Fuel additives are extra chemicals you put into your fuel. They’re sold to help your engine run cleaner or more efficiently, but not every product actually works as promised.
Concept
lubricant industry
The lubricant industry makes and sells oils, greases, and related chemical products, and it also overlaps with the broader additive market. The host is pointing out that past bad products can reduce consumer trust, which matters because many additive claims are hard to verify without controlled testing.
They’re saying they’ll do more number-crunching than science talk. The idea is to compare what the additive costs versus what you might save or gain from using it.
They’re describing a treatment plan with two different products or stages. One is meant to help the engine use fuel more efficiently, and the other is meant to help protect the fuel system.
Concept
fuel-miot molecule
They’re talking about combustion: how the fuel burns after it lights off. The idea is that with better fuel quality (higher cetane), the engine can burn the fuel more completely, which can improve efficiency.
DPF means Diesel Particulate Filter. It’s a device on a diesel exhaust that catches soot so it doesn’t go into the air. If less soot is being made, the filter has an easier job.
“Particulate” here means tiny bits of soot in diesel exhaust. A diesel filter (DPF) tries to catch them before they leave the car. Less soot usually means the engine is burning fuel more effectively.
Miles per gallon (MPG) tells you how far the car can go using one gallon of fuel. If the engine wastes less fuel, MPG usually improves. The speaker is arguing that better combustion means better MPG.
An injector cleaner is a fuel additive that helps keep the fuel injectors working properly. If injectors get dirty, they can spray fuel less accurately, which wastes fuel and can increase soot. Cleaning them can help the engine burn fuel more effectively.
Diesel injectors can get gunked up inside over time. That gunk can change how the injector sprays fuel, so the engine doesn’t burn it as completely as it should.
In a diesel engine, the injector has to spray fuel in the right way. If the spray pattern is off, the fuel doesn’t mix well with air and can burn less efficiently.
The injector nozzle is the part that actually squirts the fuel into the engine. If it gets dirty, it can spray fuel the wrong way and reduce efficiency.
CP4s are a type of high-pressure fuel pump found on many diesel engines. Diesel fuel has to lubricate that pump; if the fuel is too “dry,” the pump can wear out faster.
This is an additive meant to help lubricate the top part of the engine where the piston and rings move. The idea is to reduce friction and wear, and it may help efficiency a little.
Piston rings help seal the combustion chamber. If lubrication is better, the rings can move more smoothly and seal more effectively, which can help the engine run a bit more efficiently.
Concept
restoring that mile per gallon to what that system started at as new
The claim here is that as a diesel gets dirty, it can use more fuel. Cleaning and additives might help it burn fuel more efficiently again, so mileage can improve toward how it was when the system was new.
In a diesel engine, injectors are the parts that spray fuel into the cylinders. If they get dirty, the fuel spray can become less accurate, which can reduce efficiency. The cleaner is meant to help the injectors spray properly again.
Term
152,000 miles
They’re using mileage as a clue about how much wear or buildup the truck might have. If a used diesel has a lot of miles and you don’t know how well it was maintained, it may have more deposits. That’s why the cleaner could show a bigger improvement at first.
“Lost economy” means reduced fuel economy (miles per gallon or similar) compared to what the vehicle should achieve. The segment argues that injector cleaning can restore some of that lost efficiency by removing deposits that interfere with proper fuel delivery and combustion. It’s presented as one of two main mechanisms behind the product’s gains.
Diesel cetane is a measure of how easily the fuel lights off inside a diesel engine. If it’s higher, the fuel tends to burn more smoothly. That can improve efficiency because the engine gets more complete combustion.
Term
hotshot products
“Hotshot products” refers to a product line/usage context aimed at hotshot trucking—owner-operators running time-sensitive loads. The host uses it to contrast drivers who already maintain their trucks with additives versus those who don’t.
Your fuel system is everything that gets diesel from the tank to the engine. If it gets dirty or contaminated, the engine can run worse, so cleaning it can help.
The Chevrolet C10 is a pickup truck made by Chevrolet. People talk about it a lot because it’s a common older truck that’s used for work and sometimes modified. In this podcast context, it’s likely being used as an example of where improvements to the fuel system can make a noticeable difference.
“C10” here refers to a specific additive package/component the host calls out as the main driver of the “gain” during cleaning. The host later lists it as part of the formula, implying it’s a concentrated injector-cleaning booster used to improve fuel-system cleanliness.
“Diesel Extreme” is the brand name of a diesel additive the host sells/uses as a “deep heavy duty cleaner.” The host claims it uses the same six-component formula as their other product, but with a higher injector-cleaner concentration (up to EPA limits).
“Everyday Diesel Treatment” is the brand name of a more frequent-use diesel additive the host positions as a “keep clean” approach. The host says it uses the same six components as “Diesel Extreme,” but with the injector-cleaner “dialed down” to a maintenance level.
A water demulsifier is an additive that helps separate water from diesel so it can be managed by filtration rather than circulating through the fuel system. Water contamination can contribute to corrosion and poor combustion.
A fuel stabilizer helps slow down fuel degradation over time, which can reduce issues like varnish and gum formation. This is particularly relevant for vehicles that sit for long periods or for fuel that’s stored before use.
