Experienced
Joined
Feb 12, 2006
Location
Kansas City area, MO
TDI
2013 Passat SEL Premium
Other than the name on the station sign and the higher price, how do you know the fuel is better??

IMO, you are paying more money for the same or similar fuel.

Bill
 

VWBeamer

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 1, 2009
Location
GA
TDI
2004 Jetta Wagon
Most likely it exactly the same, except for the additives.

The fuel is distributed across the nation via pipe lines. Chevron, Shell, Exxon, etc. all send fuel down the same pipe , and it comes out the other end.

IIRC Colonial Pipeline serves Florida, you could do some googling and see if any of the brands will pay to have a separate premium diesel product pumped. I doubt it.

When it reaches the other end , it's all exactly the same fuel, the only difference is the additives, as you suspected. But you can add a lot of additives yourself for 40 cents a gallon.

I worked a generic branded gas station, and ordered the gas. I would always just order what was cheapest, sometimes it would be chevron, but most times it would be marathon. Of course it was all the same gas, just no additive package for the generic stuff.
 

03CharcoalJettaTDI

Veteran Member
Joined
Nov 24, 2009
Location
Nashville
TDI
03 jetta
I have never understood peoples fascination with buying expensive fuel. On our gas vehicles ever since I can remember my dad would fill them up at Swifty(cheapest gas around price wise) and never had any adverse effects. Then I have friends that only use BP and they never had any major problems either, but paying $.10 more a gallon adds up pretty quickly over years.

By the cheapest fuel period. Unless it has give you trouble before you are just throwing money away.
 

shizzler

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 25, 2005
Location
Ann Arbor MI
TDI
05 BEW Wagon
Actually there can be a real and substantial difference in fuel quality. It is not all the same exact product. The major companies have different refineries, pipelines, and transportation systems (rail and semi tankers). And even different qualities of diesel coming from the same manufacturer sometimes. The source of the crude oil and refining ratio selection play a role in the final BTU content and other qualities of the finished diesel fuel.

Take a look at the cetane rating listed on the pump. It can vary quite a bit. Also the quality of additive packages. In the end, it doesn't really matter, as no brand of fuel is all that bad and the difference in mpg is always small.
 

RiceEater

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 13, 2001
Location
96595
TDI
gray 2k2 Jetta GLS
The greatest determinating factor as to the quality of fuel is the characteristics of the originating crude; is the starting material from Venezuela, North Sea, Nigeria, etc? This determines to a great extent the processes the crude would go through at the refinery. There are many more factors than just desired end product ratios. Accordingly cetane rating is largely determined after the refining processes by the ChemE doc at the tank farm, towards the very end of all the processes.

I would modify 40x40 opinion to "paying more money for" very "similar fuel" or almost the same fuel.

in today's markets DFO #2 is highly fungiable and just because the pump has a Shell icon doesn't mean that is the middle man who processed the fuel works for Shell. This is why VWBeamer said in a former life he just ordered the cheapest as long as the ChemE doc signed the ASTM cert who probably does work for Shell (Chevron, BP, whoever, etc).
 
Last edited:

RalphVa

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 17, 2009
Location
Virginia
TDI
Jetta
I don't think diesel has many additives. Don't really know.

For gasoline, you should buy from major brands because they all have to pass BMW's fuel cleanliness test for gasolines. I don't know whether there's a similar test for ULSD that the majors probably have invested the research and all to pass.

Most of the majors, Shell and Exxon anyway, sell about 2/3 of their base stock fuel to others, what we called "third parties" at Exxon. So, many of those reduced cost places are probably buying their base material (excluding additives) from Exxon or Shell. Some may also buy the additives as well, but they can probably sell at a reduced price because they don't have the research and engineering overhead.

