ATF in fuel....over 908,000 miles

[RichSax]

Started up a conversation at the fuel pump this morning with a man driving a 2001 Ram CTD. Asked him how he liked the truck and he said he had over 908,000 miles on it and it had the original injectors and fuel pump and no problems with either. He said it had a little over 4 miles on it when he got it. He was pulling a 20+ foot box trailer with ??? in it. He insisted that I look at the odometer and sure enough it was showing as he had stated. He said that this was his 5th diesel truck and believed that the engine, injectors, fuel pump longevity was due to the fact that he used a quart of Dextron ATF in the fuel every other tank full. Any comments ????

 

[LOtero]

interesting, but hmmm seems unlikely

 

[Tim]

Have heard of this before. Not recently because everyone's afraid of the electronic engines. I can't see how it'd hurt as long as it mixed well with the fuel.

 

[XJSuperman]

I have had a lot of folks tell me to do this with my truck. But I'm just as leary with this as I am with the whole acetone debate.

 

[Todd G]

I can't believe this guy is driving over 600 miles per day, 7 days a week to get that mileage... .

 

[Gary - K7GLD]

I can't believe this guy is driving over 600 miles per day, 7 days a week to get that mileage... .

Hotshotters get that sort of mileage - and are usually the ones we see pointed to with extremely high-mileage vehicles...

 

[TFucili]

Red fuel=bad idea

I've heard plenty of guys using ATF as additive, but if the revenuers see red fuel you're in a heap of trouble. Here in the Peoples Republic of New Jersey the revenuers show up at businesses randomly and unannounced to take fuel samples. If it's red you're dead. God forbid someone skates on the road tax!

 

[p-Bar]

When I had my 1st gen ford diesel a friend said when he changed fuel filters to fill the new one with atf ,I started doing that also ,still always had problems with the injection pumps

 

[TFucili]

When I had my 1st gen ford diesel a friend said when he changed fuel filters to fill the new one with atf ,I started doing that also ,still always had problems with the injection pumps

I'm with you there. We had two 6. 9 slugs, and both had very early pump failures of the timing advance contol followed by repeat failures at unexpectedly low mileage. Those Stanadynes were pretty sour!

 

[Vaughn MacKenzie]

I can't believe this guy is driving over 600 miles per day, 7 days a week to get that mileage... .

He could have bought his truck anytime between Jan 2000 and Aug 2001 that would be anywhere from 45 to 66 months ago. So the daily range would be 450 miles to 660 miles per day. Possible I guess if he bought it in 2000 but a little hard to believe. Maybe the truck has two drivers.



Vaughn

 

[JCrockett]

I have done the the ATF thing in my old Ford 5. 8 Liter. It has 125k on it. I put it in the tank every now and then and I also added a quart every other oil change. I would add the extra quart then let it idle for about 15 min then pull the plug. I had to pull the heads last spring to change the gaskets and everything was spotless. My buddy is a mechanic and he couln't believe how well it looked in there. Plus the thing does not even use a quart of oil in 3K miles.

So yah I think it works, helps keeps thing lubricated and clean, at least it is not going to hurt anything.

That is my experiece with it.

 

[Hohn]

NO disrspect, but your experience with a 5. 8 L GAS V8 is pretty much entirely irrelevant to the topic at hand.



Let me know how long your CP3 lasts with regular ATF usage. I'm guessing less than 50K.

 

[TX Gooseneck]

I can't believe this guy is driving over 600 miles per day, 7 days a week to get that mileage... .

I've owned my truck for roughly 465 days. I have 170,xxx miles now. Bought it with 12 miles on it. I'm averaging 366 miles a day - and I haven't been on a long haul trip in over a month. Typically when I leave to go to the Northwest it takes me several days of 900+ miles a day. It's very easy to add up the mileage when you drive from Texas to Washington four times a month (roughly 18,000 miles). Now that we've hired some drivers, I don't know what to do with the extra time Right now, I'm on pace for 544,000 in 48 months. :-laf



Oh yeah - with loads like this one: https://www.turbodieselregister.com/user_gallery/sizeimage.php?&photoid=20005&width=1

 

[TCluff]

all diesel engines are tougher than u think, a cat 3516, will fire and run like a champ without smoking like a freight train on pure straight 15-40, or even straight 10wt or 30wt, the 10 wt is close to atf, 22,000 mining use hours, primed every time with whatever is handy in the oil department, still running original injectors, no problems even the hui has an injection pressure of about 22,500 psi, and will run on just about any thing u dump in it, on the 3rd gen truck u should be ok as long as it is mixed well, like no more than a quart every once in a while and with at least 30 gallons of fuel, and that wont be enough to change the color of your fuel, and for the tax police, tell them it is injector cleaner like marvel mystery oil should the question arise, i wouldnt run any thing heavier than atf, atf keeps things clean because of the amount of additives in it... . way more than other oils