A rust inhibitor is a chemical additive that helps prevent corrosion of metal surfaces in the fuel system. Diesel fuel can carry contaminants (including water), and corrosion risk increases when those conditions exist.
The EPA is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which sets regulations for fuel and emissions-related limits. Here, the host claims their “diesel extreme” increases injector cleaner up to the point where the EPA stops them—meaning there are regulatory caps on additive strength.
“Once every 6,000 miles” is the recommended service interval for using the host’s “diesel extreme” additive. The key point is that the host frames additive use as a maintenance schedule tied to how quickly deposits build up in the fuel system.
A deep system clean is a stronger cleaning approach than just using a small additive every tank. It’s meant to clear out buildup that can accumulate in the fuel system.
Percentage gain means the improvement is measured as a percent. If fuel prices are higher, the same percent improvement can save you more money in real dollars.
Cost per treat means “what it costs to treat a certain amount of fuel.” Two bottles can have different prices, but the cheaper one might actually do more per dollar.
EDT is the name of the fuel additive/treatment product the host is talking about. They’re saying it only costs a tiny amount per gallon of diesel, and that cost might be recovered if it helps your truck use less fuel.
Fuel economy improvement means your truck goes farther on the same amount of diesel. The host uses a simple example: if you improve efficiency by 3%, you burn less fuel for the same driving work, so you save money—if the additive cost is less than the savings.
The “3% efficiency bump” is the claim that the truck will waste 3% less fuel. The host turns that into a real-world example: with a 30-gallon fill, 3% is 0.9 gallons saved, which becomes dollars saved at $6 per gallon.
Water dispersion means the additive helps spread water out instead of letting it collect. That matters because water in diesel can cause trouble for the fuel system.
Mileage gain means you’re getting a little more distance out of the same amount of fuel. They’re using a small 1% improvement to estimate whether it’s actually worth paying for.
Efficiency gain means the engine uses less fuel for the same driving. They’re showing how even a small improvement (like 1%) can add up to real money over time.
A “dirty system” means the fuel system has buildup inside it. That buildup can make the injectors spray fuel less effectively, which can hurt fuel economy.
Cetane is a diesel fuel quality that affects how easily the fuel lights off in the engine. Better cetane can help the engine burn fuel more smoothly and efficiently.
Cetane is a number that tells you how readily diesel fuel will start burning in a diesel engine. Higher cetane can help the engine use the fuel better, but the improvement gets smaller once you’re already in the high range.
“Diminishing returns” means that after a certain point, improving something gives smaller and smaller benefits. Here, the host says higher cetane helps at first, but once it’s already high, you don’t get much extra efficiency for the extra cost.
“Hot shot trucks” are trucks used for fast, time-sensitive deliveries. Because they drive a lot and fuel often, even small differences in fuel cost or fuel economy can add up.
Break-even means “when you’ve saved enough money to cover the extra cost.” Here, they’re saying a tiny improvement in fuel economy can pay for the additive/treatment pretty fast.
MPG (miles per gallon) is a measure of fuel efficiency: how many miles a vehicle can travel using one gallon of fuel. The segment uses MPG improvement to estimate how many gallons are saved and how quickly the treatment cost is recovered.
Heavy-duty trucks are the bigger work trucks that usually burn more fuel than smaller vehicles. Because they use more fuel, even small efficiency changes can add up.
A big rig is a large commercial semi-truck. Since it usually gets lower MPG, changes in efficiency can translate into bigger dollar savings over distance.
Compounding just means the savings add up repeatedly. If you keep getting better mileage every month, the total money saved grows the longer you run it.
DFC diesel is the company sponsoring the show. They sell rebuilt diesel engines for truck owners who need a replacement engine fast or want something that fits their towing/custom setup.
A remanufactured engine is a used engine that gets taken apart, checked, and rebuilt with new or refurbished parts. The idea is to get a replacement that’s closer to “like-new” than just swapping in an unknown used motor.
ISO 9001:2015 is a recognized quality standard that companies use to prove they follow consistent manufacturing and testing procedures. The hosts are saying this helps ensure rebuilt engines are made with more predictable quality.
A warranty is the guarantee that if something goes wrong within a set time/mileage, the company will help pay to fix it. They’re saying these rebuilt engines include strong warranty coverage.
Term
core street tow haul
This is basically a menu of different engine build “levels” for different jobs. The hosts are saying you can choose a setup aimed at normal driving, or one meant to handle towing and heavy use.
Speed of Air pistons are a specific type of piston upgrade. The hosts are saying these pistons can improve how the engine runs—like better fuel economy and stronger output—so the upgrade can be worth the cost.
Rods (connecting rods) are the parts that link the pistons to the crankshaft. Upgrading them can help an engine handle more stress, especially in towing or higher-power builds.
The crankshaft is the main rotating part that turns the engine’s motion into usable power. They’re saying you can choose different crank components depending on the build you want.
The valve train controls when the engine’s valves open and close. Upgrading it can help the engine breathe better, which can support more power or durability in demanding use.