I worked in the Exxon lubes engineering area for 31 years. Heard a few things from time to time from our fuels buddies, but we didn't routinely get the research material on fuels like we got on lubes.
 

jimbobb2

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 5, 2010
Location
central IL
TDI
2010 Jetta
60 cents a gallon is a huge difference. Make sure it is for highway use. We have a station that caters to farmers and did not have the tax included in the pump price. They have changed it and now subtract the tax off of the fuel.
 

97TDIStu

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 1, 2005
Location
Pennsylvania
TDI
2013 Jetta TDI Premium
jimbobb2 said:
60 cents a gallon is a huge difference. Make sure it is for highway use. We have a station that caters to farmers and did not have the tax included in the pump price. They have changed it and now subtract the tax off of the fuel.

That's right. I'll bet the price you are looking at is for the offroad diesel, which I believe they would have a problem with you putting it directly into the tank if they saw you doing it.
 

Bob_Fout

Oil Wanker
Joined
Sep 5, 2004
Location
Indiana
TDI
2003 Jetta - Alaska Green (sold) / 2015 GTI 2.0T
In 7 years I've never seen 60 cents a gallon difference in the same area or region that wasn't a difference in road tax vs. none.
 

AARodriguez Corp.

TDIClub Enthusiast, Vendor , w/Business number
Joined
Nov 30, 2008
Location
South East USA
TDI
2009 JSW and Golf 2004 TDI
its basically in the hood, and there is no chance it could be legally selling off road there, I'll check it out tommorow, maybe its a price that hasn't been updated...dont know
 

AARodriguez Corp.

TDIClub Enthusiast, Vendor , w/Business number
Joined
Nov 30, 2008
Location
South East USA
TDI
2009 JSW and Golf 2004 TDI
well mystery solved, and hopes dashed, it wasn't even diesel, it was E85, I thought they had diesel because the price was in green #'s..........that stinks
 

BioPassat

Veteran Member
Joined
Apr 28, 2008
Location
Ventura County
TDI
2005 VW Passat GL TDI
Come out to Malibu, CA...

Bob_Fout said:
In 7 years I've never seen 60 cents a gallon difference in the same area or region that wasn't a difference in road tax vs. none.
You should come out to California...In Malibu they sell ULSD for as much as $3.39 per US gallon (which is usually pegged to the price of RUG(87) in Malibu), while I buy my ULSD in Oxnard, CA about 30 miles away at $2.79 per US Gallon.

I guess it's easier to rip off rich people! :eek:
 

BOSTON-VW

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 30, 2008
Location
Gloucester, MA. USA
TDI
2009 TDI Salsa Red Sport Package & Moonroof
I live in Mass. & I'm a salesperson. Diesel in New Hampshire is usually $0.15 cheaper (sometimes $0.20+) I buy the cheapest Diesel in NH & when I get home & pour in the PS additive (Winter months only) I don't look back! Diesel is the same (for the most part) & I have had no problems! Cheap=Good!

Next.....
 

VWBeamer

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 1, 2009
Location
GA
TDI
2004 Jetta Wagon
If you think the different stations in your town have different diesel, than do some research. I worked in the retail end of motor fuels for awhile, trust me, every bodies 87 octane is the same, every bodies 93 octane is the same and the diesel is the same. Only difference is the additives.

It's explained in this thread-

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showpost.php?p=2864997&postcount=13

Basically, the fuel is pumped from the refiner to the distribution center, thousands of miles away.

Chevron, Mobil, etc all put Diesel in the pipe. It all meets a min standard, it is pumped all mixed together. the fuel you buy at a mobile station could have been refined by chevron, or Citgo, or who ever. it's all the freakin' same fuel.

The only way would be different, is a refiner would pay to extra to have their fuel segrated, and the min amout to do so is 3 million gallons. Think their is a demand for a premium diesel fuel that any company is doing that? I doubt it..

