What is the Cloud Point of Diesel Fuel

What is the Cloud Point of Diesel Fuel?
The cloud point of diesel is the temperature at which solid waxy particles begin to form within the diesel fuel. Another way to say it is: the cloud point is the point at which solid wax crystals begin to form within the liquid fuel. If the diesel fuel is allowed to stay at the cloud point temperature long enough, then sufficient wax solids can form that result in a plugged fuel system and an inoperable vehicle.

What is the cloud point of diesel fuel (in terms of the exact temperature at which wax particles begin to form)? Unfortunately, that is not a simple question to answer. There are many factors that come into play. Ultimately, you would need to use a special piece of test equipment to analyze a sample from each batch of diesel fuel that is in question. Owning this sort of equipment may not be practical for the average consumer, but companies that operate large fleets of diesel vehicles may benefit from such a piece of test equipment. Downtime due to plugged fuel systems can be a costly situation in a commercial fleet, so the cost of a cloud point analyzer might be warranted in those cases.

What is the Cloud Point of Diesel Fuel

Thankfully for the average diesel consumer, often all that needs to be done is to make sure you purchase fresh diesel fuel from a reliable source. You want to buy fuel from a source that you know does not have contaminated storage tanks. Even though it is a different problem than wax formation, water contamination can also result in the same situation - a plugged fuel system. In either case, your vehicle can be out of commission. Water is bad news in diesel fuel. Make sure that you buy your diesel fuel from a source that has a fast turnaround time on the fuel in their storage tanks. Refineries change the formulations of diesel depending on local weather conditions, so you want to make sure that what you are buying is from the latest formulations that are blended to match current weather conditions. When local temperatures drop lower, the refineries blend the fuel differently to help prevent problems with fuel system plugging. For this same reason, you do want to stock up on a bunch of summer blend diesel fuel and go into the winter with the stuff sitting in storage tanks. It is very possible that you will have problems with cloud point and plugged fuel systems in winter due to wax deposits that form in summer blend diesel.

If you are unsure what is the cloud point of diesel fuel that you are purchasing, then another thing that can be done is to add some diesel additive to your tank prior to fill up. Additives can help prevent fuel system plugging by modifying the crystals formed in diesel fuel. You need to make sure that the additive is thoroughly mixed in your fuel tank, so you want to pour in the additive first and then fill up your tanks. Pouring the diesel additive "on top" of an existing full tank will offer little-no benefit. Some popular diesel additives are made by Power Service, Amsoil, and others. These diesel additives can help prevent fuel system plugging and vehicle downtime.