The Lucid Air is an electric car, not a diesel. It doesn’t use diesel fuel, but the podcast is talking about how systems handle air, vapor, and debris. That’s why it may be mentioned as an example of system design and filtration concepts.
“Two microns” is how fine the filter is. Smaller micron numbers mean the filter catches tinier particles, which helps keep fuel from gunking up the engine’s fuel parts.
Fuel can slowly break down while it sits. “Stabilize the fuel” means adding something to slow that breakdown, but there’s only so much improvement you can get.
They’re talking about Hot Shots, a brand that sells diesel fuel treatments. The claim is that their formula is designed so you get the main benefits without needing to add extra.
The CP4 pump is the part that pressurizes diesel fuel so the engine can inject it correctly. If the fuel isn’t right, that pump can wear out or fail, so protecting it matters.
Emission systems are the parts on a diesel that clean up exhaust after the engine burns the fuel. The way the truck runs can affect how hard those parts have to work to control pollution.
A water emulsifier is an additive meant to deal with water that gets into diesel fuel. The host says it helps separate that water so it can be removed, which also helps stop problems like algae. It also matters because water can make the fuel less slippery and increase wear.
Algae can grow in diesel when water gets into the fuel. The host is saying it’s a big problem because it can be hard to get rid of once it starts. Preventing water contamination helps prevent algae.
Oxidize here means the diesel fuel slowly “ages” and changes chemically over time. The host says it can start happening in as little as about a month, and by the time fuel reaches the pump it may already be partway through that aging. That’s why they talk about using stabilizers.
Fuel stabilization is about keeping diesel from “going bad” as it sits. The speaker says that when fuel degrades, it can lose qualities that help the engine run smoothly and protect the fuel system.
Anti-gel is an additive that helps diesel keep flowing in winter. Without it, diesel can thicken or gel, which can cause fuel filter clogs and starting problems.
Aerodynamics is about how easily air moves around the truck. If you reduce air drag, the truck needs less energy to keep going, which can improve fuel economy.
Engine oil is what lubricates the moving parts inside the engine. The idea here is that some oils reduce friction, which can help the truck use less fuel.
Term
electronic stuff
“Electronic stuff” means the truck’s computer-controlled systems that manage how it runs. Better control can help the engine use fuel more efficiently.
Transmission fluid is the liquid that keeps the transmission working smoothly. Using the right fluid can reduce friction and help the truck run more efficiently.
Gear oil is the lubricant used in gear-driven parts like differentials. The claim is that better gear oil can reduce friction and help the vehicle use less fuel.
Term
hub grease
Hub grease lubricates the wheel hub bearings. Less friction there can help the truck run more efficiently over time.
A cab wind deflector is a piece you add to the top/front of a truck cab to help air flow better. It’s meant to reduce drag, which can improve fuel economy a little.
This means the product should save enough fuel money to cover what you paid for it by the time you’re done with that same fill-up. They’re saying most changes are slower to pay back.
Preventative maintenance means doing scheduled upkeep to prevent problems before they happen. Here, the speaker ties it to keeping customers satisfied long-term by avoiding fuel-system issues that could reduce performance or fuel economy.
“Additive world” means fuel additives—products you pour into your diesel to try to make the fuel system run better. The speaker is saying people should consider them when diesel gets expensive.
LIVE
Welcome to the diesel podcast presented by DFC diesel.
Kyle, welcome to the podcast.
How are you doing today?
Good, how are you, Patrick?
Good to be going with you again.
Yeah, I'm doing well.
And it's an exciting time of year.
I think so many different parts of diesel
kind of start happening now with races and events
and UCCs around the corner and other things.
But something that has dominated this spring time
has been fuel economy because of fuel prices.
And we see memes or we see people talking about it.
I saw another company in diesel that was they went through
their warehouse and were asking the guys,
what are you driving now?
And most of them had parked their diesel trucks
and they're doing a car or something else.
What do you think is representative of what
everyone's feeling?
And so you had an idea about talking about fuel economy
and do fuel additives, do anything with it.
So I think that'll be really interesting.
And just right up front with fuel economy
and my personal experience with diesel trucks,
I'm not talking just about fuel additives
or even fuel additives at all.
But I've been kind of a skeptic over my time
of owning a truck because I've had some products
that did help, some that didn't.
And the ones that didn't were the ones people told me would.
And so I've always kind of looked at it
through a skeptical kind of lens.
But I think right now, everyone wants better fuel economy.
Everybody wants to save money on fuel.
It's really expensive.
And so I look forward to being able to hear
your insights and perspectives relate them to my experience
and see if this is something that can really help people
and help their pocketbook.
Yeah. And it's one of those things where I live in this world.
Like people doubt additives.
I know you said you've experienced
with all sorts of different products,
but additives have a lot of doubters out there.
And rightfully so.
Our lubricant industry is largely to blame.
There are a lot of bad products been put out there.
So it erodes the trust of people.
One of the unique things with right now
with these insane fuel prices is
this is the best time for somebody
who's never used a fuel additive before
and has that same skepticism that you have.
This is the time to try.
And it's something we're going to go over today.
We're going to get mathy today instead of science
and kind of break down the numbers behind it.