The difference cetane rating comes from additives.
 

manual_tranny

Smyth Performance- Intern
Joined
Jan 5, 2010
Location
New Bedford, MA
TDI
2001 Golf @182K; 2000 Jetta @290K
RalphVa said:
For gasoline, you should buy from major brands because they all have to pass BMW's fuel cleanliness test for gasolines.
It's funny, when I read this I was already thinking about stories my mechanic told me about different BMWs going to Casey's to fill up on near-empty tanks, filling up, and breaking down not far from the station. Casey's really does offer some lousy fuel. I'll put it in my 7.5 liter truck engine, but not my RX7 or a BMW. Obviously if your car is high-compression, you will have trouble with low-octane fuel. If that low-octane fuel is mixed with watery or poor quality ethanol, a BMW that is expecting a lot of energy out of a certain fuel delivery map could certainly get fussy. (or damaged, if it's watery/dirty enough)

EDIT: I did read that the fuel is all coming through the same pipes. Not sure if I'm right, but I think I remember that Casey's cheap gas is 85 octane. It worked fine in my Honda CBR600RR at 13,500RPM so it is more than possible my word of mouth stories were misdiagnosed.
 
Last edited:

sweetjeep

Veteran Member
Joined
May 16, 2005
Location
North Central, MA
TDI
2002 Jetta
I have a friend who, until very recently, was a tugboat guy. The tugboats would push barges of fuel from the gulf coast to NY for local distribution (NY and northeast). He working for a generic boat company but their contract was basically diesel fuel and "heavier".

2 things were very very interesting:

1) Fuel companies, no matter who they are, trade/buy/sell containers of fuel/oil like 6 years olds and baseball cards. The pusher tug get's the update of whom owns the product each day and there are days where it will change ownership 2-3 times.. A DAY. And not through little companies.. Shell, BP, Chevron... whomever. They all scream that "they are better" on the outside, but on the inside, same stuff.

2) I decided I am not going to bother with #2. It's not worth the argument. ;)

Manual_Tranny: It's not at 13,500 that the low octane fuel will kill you. It's when you are bogging down low, or in the heat. I have a Speed Triple. I can sneak by with mid grade fuel, but in the middle of the summer, when it's hot and I bog the throttle, it pings like I have a 4th cylinder attached! But up high it won't. So long as I don't load it up, it'll be fine. The solution of course is beat the bike like it deserves.. People slightly misunderstand the purposes of octane.. but again.. another discussion.
 

DoctorDawg

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 26, 2008
Location
Southeastern US
TDI
'09 Jetta Loyal Edition
Back where we used to live in PA there was one old gas station (a Texaco, IIRC) that looked like it was abandoned, or maybe even condemned, but which was in fact still in business. For about a year their signage offered diesel at a price at least 50 cents a gallon lower than anything else you could find in the area. Even though I drove past it daily I never once saw a vehicle pulled up to the diesel pump. I became convinced that they had a tank of old, old diesel they were just trying to get rid of by dropping the price, so I never succumbed to the temptation to buy any there. Something to think about when you see one diesel price way out of line with everybody else.
 

shizzler

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 25, 2005
Location
Ann Arbor MI
TDI
05 BEW Wagon
Oooh, good call doctordawg.

So I did some more research and looks like my first post was wrong. But while the various oil corporation do in fact use the same pipelines to transfer fuel, what is not so clear is whether they send it through the pipes in distinct batches, such that they can get something like say 80%, or at least over 50%, of their own refined crude into their own regional holding stations.... ?

I work in an engine test lab, and we can order just about any quality (lab verified) fuel that we want. So I wonder if these fuels are over-the-road transport from refineries only...?
 

RiceEater

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 13, 2001
Location
96595
TDI
gray 2k2 Jetta GLS
At the very end of all the processes at a refinery its the ChemE doc that certifies that the fuel meets ASTM. Generally he is at the tank farm, again, at the very tail end of the refinery. This is because that is the quantity of material he is working with, ~10^6 gallons; that is the size of the batch that make the most sense for the refinery, for the price you pay at the pump.

