Do Diesel Fuel Additives Really Work? A Chemist Explains the Science

[00:00:00]In case you haven't noticed, and I'm guessing you have, diesel fuel prices are insanely expensive right now. And doesn't seem like there's any hope in sight. So, how about you get more miles per gallon out of diesel truck, and maybe make it more reliable by cleaning up those injectors, and DPF, and the turbo?

[00:00:17]Mhm. Today I'm talking with Jessica Crabtree. She's with Power Service Products. They make an additive, they actually make a variety, excuse me, of products that work with your diesel truck. I've been to facility. I've been to her lab. Yeah, she's like a real chemist. Real life chemist, she's got a lot of degrees in the wall. Pretty smart cookie. We're talking about diesels, and we're talking about additives. Now, I know there's some controversy about whether they work or not, but she has things to say that may change your mind.

[00:00:44]And you know what? What the hell?

[00:00:46]It's worth a try. That's what I think about it. I've talked to them before in the past. People have commented down below on those videos and said, "Yeah, it actually does work." So, let's listen to her yet again, talking about diesel additives, and a little bit more about the products. We're talking a little more about what's going on with those. I get more details in this video. Let's go ahead and hear what she has to say. What do we got going on? I know diesel's a hot topic today, and tomorrow, and probably, uh, I'm going to go with next month. And I happen to pull up, and I think we shared on the screen, I pulled up the AAA fuel prices for diesel.

[00:01:17]And we'll see if this works. Oh, look at this. Technology is working. And by the way, we're using a Google Meet to record this. First time ever. So, if something looks weird on the screen, blame the Google overlords. It's probably their fault. But look at this, Jessica. We're at $4.7720 per gallon, that current average. Uh, month ago, $5.30.

[00:01:39]Thanks. Uh, year year ago was $3.89.

[00:01:43]I'm sure we want to go back to those days.

[00:01:46]>> It's a little painful these days.

[00:01:49]>> Yeah. So, what do you guys provide?

[00:01:51]What's your services? And how can you get these guys to Yeah, you're you're not going to get them at 389, but maybe you can pass a few more fueling stations and get more miles per gallon on a truck.

[00:02:02]>> Yeah, so we've got a couple different products. We have two different products that have um what we call detergents in them. And those are what's going to keep the entire fuel system clean. But another benefit of those is that they're going to improve uh the combustion. So they're going to improve what percentage of fuel is actually combusted and turned into energy. Um and that way you get you can put in the same amount of fuel, and you get more miles out of it. So you know, you can improve your fuel economy, and then also, you know, reduce regens and reduce DEF consumption because those are also consumable liquids that we go through a lot of. And you know, we can reduce any of those, that's going to save, you know, quite a bit of money.

[00:02:40]The last time I did the calculation on it was when diesel fuel was about $4 a gallon. Um but it was saving um on average anywhere from 6 to 8 cents per gallon. Um which can add up pretty quickly.

[00:02:53]>> Especially for those uh small truckers, the semi trucks, and stuff. They have uh hundreds of gallons of fuel in those.

[00:02:59]And when you start doing the math on that stuff, it really does add up.

[00:03:02]>> It it really does. And I mean, saving that amount um you know, per mile um is uh it's really incredible. Um I know on my personal pickup when I'm not using the additives, um I can get about 520-ish miles per tank. And then when I start using the additives, um we can get uh close to 600 miles per tank. And that's um just having to stop to fill up less is beneficial for me, let alone that it costs less to fill up. Or cost um you know, less [clears throat] to go those same miles.

[00:03:32]>> I knew I liked you. I knew you were a pickup girl.

[00:03:35]>> [laughter] >> We had to. We had to have one, you know.

[00:03:38]We can't I can't drive a a gasoline uh vehicle to work every day, or let alone an electric vehicle. You know, we we've got a we've got to have diesel for to come to work at Power Service.

[00:03:49]>> No no no Prius for you. Got to got to go to the product.

[00:03:52]>> [laughter] >> It's not exactly a job requirement, but I think you might get laughed at a little bit if you drove an electric vehicle here.

[00:04:00]>> [laughter] >> So, and we're talking additives, which is always a controversial topic. I know people talk about this a lot. So, this is this is the Power Service products, the gold standard for diesel performance. I've been to your facility.

[00:04:10]I've seen it in operation. It's like a bottling plant down there. It's pretty impressive.