And what I'm going to show you is how affordable
using a fuel additive gets as the price of fuel goes up.
And I get it.
It's one of those things where you're paying
so much for the fuel now.
The last thing you want to do is also have an additive expense.
But if that additive can give you the gain to pay back for itself
and give you the benefits to prolong and preserve your truck,
well, then it becomes a no brainer.
So ironically, it is about,
it is this time when fuel prices go through the roof
that we start seeing new people trying additives.
And so I did think it would be a good time to kind of address that.
And we are kind of in crazy record territory right now.
I just pulled these numbers yesterday
from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Diesel fuel has increased in price 63% in four months.
And that was updated yesterday.
And as of yesterday, California
just set the highest average fuel cost in history.
And they're averaging $7.36 a gallon in the state right now.
So when the fuel gets that insanely expensive,
targeting minimal, I mean,
it just takes minimal efficiency gains to have a great payback
on adding a fuel additive to your maintenance schedule.
Their average is over $7.
$7.36, isn't that crazy?
Wow, I was, when you were mentioning like the cost of fuel,
I was thinking back to like different high points
that I remember in like owning a truck
or being an enthusiast and what I'd pay.
And I remember sometimes it hit $5, maybe five and a quarter.
And that was like a lot.
Yeah.
But to think an average over seven, that affects everything.
And I think that's the reason people would be interested
and have that question.
You mentioned of will it not just pay for itself,
but will it save me money?
Will it go over that threshold and help me?
That's where I think the interest is.
Well, what if I told you it might actually pay you to use it?
You can actually get to the point where the return is so good,
it pays for the product and puts money in your pocket.
And that blows people's minds.
But we're going to dig through the numbers on that.
Before we get into the numbers,
let's address your skepticism first.
We've done a few episodes on the fuel additives
and what and how they do it.
Well, you know, this is our diesel extreme
and our everyday diesel treatment.
It's our two-step system we've talked about a lot.
We have six components in here.
These products are designed to treat the poor fuel that we get
and also protect the fuel system.
So not everything in here is theoretically designed
for efficiency gain.
But if we're just talking about prove to me
that this stuff gives me efficiency,
the main winners in there, number one is the C-tane.
Your C-tane, most states have a 40 C-tane minimum.
All these modern trucks love to be running off
of a higher C-tane, 47 C-tane and higher is a lot better.
And the higher your C-tane level gets is it increases the time
of the burn of the fuel-miot molecule.
So you get a more complete burn of that fuel.
That's less particulate that then gets pushed out to the DPF
or out the exhaust pipe as wasted fuel.
Well, you're paying for that fuel and you pump that up.
You're paying for every drop of it.
So the more drops you can use to power the vehicle,
the more miles per gallon you're going to get.
So we want to be more efficient with that.
Well, the best way to get, and you're never going to completely burn
100% of the fuel, but the closer we can get to using all the fuel
and the way you do that is with C-tane.
If you're running 40 C-tane fuel, we have plenty of testing to show you
at how much particulate that runs out into the exhaust.
And that's just wasted fuel.
So by raising your C-tane, you're going to get a more complete burn of the fuel,
hence getting better value of the fuel that you're purchasing.
The other big winner in that is the injector cleaner.
We add a strong injector cleaner into our products.
This cleans your fuel system.
Now let's be really frank and honest with people that have doubts about this stuff.
And this is also why you mentioned you had somebody that might have recommended
you a product that, you know, they still work great, but it didn't work for you.
Well, especially in the lubricant world, the reason why you see a lot of
discrepancies between is based on each individual vehicle.
So there's two things we do when we bring your efficiency up.
One is just restoring lost efficiency.
So that's dependent on how dirty your fuel system is.
If you've got internal diesel injector deposits that are affecting your spray pattern
in your injector nozzle, these diesels, of course, we don't have a spark plug.
So it's all about atomizing that fuel, hitting that sweet spot of that piston.
So on the combustion, it actually, you get as much explosion as you can out of that.
Well, when these injectors get dirty, when the fuel system gets dirty,
it starts to affect the spray pattern.
Like once again, you're not going to get a complete burn of that fuel that's spraying on
top of that piston.
So those are your two big winners.
Now I'd argue lubricity.
Lubricity is mainly like, you know, for protection of our CP4s and, you know,
you know, lubricating the fuel system.
But there is a benefit of an upper cylinder lubricant too.
So it's just, you know, the resistance of that fuel side of your cylinder
by lubricating it, it helps the ring ride a little better.
It's minimal gains, but they all count.
So when you see different variances and people using like the same fuel additive,
and why is his different than mine in my truck, and we might have the same trucks?
Well, chances are one of your truck was more dirty.
So one of them had more to clean out and return.
So we're not inventing new mile per gallon.
We're just restoring that mile per gallon to what that system started at as new.
And then once you've achieved all that gain.
So say our die hard people that are following our two step diet very closely,
they probably got really clean injectors if they stay on top of it.
So they're not going to see any more gain out of the injector cleaner.
It's just going to keep them clean.
So those injectors are firing exactly on, but they will see a gain on the sea tane boost.