You can very easily get an idea of how involved his job is. Get 3-4 VOA bottles of sample fuel and ask a lab to analyze it to see if it meets ASTM. First thing you will find is that most labs just don't have the equipment or materials to do it. If you do work at it and find a lab, try not to faint when they quote you a price.

Biodiesel never had this level of testing (your first clue was that the ASTM spec for biodiesel spec a GC-MS analysis; talk about wrong from the word go). Quality biodiesel was extremely difficult to find, almost non existant. This was much of VOAG reasoning was that if people were going to put crap in their tanks they didn't want >5% crap in it if they had to warranty the car. Whereas in Europe quality biodiesel is available.
 
Last edited:

adrienne

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 29, 2009
Location
Santa Venetia, CA
TDI
2010 JSW TDI
BioPassat said:
I guess it's easier to rip off rich people! :eek:
It's the same in Marin County. I saw $3.29 Monday night in Marin and less in *San Francisco* even. I console myself with knowing I'm getting more mileage for my $ with a TDI than I did buying super unleaded for my '98 Passat Wagon gasser :D
 

boutmuet

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 13, 2009
Location
Long Beach, CA
TDI
2015 BMW 328d
BioPassat said:
You should come out to California...In Malibu they sell ULSD for as much as $3.39 per US gallon (which is usually pegged to the price of RUG(87) in Malibu), while I buy my ULSD in Oxnard, CA about 30 miles away at $2.79 per US Gallon.

I guess it's easier to rip off rich people! :eek:
Believe it or not 76 on Sepulveda sells diesel for 4$ a gallon. I'm glad I don't live in Los Angeles, the Mobil near my school sells diesel for 2.88
 

WVU TDI

Veteran Member
Joined
Jul 14, 2007
Location
Beckley, WV
TDI
2013 Passat SE 6m
jimbobb2 said:
60 cents a gallon is a huge difference. Make sure it is for highway use. We have a station that caters to farmers and did not have the tax included in the pump price. They have changed it and now subtract the tax off of the fuel.
Yeah, a 60 cent difference is almost EXACTLY (57.7 cents of tax here in WV) what I would expect from on-road vs off-road fuel.

You don't want to run that stuff, 60 cents a gallon sounds nice, but rumored $1,000 per gallon of capacity fines would definitely eat into those savings pretty quickly...
 

osoonikum

Active member
Joined
Feb 16, 2010
Location
Tallinn, Estonia
TDI
1999 VW Bora 1,9 TDI AHF
:eek: out of topic but

you guys have there very cheap diesel, we have here about $5,55 per US gallon(~$1,5 per liter). i d like to live in US;)
 

goodthymes

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 19, 2010
Location
Pasadena, CA
TDI
2010 JSW TDI
osoonikum said:
:eek: out of topic but

i d like to live in US;)

Until you encounter your first traffic jam in a metropolitan area, and some random road rage from people who just got laid off from a company they've given the last 20 years of their life to :p
 

osoonikum

Active member
Joined
Feb 16, 2010
Location
Tallinn, Estonia
TDI
1999 VW Bora 1,9 TDI AHF
goodthymes said:
Until you encounter your first traffic jam in a metropolitan area, and some random road rage from people who just got laid off from a company they've given the last 20 years of their life to :p
but at least i could take a trip through USA and discover its attractions and enchanting nature....and very cheaply;) of course i wouldn t like to sit in traffic jams you have there without moving a meter, we dont have here usually these kind of jams(of course if there is a accident on the road)
 

Powder Hound

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Oct 25, 1999
Location
Under a Bridge, Crestview, FL, USA
TDI
'00 Golf 4dr White 5sp, '02 Jettachero 5sp, Wife's '03 NB Platinum Gray auto(!)
Relative diesel (or other fuels) pricing of US vs everyone else: It's all about taxes, buddy. Acquisition and refining costs, even transportation costs are all about the same all over the globe.
 
Top