# First Diesel Problem - Gelled Fuel or Malfunction? Investigating.



## Tomko (Jun 1, 2013)

Wow, that's quite the situation. 

Hope it get's sorted out soon. 

Plus 125,000 British Thermal Units sounds Xtreme! Chez Tomko is heated with less than half that.


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## Robby (Mar 1, 2013)

The 'starts and dies' thing is consistent with fuel that is not fully gelled but has gotten thick enouph to be flow restricted through the filter.

Rob


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## boraz (Aug 29, 2013)

Tomko said:


> Wow, that's quite the situation.
> 
> Hope it get's sorted out soon.
> 
> Plus 125,000 British Thermal Units sounds Xtreme! Chez Tomko is heated with less than half that.


medium sized torpedo heater


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## farmallgray (Nov 28, 2013)

Try putting some diesel 911 in it if you can find some. A lot of places are sold out.


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## diesel (Jun 8, 2013)

Sorry to hear about that. My brain kind of spins on this and I wonder what the results would have been if you had gotten in the car and driven straight off rather than idling. Hopefully there are some GM engineers reading this forum to learn about things like this. I would think that after running for a while, the fuel would have heated up enough that you would not have a problem. I am tending toward blaming the fuel in this case but really curious to hear what you find out.


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## KpaxFAQ (Sep 1, 2013)

Robby said:


> The 'starts and dies' thing is consistent with fuel that is not fully gelled but has gotten thick enouph to be flow restricted through the filter.
> 
> Rob


This could very well be true. Especially if your filter is full of sediment from a bad batch of fuel further restricting flow to begin with. I hope it's just fuel related and not a frozen intercooler issue that plagues all but the newest VW passat TDI's.


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## revjpeterson (Oct 2, 2013)

Tomko said:


> 125,000 British Thermal Units sounds Xtreme! Chez Tomko is heated with less than half that.





boraz said:


> medium sized torpedo heater


It's a lot, but it does the job I bought it for. I have about 600 square feet of garage with no installed heat, insulation, or ceiling, so it takes some beef to warm that place up enough to work comfortably with bare hands. This heater can take that garage from 0 to 55 in about 90 minutes, and after a couple hours, I have to cut the thermostat back to 65 to keep it from sweating me out. You can actually hear the snow outside melting and sliding down the roof when it's on. Depends on fuel too. It seems to perform best running on Diesel but the fumes are worse; The air breathes a little easier with Kerosene, but it doesn't heat quite as well. I haven't tried out heating oil or jet fuel in it, so not sure how those work.



farmallgray said:


> Try putting some diesel 911 in it if you can find some. A lot of places are sold out.


I put about 8 oz of 911 in the tank right away in the morning, but it didn't seem to get me anywhere until I applied heat. 

In the end, I went back after about 75 minutes of the heater being pointed at the right-rear of the car. It started up and kept running, so I took it out for about a 20 mile drive and topped off with 3 gallons of straight #1 while i was out. We'll see how it starts when I head out for church tomorow morning at -5F. If it's good, then it was probably fuel. If the trouble returns (8 oz of 911 and 3 gallons of #1 should be enough to keep it flowing at -5F), then it will be time to start looking into other problems. However, since there were no codes and the heater was pointed at the fuel filter, not the motor, it seems fuel is the most likely cause. Next tank, I'm definitely going to be a little more aggressive with the blend (I was pushing the envelope with this fill to try to keep the cost per gallon down and the fuel economy up - maybe not the best choice, since I spent the day driving around at 12-15mpg in my Jeep) or start putting in some additive to prevent future problems.


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## 888 (Jan 14, 2014)

revjpeterson said:


> Well, encountered the first bit of trouble with the Diesel this morning:
> 
> 
> Considering it could be gelled fuel (I filled with untreated #2 on Friday, but had about 5 gallons of 50/50 blend in the tank, so I should have still been good to well below zero),


I think this is your problem. I had something similar happen with my son's TDI last tuesday. He called me and said his car had sputtered, quit and wouldn't restart after driving 15 miles from work towards our house. It was blocking a driveway out in the country about 5 miles away. I went out there and to make a long story short, it sounded like a no fuel situation. I know the sound too well from the time my pump drained down during a timing belt change and I had to vacuum prime the whole circuit. He cranked while I listened a little and after maybe 20 seconds of cranking on 2 cycles it sputtered and fired up. We drove it 5 miles home but it wouldn't start the next morning. Cranked and no start, no fuel. 

I didn't think it was jelled fuel because the car had done well in much colder weather and he uses PS winter additive with every tank. However, he told me he got fuel at BP by the mall instead of the truck stop uptown where it turns over regularly so I suspect the station didn't go through much diesel and it wasn't winterized. I thought the PS winter additive would protect it but.....

I ended up installing a new fuel filter filled with 50/50 Diesel 911 and winterized diesel and that didn't do it. I had to crack open the injector lines at the injector to bleed out whatever was in the lines to get it started and it's started every other time I've tried it since (he's driving my TDI now). 

I don't how the Cruze is laid out, the filter on a TDI is 6" from the injection pump so whatever is in the filter gets to the pump and injectors fairly quickly. The TDI also has an arrangement to return excess fuel to the filter assembly to warm it up. I think someone posted the fuel filter is under the car somewhere? If so, and you have gelled fuel in the lines, I'm not sure how long it will take to get it out or how you get the 911 where it will do some immediate good at the injectors. 

Point of the story is that I had no idea how quickly non winterized diesel would shut a TDI down even with PS winter additive. That's the only thing I can think of that caused what happened to our TDI and it might be what is behind your problems.


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## Scott M. (Apr 23, 2013)

Hopefully you are all set. Otherwise I would throw a fuel filter at it just to rule it out. Its just seems like one of those things you have to do in this situation. Its a real shame that the fuel filters are so pricey on this car.


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## Chevy Customer Care (Oct 29, 2011)

Hey revjpeterson,

Keep us posted and please contact us by PM is you need our assistance or have any questions for Chevrolet Customer Care.

Jackie
Chevrolet Customer Care


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## revjpeterson (Oct 2, 2013)

40 miles yesterday at around zero and 100 today starting out after a low of -8, and no problems so far. Appears it must have been fuel-related, but should be corrected now.


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## PanJet (Jun 18, 2013)

Glad it appears to be just the fuel.

This past week, I left my car parked outside at the airport (an open lot, not a garage) for about 52 hours. The daytime temps at the airport during that time were never higher than 8 degrees F, and at for the two nights there dropped down to -12 and -17 F. When I returned to the car it was midday and about 6 degrees F. The tank was full of straight #2 with a double-dose of PS white bottle.

The car cranked a bit to get started, but then took off and ran like a champ with no issues.


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