Now you compare that to another guy who just uses the product for the first time
and may have bought a used, used diesel truck, you know, that had 152,000 miles on it.
Who knows how the previous owner, you know, did for maintenance.
Well, they're going to see a huge gain right off the bat because they're going to get the
benefit of the restoration process of cleaning it out.
So just kind of want to set the table with that on the,
the science behind how you see those gains.
It's really on those two aspects of restoring lost economy and then
improving the fuel sea tane content.
So you get a better burn of it.
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You mentioned that when the fuel prices get to this level,
you guys see a lot of new people either calling or approaching.
In my mind, that would be the person who probably doesn't use an additive at all and never has,
and is just trusting the quality of the fuel at the pump for however old that truck is.
They would potentially see a better gain or improvement because there's been nothing done.
Verse somebody who runs hotshot products and has for 10 years or 5 years or
ever long, they've had that truck. They've already got that fuel system at the cleanest
level that it could be for the age of the truck. That makes sense to me as far as different
starting points. I've never actually pulled people I personally know to ask them how many
use additives. I hope it would be more than 50%, but I'm not sure. I think that's a great starting
point to understand the math or the cost or the benefits that people can get from that is.
What's the quality or what's the standard of your fuel system now?
Let's get it clean. Then it helped me follow the process when we talked about C10,
and that's where the gain itself is happening. Do you know from any of the testing or experience
that you have? This is kind of a loaded question a bit. Is there a certain mileage?
You have 50,000 miles. Does that fuel system definitely need a clean on it versus somebody
at 20,000? Because I think that might be a question somebody has who's new and is just
paying 736 a gallon in California for fuel. I only got 20,000 miles. Am I really going to get
any benefit out of that? How quick can these systems need a cleaning?
Incredibly fast. The longer you go, it just snowballs, it compounds.
How we recommend our products, our diesel extreme and our everyday diesel treatment,
they both have the same six components in it. We got the C10 booster, the injector cleaner,
the lubricity, water demulsifier, rust inhibitor, and a fuel stabilizer. The difference in the two
is that on the diesel extreme, we crank up the injector cleaner literally to where the EPA stops
us. The diesel extreme is your deep heavy duty cleaner that we recommend using it once every 6,000
miles. The EDT is designed, we dial the injector cleaner down to a keep clean level so that it's
affordable to use in every single tank. It gives you enough injector cleaner to keep them clean,
but it keeps your lubricity up, your C10 up and all that. Understand that, that even as we
instruct people, people that are running EDT in every single tank that has injector cleaner in it,
we still recommend those people do a deep system clean every 6,000 miles. To your question,
if you haven't done anything and you're already at 6,000 miles and it hasn't been cleaned at all,
you're already ready for some planning. Okay, that makes sense. I think the part that I'm curious
to get into is the math part because math doesn't lie. Math is math that has its rules, right? And
that's what I think is at the heart of what people are wanting right now is how can I stretch my
money farther as it pertains to filling up my truck and using it and how I use it. How does
and this is the good thing, this is the good bad thing about the high fuel prices is everything
works on percentage gain, right? And so if you can get a little bit of gain, well,
3% of $3 gallon is not as pricey as a 3% of a $7 gallon. So we do see more people coming into
the market right now looking to try to save some money on their fuel expense because it's through
the roof, of course. What we're going to do today is I'm going to run you through a bunch of numbers,
we're going to walk through exactly what it is. And I think what I'm trying to get people to
understand a little bit better is to focus on what it costs to treat the fuel. So often when
shopping for, if you're looking for a fuel additive, you go into the parts store, it's a daunting shelf
of just endless bottles. And it's tough, it's tough to know what one does versus the other.
And a lot of people price shop, you know, and so they're looking at the price of the bottle,
and they might see a really big bottle for $15, they might see a tiny bottle for $30.
And it's kind of like, I don't really know the value of that. And the best way I can compare it to
is if you know, if you buy like laundry detergent, you know, you see these big jugs laundry
detergent, one says it does 200 loads and one says it does 100 loads, you know, so
if they're both 20 bucks, obviously you get a better value with the one that does twice as much.
So people don't look at cost per treat as much as they should when shopping for fuel additives.
So that's like one of the first things that I like to get people measuring. And if you can measure
what it costs to move your truck one mile, and then you compound that over a week, month and
everything, that's exactly where the return comes in on it. Now, these are great products that do
great things for your vehicle. So you should pay money to a company like us to purchase these
products that we make to do make your life better. One of the cool things about it is the benefit
of these products actually allow you to get more fuel consumption, more efficiency that you're
paying a ton of money for right now. So they actually save you money. And it gets down to the
point when the numbers get this high, it gets very easy for these products to be completely free
and they'll pay for themselves. And we'll show that. So let's start with kind of setting the table
on how we're going to do our math today. Now, generally speaking, we see a plus 5%
efficiency gain on average with our two step system. So that's averaging the guys that have
really dirty systems that had good returns versus the guys that have brand new trucks that start
treating them right away that are only getting that C-tane, you know, side of that gain that we
talked about. And we see up to 10%. We've seen crazy numbers that we won't even report because
nobody will believe it. But we've seen a lot of, and usually when you see crazy numbers, it's due
to a really dirty system that got cleaned out. Now we've returned a lot of that that efficiency.
