Running Heating Oil In Diesel Vehicles Can Backfire
By Bill Leukhardt, The Hartford Courant, Conn.
Jun. 15–Running a diesel vehicle on less-expensive home heating oil just might cross the minds of drivers looking for something cheaper than diesel fuel, now nearly $5 a gallon compared to about $2.80 a gallon a year ago. Home heating oil is closer to $4 a gallon.
However, the pennies saved are no bargain, mechanics say. At best, the cruder heating oil is less efficient, meaning poorer engine performance. At worst, home heating oil can ruin high-tech injectors and pumps in new diesel engines, causing $1,000 and more of damage.
Plus, it’s against tax law to use heating fuel this way.
It’s a violation because heating oil is not intended for use in a vehicle so it is sold free of road-use taxes. Kelly Manning of the state Department of Motor Vehicles said DMV inspectors who detect heating oil in fuel tanks refer the matters to state and federal tax agents to investigate for excise tax evasion.
“It’s not just a new phenomenon,” Jim MacPherson, a spokesman for the AAA Motor Club of Connecticut, said Friday. “Heating oil is an alternative some diesel owners consider whenever fuel costs spike. People have been [burning home heating oil] for years. But it’s not legal.”
The home heating oil burned in furnaces — which lacks fuel additives mixed in to diesel fuel — is dyed a reddish color to easily signify to anyone what type of fuel it is. A simple look at fuel, often by using a turkey baster to draw a fuel tank sample, quickly lets inspectors figure out what a truck is burning.
Recent refinements in diesel engines have made it riskier to burn heating oil instead of diesel fuel, area mechanics said.
“There’s no advantage to it,” said Dan Roy, an auto technician at Gallagher Buick in New Britain and a mechanic for 26 years. “People think they’ve saving money. But the oil can clog filters and injectors.”
New diesel engines are much more finicky than the older models because the equipment has been built to burn higher quality, lower sulfur fuels, MacPherson said.
“These are designed to run on diesel fuels, which are more refined than heating oil,” he said. “The high-pressure fuel pump and the injector are fiendishly expensive to replace’”
Contact Bill Leukhardt at bleuhardt@courant.com.
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