diesel

[Busnut83]

Just wondering if there is a difference in diesel bought at truck stops from diesel bought at service stations (wal-mart or racetrack)...  I have seen 40 cents difference?

[Utahclaimjumper]

Thats about it!!>>>Dan

[Rick59-4104]

 You pay more at the truck stops for the "ease" of getting in and out, the fast dump nozzles, that burning diesel smell, the noise, and the privilege of rubbing shoulders with us truckers , at other (cheaper) stations just watch your overhead clearance and pocket the savings.


Rick

[bobofthenorth]

And depending on the station you may be paying for fuel that turns over faster which MAY translate into cleaner fuel.

[white-eagle]

So i'm missing the opportunity to jockey around the Walmart lot trying to get into a pump while stunning common folk with my large noisy, astoundingly fancy converted bus, while irritating a number of others becuase i'm in their way, AND losing money??  OMG. WTH? LMAO.

( i just learned some new acronyms :-)  Can you tell?).

[Jerry32]

be sure to row  something behind

[Bill B /bus]

Watch for the Cetane numbers.  Walmart/Murphy is lower. I noticed a loss of fuel mileage in the car when using Walmart fuel., about a 10% loss.

Bill

[Oonrahnjay]

  Watch for the Cetane numbers.  Walmart/Murphy is lower. I noticed a loss of fuel mileage in the car when using Walmart fuel., about a 10% loss. 

     All diesel is "fungible" - if Exxon-Mobile puts 200,000 gallons of diesel fuel in the pipeline on that day; their distributors at the other end of the pipeline can pull out 200,000 gallons at the other end.  But Chevron may have put 200,000 gallons of diesel fuel in the pipeline that day and their distributors may pull out 200,000 gallon.  That applies to every refinery at one end and distributor at the other.  But that doesn't mean that the Exxon distributor in Boston has pulled out of the Exxon-refined fuel.  And if Exxon puts in 200,000 gallons and Chevron puts in 200,000 gallons, and Exxon distributors take out 180,000 and Chevron distributors take out 220,000, then Chevron pays Exxon for 20,000 gallons of fuel.

      In most places and in most distribution circumstances, a Chevron station and an Exxon station across the street will be selling the same fuel.  And next month, they'll be selling the same fuel but it's likely that the fuel will be from a different refineries then.  The one factor that might be different is that a distributor has to put in diesel fuel additive that's approved by EPA for that local area but the additives don't vary by much.

      I'm lucky here in that there's a big Hess tanker terminal at Wilmington NC port but there's no pipeline to our area (the closest pipeline is Charlotte and Greensboro).  So, since I'm about 35 miles from Wilmington, almost all the fuel that's sold in my town will be Hess (there is also an Exxon ocean terminal but the Exxon distributor likes to hang onto the products to keep the prices up and supply constricted).  The point of all this is to say that if I try to get a "better" fuel by going to a place down the street, I'm wasting my time.  And probably, so are you.

      There's a Wal*Mart near me that's less than a mile off of I-40.  They have the best prices around so they sell lots of fuel -- turnover means fresh fuel.  All my diesels get mileage on W*M/Murphy fuel that's as good as anywhere else; the other fuel-quality characteristics (easy-starting, minimal smoke at startup, quiet idle, etc.) all seems to be the same.

       The one thing you can say is that there may be a "bad slug" of diesel fuel that goes in a pipeline; if you get a noticeably bad tank of fuel from any station, it is likely that that bad fuel will be sold off before long.  In that case, it may be useful to buy from another station from a week or so.  But at the end of a short while, all will be back to stable again.

[luvrbus]

Murphy (at Walmarts) buys fuel from outside sources they don't own any refineries in the USA,they buy from Chevron,Exxon,Valero or who ever I wonder where the fuel came from that had the 10% power loss


good luck

[Brassman]

Once upon a time I worked on a Chevron light oil (refined) tank ship, and we delivered oil to any and everyone. So the refiner and the the logo on the station don't always correspond.