But we always are in the 5% to 6% average efficiency gain. So for today's math,
I wanted to keep it really conservative for all the doubters out there. So we're going to assume a
3% gain and do the math on that. And so that's about half of what we normally see
on average across the board, across all of our customers. So for today's math, we're going to
use a 3% mileage gain. And as far as when we look at how much you're getting out of the bottle,
of course, our EDT is our everyday treatment. This is what has the C-tane in it, has the
injector cleaner in it, also has lubricity or anything else. The treatment rate for this is
one ounce per 25 gallons. So always look at the cost per treated gallon. And this is our most
common bottle size, which just in economics, this costs more than if you were to buy like a gallon
of it. So this is a higher price, if you will, at that cost per treat. These bottles retail for
$20. So you're going to be in this treats 400 gallons at 16 ounces. So the cost to treat a
gallon of fuel with EDT is five cents. So that's the number you got to remember. Five cents per
gallon, which right off the bat, to me is like crazy, like that everybody in the world doesn't
use a fuel additive, you know, on the gasoline side, you see premium fuels that are 30, 40,
50, 60 cents more. It's more than five cents. Right. So literally five cents added on to the
cost of your gallon of fuel can give you all six components, I said, and create premium diesel
fuel. I kind of get it at $3 a gallon. Maybe if somebody doesn't want to pay 305, you know,
it's like, eh, when they start paying six $7 a gallon, what's $7 and five cents, if that five
cents extra can pay you back on that investment and give you all these benefits. It's really a
minimal cost to raise the grade of your fuel to a premium fuel.
What? Now, when we look at that, that 3% and the cost to treat, how does that work out for like,
I mean, the fuel economy side? Like, what's the math on that part of it? Once we, once we factor
in a 3% fuel economy improvement? Cool. All right. So I guess some numbers are written down. So let's,
let's just take a normal, your standard heavy duty, you know, diesel truck. So we're going to
assume a $6 gallon gas now, or we could do 735 in California, but we'll, we'll do, we'll do,
so for our math numbers, we're going to do $6 a gallon. We're going to do a mile per gallon
improvement of just 3%. We'll use a 30 gallon tank, which is about average for these guys. And
so if you fill up that tank, you've got 30 gallons at $6. So you spend $180 on that fuel.
A 3% efficiency bump means that you're going to be using 3% less of that fuel to do the same work.
So 3% of 30 gallons breaks down to 0.9 gallons. So if you can have a 3% increase in efficiency,
you will get the same work done that it used to take you 30 gallons to do. You're going to get it
now done in 29.1 gallons. And that 0.9 of a gallon when fuels at $6 is a savings of $5.40.
The cost to treat that 30 gallons at 5 cents a gallon is $1.50. So you pay a dollar, you put
a $1.50 a product in your full tank of 30, 30 gallons of fuel, you pick up 3% mile per gallon on
that, and you just put $3.90 in your pocket. It paid for the product and gave you a $4 tip for
using it. You have an extra 0.9 of a gallon, almost a full gallon of fuel still in the truck,
ready to go. And math's math on that one. And you think of just how little you need to move
the needle at this cost to see it. It jumps out more than when we're like, if we were talked about
this, like, you know, if it's at $3 a gallon, like I get the benefits of lubricity and of
sea tane and water dispersion and all those other things. But when it came to the fuel economy side,
like I mentioned in the beginning, that's where it's like, well, if you're just concerned about
fuel economy, it's a little bit tougher. But at this level, it just jumps out because of how high
it is. Right. And let's take, and you're right, the higher that fuel fuel prices, the easier that
return is, it's also the higher your gain is in the lower gain. So if we take our normal 5%
run it through the same thing, you're going to have $180 of fuel for the 30 gallons. But now a
5% gain on that 30 gallons, you save a gallon and a half over that 30 gallon burn, gallon and a half
at $6 is $9. So you save $9 by still only putting $1.50 of product into the fuel.
Let's take it the other way. All right, because you're right. If you understand the benefits of
the lubricity of the water to mull suffire, you know, water's becoming a bigger and bigger issue.
So it's important to have it in there. So if we can get all that stuff in there, again,
pay for it to do it, that's great because you don't mind paying for some preventative maintenance.
But any type of efficiency return you get on it is a payback to you.
And again, at a 5%, that's a $9, that's a $9 fuel savings that only cost you $1.50 to save the
$9. But let's go super conservative. Let's go the complete opposite way. Let's say you're just
trying to get 1% mileage gain. So what do you average in your truck?
Oh, gosh, maybe 17, 17, 18 somewhere in there. All right. So if we're trying to get 1% on that,
I got some numbers on 18. So I'll give you 18. But I mean, at 18, your mileage,
your 1% of that is 0.18. You know, we're not, we're not moving the up to,
you don't need to get to 30 miles a gallon to pay for it. We need to get you up,
literally percentage points, you know, decimal points on this. So let's run the same math on a
1% efficiency gain. Again, the fuel is going to be 180 bucks, 30 gallons at 6 bucks.