[00:04:15]But, people are always a little concerned about snake oil a little bit with with the additives. And you have multiple degrees in the wall. You're you're kind of a smart cookie here. And you've done the science behind this, and this stuff does, you say, work?

[00:04:30]>> Yeah, so we do we we research this product for 2 years before we released it to the public. So, we did multiple field trials, you know, let alone all of the bench testing and the bench studies, and you know, we make sure it goes through all of the no harms testing, you know, cuz the last thing we want to do is cause any type of damage. So, it goes through extensive no harms testing. And then, I mean, not not causing harm is like the bare minimum. You know, you want to actually have a benefit. You know, we don't want to put anything out there that isn't going to do what it says it does. You know, we we stay pretty conservative on our claims that we put on the label just because, you know, we we want it to be realistic. You know, there's we did one fuel economy or it was an emissions study where we reduced the emissions by 99%, which that's kind of an unrealistic number. You know, not everybody is going to experience those same amounts of reductions in emissions, but it's a and then on the bottle we just put 50% reduction in emissions just because, you know, you we can see that in certain circumstances you can, you know, just about reduce the emissions completely.

[00:05:36]Or, you know, instead of going, you know, 200 mi between each regen, you could go 400 mi between each regen, but that not everybody is going to experience those exact same, you know, numbers. So, you don't want to tell somebody that you're going to double your miles between regens every single time when that's not what everybody will experience. But, even a 10 or 20% improvement in regen frequency or even just a like a 8% improvement in fuel economy really, really does add up. Um and then let alone just in fuel and DEF usage, those are something that we can talk about or see pretty much immediately. Um but, keeping it functioning like it should, reducing downtime, you know, reducing maintenance and any type of parts failures. Um I know particulate filters are insanely expensive to replace, injectors are expensive to replace. You know, nobody wants to spend any of that money on something that if you could have added something to prevent that would be much cheaper in the long run.

[00:06:33]So, we really do want to put out a product that does exactly what it says it does. Um it's just how we how we do things. We work with a lot of engine manufacturers and um to make sure that everything does what it says it's going to do.

[00:06:48]>> Yeah, and I was really impressed by visit facility.

[00:06:50]You guys drive my favorite engine, the 6.0 Duramax diesel. This thing's fantastic. You just the mile per gallon on that is insane. We have the new 2027 Silverado 1500 and GMC Sierra coming out with that engine. I know you guys are probably pretty excited to see that new truck and get the my comfortable seats. That's issue I have with GM vehicles. So, it's going to be a lot better in the seats.

[00:07:11]Especially long distance driving. I know you you're some of your sales people cover areas from like Texas to Oklahoma and the miles they put on is just remarkable how many miles they put on those trucks.

[00:07:22]And I was talking to the team about that and some of those guys were saying, "Yeah, the the regens is miles from the products just is so much longer between regens which really it seems like improves overall efficiency and makes reliability feel like a lot better."

[00:07:40]>> Yeah, absolutely. Which with our fleet of the 3.0 Duramaxes that we're running right now, we're running, you know, a really long It's like a 6-month field trial with our specific fleet of vehicles. It's not complete yet, but we're we're working on it, and it's going to be a really exciting one to publish. But we're tracking fuel economy, DEF usage, regions on eight 3.0 Duramaxes all over the country. And um so far, what we've seen, the fuel economy is looking around like 15% improvement average overall, which is really impressive when you think about that. I mean, even a 2 or 3% improvement to like a fleet that runs a lot of vehicles is, you know, thousands of dollars. And if you're looking at, you know, a 10 or 15% improvement, that's just, you know, exponentially better.

[00:08:23]>> Yeah, and some of your products are anywhere the prices range a lot. You can you get big container a a small container, whatever. So, your prices can range from, you know, $20 to $40 to $8 a buy.

[00:08:33]So, you got to do the math, got to figure out how much more fuel economy you're getting and how much it costs.

[00:08:36]But the guys I talked to who have been in the comments of these videos who've done it over the last couple of years have have said, "Yeah, they put it right in." It seems like it's a immediate improvement. Um the one I was fascinated about was you did the study with the guy that hauls the fluid in the semi truck between your ports or whatever. It was Houston to Dallas, whatever. And that that that semi truck, what what was the fuel Remember the fuel economy I talked about? That thing was really impressive.

[00:08:59]>> Yeah, he went from 5.9 miles per gallon to 8 miles per gallon. And he right He was just a really perfect case for doing a fuel economy because fuel economy, there is a lot of variables. So, it is really kind of hard. You can see the 40% improvement on one vehicle, but the next one you'll only see like a 5% improvement. So, there's so many variables when it comes to fuel economy.

