With the world focusing firmly on green energy efficiency, the chances are as a motorist you have pulled up at the petrol pumps and wondered what the difference is between unleaded and diesel fuels, or whether one is better to use than another.
In recent times, the impact on the environment of burning fossil fuels has been prominent in the news and ethical oil companies are striving to improve the quality and efficiency of all fuel supplied at the pumps. In conjunction with motor manufacturers, they are looking at how they can make your car run more efficiently and therefore have a potentially less damaging impact on the environment.
Of course, as already touched upon the current keywords for anything to do with fuels and energy consumption are 'green' and 'efficient'. We are bombarded daily with messages from a range of eco-friendly sources telling us to cut our fuel and energy consumption if possible, or if not to switch to more eco-friendly fuels.
In the past diesel, although traditionally giving more miles to the gallon than unleaded fuel and therefore a cheaper option for many motorists, has been considered more damaging to the environment than its unleaded counterpart. However, enlightened oil producers have concentrated in not only making diesel more eco-friendly but also highly efficient. Such innovative products are known as high performance diesel.
This is how such fuels work. One of the major barriers to engine efficiency is the build up of deposits in diesel fuel injection systems. When this occurs the engine's efficiency drops considerably, therefore relatively increasing pollution and reducing the green worthiness of a vehicle.
Modern high performance diesel engines are precision engineered and require sophisticated diesel injection equipment to deliver multiple fuel injections into the combustion chamber every second. But with lesser quality fuels, deposits can build up on the fuel injectors of new diesel engines, impairing the fuel spray and thereby reducing the flow. As such, this can lead to power loss as a result of non-optimum combustion.
High performance diesel is designed not only to prevent such deposits forming in engines, but also to attack already laid-down deposits from the use of other fuel. Such cleaning agents within the fuel ensure that engine performance remains constant, delivering top performance for longer.
As a quality fuel, drivers will pay a higher price at the pumps for high performance diesel, but over the lifetime of a vehicle its performance will remain constant, paying back that extra investment. Although not directly contributing to reducing carbon emissions, by making more efficient use of their vehicles high performance fuel users will also do their bit for the environment.