1% means you saved 0.3 of a gallon, you saved a third of a gallon.
But at $6, a 0.3 of a gallon cost $1.80. You saved $1.80. You are still getting paid.
To put $1.50 of product in, 1% gain pays you 30 cents back on that.
And you get all the other benefits. So the doubters can doubt a lot, but the very simple
science is if you have a dirty system and you're cleaning it out with an injector cleaner,
to try to get 1% gain is you're going to see it instantly. Clean system, depending on how low
that C-tane is, we're going to get the C-tane up so you get a better, better burn. You only need a 1%
gain to pay for the product and pay it back. I actually did the math on what pure break even
point is. And it comes out to a 0.8% efficiency gain is where you break even on the product.
Anything under that, you're paying a couple cents for all these benefits. But a 30 gallon
tank at 6 bucks, 180 gallons, $180, 0.8% gain nets you a quarter of a gallon left over,
a quarter of a gallon at 6 bucks is $1.50. It costs you $1.50. It's a complete wash.
So it's not that difficult to cover the cost of the product with minimal efficiency gains.
I like that. I like the way that laid out because it makes sense to me as far as the average being
5%. And sometimes you have somebody that gets more because the system's been dirty forever
and it's just being restored to where it would have been if they'd been doing it the whole time.
But then also with that 1%, would that be more of the truck that has 6 or 7,000 miles on it or
they haven't done a cleaning in 6 or 7,000 miles or it's just a lower mileage cleaner system?
It encompasses that as well because I think we started off the conversation with is about
what conditions the truck in and that's where you see a difference with gains.
Yeah, I know you nailed it there. And you're right. The one that's maybe getting 1% gain
is probably a brand new truck or a religious additive user that's got squeaky clean injectors.
But even doing all that, you still need to have really high C-tane fuel. Some people can pull
that off. Like California has 50 C-tane fuel. Ironically, they also have $7.35 fuel there as
well. But I just heard, I think there's, I think it was Texas. I just learned this has a 40,
there's parts of Texas that have like a 45 C-tane minimum, which is nice. That's better than
the nationwide kind of average of 40. But you can have a brand new truck, cleanest injectors in
the world. You put 40 C-tane fuel in there. You're not going to be able to burn all that fuel.
It's just a diesel system cannot burn 40 C-tane fuel that efficiently. So the only guy that's
really going to have be doing everything perfect and have bare minimal under 1% gain is a guy who's
got a squeaky clean system and he's in a place that he's getting excellent super high C-tane fuel.
But even that guy can still bring a C-tane up some more and get more efficiency out of it.
It's a diminishing return curve there. C-tane starts to top out once you get up to the
upper 40s and into the 50s as far as how much more gain you can get out of it. But that would be
most likely the guy that's might be stuck at the 1% type of mileage gain on that. And we like those
guys, you know, it's he's doing a good job keeping the system clean. And fortunately, he's got a
good fuel. One of the byproducts that's not kind of part of this conversation, though, is usually
those type of places that are given that type of fuel also don't have these compound problems of
water and, you know, sediment and other issues that we see in poor diesel fuel.
So even on that, that amazing amazingly clean system, you're spending $1.50 the way it works
out for cost to treat. But at a minimal 1% gain, it's $1.80. You're saving or getting 30 cents.
Now, I mean, that's just one, that's just one gallon, right? So what, or what about when we
multiply that over how many miles people put on their trucks? How much they're using them? If
they're hot shot trucks using it for construction, you're traveling. And you just for however long
these high fuel prices exist, that just adds up every single time that you're fueling.
It does. And, you know, and if you talk to any of these truckers, any of these, like,
Class 68 guys that are, you know, their livelihood is based on their mile per gallon.
They fight for the tenth of a mile per gallon. They get it. And that's because they're putting
up so many miles. And if you can shave a tenth of a mile per gallon, that is literally hundreds,
thousands of dollars, you know, in a bigger scheme of things. Using our example earlier,
on the 18 mile per gallon average, the break even point was 18.15 mile per gallon,
literally just from 18.0 to 18.15. Boom, you got your money back already. So
the percentage is easier to get on like an 1815 to 18, you know, a standard light duty,
heavy duty kind of truck versus a big rig that's getting eight to 10 mile per gallon and on a good
day. So, so yeah, the compound over time is where you start to really see it. But let's take a
regular truck, work truck and crunch it over a month. So I did the math on a 3000 mile month.
And if you did a 3000 mile month with a mile per gallon of 18, which is what we are using fuel
price at six, we'll take the MPG improvement of 3% added of costs at 5% or 5 cents per treated gallon.