[00:09:17]But he drives the same route with the same load every day and fuels at the same station every day. So, he eliminated as many variables as we possibly could. And he drives that every single day. And he went from And it was a pretty new Peterbilt. He'd only He'd had it for less than a year when we started doing that test. And um he was just absolutely shocked. You know, we keep him stocked up with good, you know, a lot of additive since he comes and visits us every day. Um, but he was just absolutely blown away by just how more was much more responsive it was. And then that, you know, going from, you know, almost 6 miles per gallon to 8 miles per gallon is insane for a truck driver like that. That is money back in your pocket.

[00:09:58]>> So, if you're one of those guys that that has a diesel, you've had it for years, right? And you've always thought additives are hogwash, right? And I find another word they've used for that.

[00:10:06]Peachy channel, guys. Peachy. So, if you thought that way, and now get fuel prices have gotten up to four and a half, five dollars a gallon, now you're looking at going, "Man, if if I use one of these products, yeah, I cost a little more to fill up with that first time with that product." I mean, if even if you had your truck for, say, five years, are you going to expect to see some improvements with with an older truck?

[00:10:26]>> I would actually expect to see more improvements in an older truck that's never had any additives in it because you are going to have a little bit more build-up on those injectors. You're going to have a little bit more build-up throughout the fuel system, and cleaning all of that off is just going to allow it to function like new. Again, that's going to bring it back up to where it was, and then the additional improvements we can see on top of that.

[00:10:45]Um, those, you know, ones that are dirty and have never ran an additive are the really great ones to run field trials on because they really do show great a great improvement over ones somebody that does treat even just occasionally.

[00:10:57]Um, but cleaning up those injectors is really kind of the the starting point of everything. You know, nice clean injectors, a good spray pattern, you know, good atomization of that fuel is really just the the point of it all, you know, because if there's um a finer mist of fuel, you're going to have better combustion just there. And then adding in the the chemical detergents that also improve the combustion as well. Um, you're going to have less unburned fuel clogging everything up. You're going to use less DEF. You're going to have less emissions. Um, so, it's dirty injectors clean up really quickly with this additive, and you would see um you would see a difference within 30 minutes of adding it to the fuel and driving it. It's really that fast.

[00:11:38]>> Really? Yeah, I know a lot of guys are are they they know about injectors and they think about the DPF. But what about the other parts downstream of the emission systems? I mean, or even upstream? I mean, are do you see any other improvements throughout the engine? Is it just the injectors and DPF or are there any other improvements?

[00:11:53]>> So, anywhere that the fuel or the exhaust is going to touch is going to have some type of build-up. Not not so much like the fuel pump itself other than, you know, adding in a lubricant that's going to help. Um, but anything, you know, past the injectors in the common rail that the fuel or the exhaust touches is going to have a cleaning effect on all of that. So, you can we have some pictures of some EGRs before and after, some turbos before and after.

[00:12:16]Um, and it [clears throat] really does clean it up quickly and you can just see the difference just visually without even doing any type of measurements.

[00:12:24]>> Yeah, I think that's one of the questions I've I've gotten in the past was, you know, yeah, the DPF gets cleaned up. Yeah, the injectors get cleaned up, which is cool. But what about turbos? What about EGRs? What about rest of parts? And and I think, you know, if you get the injectors cleaned up, it probably just passes something down downstream and just creates that natural washing effect.

[00:12:40]>> Yeah, and what's really cool about the flush in particular, the detergent in that, it allows that soot to kind of burn off at a little bit lower temperatures. So, you don't have to reach those super high temperatures to clean off like the particulate filter.

[00:12:53]Um, so you get a little bit of a cleaning effect all the time instead of just when you're in regen.

[00:12:58]>> [clears throat] >> Yeah, and and that cleaning up all that soot, getting rid of all that that build-up, then that not only improves fuel economy, it leads towards better reliability as well cuz now you're not going to have a problem breaking down cuz you don't have such clogged up um pieces of material, right?

[00:13:12]So, I mean, clogged up stuff well tends to fail.

[00:13:16]>> Yeah, and um, you know, when it's when it's when your vehicles are down, you know, not only is it an expensive repair that you have to pay for, but you know, you're losing money every day that it's down because of lost productivity. So, I mean, it really is not really easy to calculate how much it can potentially save.

[00:13:32]>> Yeah. Huh.

[00:13:33]Yeah, I I you know, I the the the 2027 Silverado's coming out and I would love to buy another 3-liter Duramax diesel, but I'll probably have to end up buying one of the new V8s because I got to buy the newer engine that kind of stuff, but I definitely would like to do more stuff with you guys and really see more of the stuff that's out in the market. So, that's the market to me is really fascinating cuz there's a lot of questions about it. People always have, you know, what's going on. And there's always the well, they do videos cuz they know everything and you know, I find those videos very um interesting. I'll just put it out there that way. Uh everybody's got their own testing methods and stuff and I'm like, well, but there's real chemists who do their own that do testing and and I think you probably have some fun at night, little bag of popcorn watching some of those videos going, "Oh, yeah. Sure, that's how that works."

[00:14:15]>> Yeah. I mean, and you know, not saying that those guys aren't good at what they do, but there are very like industry standard test methods that we can use to determine how well something works. You can make up any type of test method and that will show, you know, whatever you want, but if those results aren't reproducible, it doesn't really give you a whole lot of confidence in that cuz you can you can make results do whatever you want them to basically by designing your method to show what you want to show.

[00:14:42]But using methods that are designed and used by multiple laboratories um that that's what we try to use if at all possible our industry standard test methods that you could do this test that we use in our laboratory and you could send it off to another laboratory that runs the same thing and you would be, you know, within 5% of of each other just, you know, because you're in different laboratories. Um but having those results be reproducible is really is what's going to tell you if it's legitimate or not. So, it's um it's really interesting. I've seen some of the YouTubes and they do actually send off some additives and do, you know, some actual laboratory testing which obviously I feel like is more valid than um you know, some um in your garage testing, but I mean, there's a there's a place for all of it. You know, some people like to see, you know, what is more applicable to them versus, you know, kind of slogging through all of the laboratory data.

[00:15:30]Um but, it's we we like to do um a little bit of everything. We like to make sure that we do all of the industry standard test methods. And then, we do have a lot of case studies and kind of like, you know, individual vehicle tests that are more kind of anecdotal. Um that a lot of people like to see, um but don't aren't really like statistically significant because it's just kind of a one-off thing. Um but, we like to make sure we have both because, you know, there's lots of people that are interested in both.

[00:15:57]>> Wow.

[00:15:58]I I'm I I'm I think you probably feel better getting that out there.

[00:16:01]>> [laughter] >> That was fun.

[00:16:03]All right. So, make sure you check them out. Power Service Products, uh you can find them at all your local places. Um I think you can find them at O'Reilly, you can find them at Walmart, you can find them uh I saw them on Amazon. Cuz, of course, Amazon has everything under the sun these days. Uh yeah. And so, and and by the way, I make is $0 off this stuff.

[00:16:22]I don't I don't have no commissions, no kickbacks, anything. But, uh it's the gold standard for diesel performance.

[00:16:27]So, thank you, Jessica, for joining me once again to talk about the exciting world of diesel additives that um yeah, it's interesting stuff.

[00:16:36]>> Anytime. You know, we're always here.

[00:16:37]You know, I'm actually the one that answers most of the questions when people call in to ask questions. So, if you do have questions, you know, give us a call and um you'll you'll actually get a a real person all of the time, never an answering machine.

[00:16:50]>> Really? Not somebody from India? A real person?

[00:16:54]>> Well, you do get an answering machine if it's outside of business hours. But, you know, if you call during business hours, um you will never get an answering service.

[00:17:02]>> There you go. Yeah. Call now.

[00:17:06]What do you guys think? Have you guys used their products? I wish I had a diesel truck myself. I still wish I had my 3-liter diesel. And I love to try their products because I think it's an exciting time to see if it makes a difference. If it can get the better fuel economy, keeps the diesel running better, if we can get beyond this reliability conversation about diesels, and get the better fuel economy these trucks, and get more miles per gallon, which lowers your operating costs. I think that's a big deal. How can we get diesels to be more even excuse me even more efficient they already are, and lower operating costs. That saves you money. And well, makes you more money.

[00:17:41]Yeah, that's a good deal. So, I hope you found this interesting. And again, if you do use our products, put them in below. I'm curious to people's feedback.

[00:17:47]I'm always really interested to hear what you guys have to say. Check out more videos on this channel up over here. Website down below as well, pickuptrucktalk.com.

[00:17:54]As always, thanks for watching. I will see you down the road.