Over that month, that's going to be 166.7 gallons you go through. The fuel saved at a 3% savings
on that is five gallons. So over that month, as you burn through 166 gallons, you're going to
net a savings of 5.0 gallons of fuel. Again, at $6 a gallon, you just save $30. You have 30 extra
dollars of fuel that you didn't have before. And the cost to treat 166.7 gallons at five cents a
gallon is $8 and 36 cents. So you just got paid $21 and 64 cents to run that fuel added of all
months long through 3000 miles. And one of the cool parts of that too is the math on getting $20
back to do those 3000 miles, you use about a half a bottle of EDT to treat all that this bottle costs
20 bucks, you're halfway through the bottle, you've already been paid 20 bucks back on top of the
price of the bottle. So the math compounds the longer you look at the picture of a monthly,
annually and whatnot. Okay. I'm seeing how that all fits together. Like I said before,
I love math because it is what it is. It's so much easier to deal with than
and I think of other situations, somebody else has told me, oh man, you need to run this tune
or this tune level. And I picked up this fuel economy, well, they might drive different than
me, may live at a different elevation than me. And they might tow or not tow or something,
there's so many different variables and it's hard to quantify it. And I think that's another kind of
spot where people can get that skepticism from is not from fuel additive products per se, but from
other parts of the aftermarket. And it's rare to get math or to be able to go through it like this
in a way that it's just so simple to understand. Yeah, well, I think it's how we got to get people
to kind of look, it's like where I started. People generally look at the shelf and see
that's a $20 bottle, that's a $30 bottle. And to kind of reprogram our brains to not look at
the price of the bottle, but actually, what's it cost to treat? Go do the math on the products
that you're looking to use. See what it costs, see how many gallons it treats. Now you know your
treat, your cost per treat. In the EDT case, it's five cents per gallon. Or we're kind of,
I hear it a lot, I'm out in the field a lot, people say our stuff's expensive,
or not the cheapest out there. Ironically, we probably have the smallest margins, we don't
make much money here, because we put it all into the product quality. It's a very high quality
product that has low margin. But I always try to push back on people, like if you actually see what
it costs to use the product, it's not an expensive product. Matter of fact, I just showed you how
I can make it not only free, but actually save you money, put money back in your pocket by using it.
So it's getting people to the mindset of actually starting to do the calculations on what it cost
to treat the fuel, and how much miles you're saving. And then doing the math on, all right,
I just saved myself a gallon of fuel. Nowadays, you save six bucks. And that's why this math
works out really well. And this is also why we see new people come into this additive world at this
time, when the fuel gets so high, they're looking for a solution to try to offset that cost. And
and to your point earlier, when you said, you know, one of these new people that come in,
yeah, they, they generally see the biggest benefit right out of the gate, because they've never used
fuel added for and they've never had the benefit of doing an injector clean. And Lord knows these
diesel injectors need to be cleaned regularly. So you get that nice big first bump, it's a nice
introduction to a fuel additive. And then, and then hopefully they can keep it clean and keep the
C-tane up to always have that payback keep coming back in future tanks as well. Comment question
we get from you guys a lot is, Hey, I need a diesel engine. I either, you know, I can't wait this
long to get one or normal place I get stuff from it. It just takes too long or I don't, they don't
have the parts in it that I need. Maybe my truck's not stock or I tow heavy with it. I don't want to
go back with just a stock engine. DFC diesel is a sponsor of the podcast. We worked with them,
you know, hand in hand on doing episodes, answering technical questions. They have a complete lineup
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the type of quality that's built behind it with an industry leading warranty, that's really
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There's a lot of really cool benefits to it. And if you have questions about that, reach out to them.
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a ton of info there. You can send an email or you can reach out to them. Also, they're working
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of really cool technology behind it. So you can add that into your build and be able to get better
fuel economy, you know, increased power, increased torque and better engine life out of it. You know,
some of the most common engine applications or series of engines that they have with that lead
time, a lot of them are in stock or they have really short lead times. So you can check your
favorite retailer or go to DFC diesel.com, check them out, see what's in stock, see what you can
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series of engines, they have tons of choices for rods, cranks, pistons, valve train upgrades,
tons of different things. So if you're in the market, definitely make sure and hit on over and
check them out. Maximizing power, reliability and efficiency begins with clean diesel fuel.
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Visit fastride.com to find the perfect fuel system upgrade for your truck. I think the cost to treat
is really an interesting point for me because in so many other products or say commodities or
things that we use, like we've all had that experience where you buy like the cheap roll of
paper towels and you see how they don't really work and you use like three or four times more than
if you bought the nicer brand of paper towel and you can use like one and it makes perfect sense
and especially like if you're buying those to keep in the shop or something like that or I mean even
like cleaners when you have to use a lot of a cleaner to clean something up versus a little bit
of another one and it might be a little bit more expensive to buy that other brand but that bottle
lasts me so much longer that it works but I agree with you. It feels like when it comes to a truck
it's like that experience in logic kind of falls away and we don't look at it like that.
Well let me also throw caviar in here and I always have to address this too.
Just exactly to what you just said, if you actually want to measure treat rate exactly and find out
what your cost per treat is, it's very important. That said, and I can only speak for my company,
we formulate, we don't put any filler in these products, these are pure additive
and we engineer them right to the peak of the gain curve. So adding more of the product
is not necessarily going to get you more gain. Now there are some things that you are, you can
always add more lubricity. Cetane will start to top out at some point. You can only stabilize the
fuel so much. Enough water does most fire, does the job, more doesn't have any more water to
deal with. So there's certain parts and components of it that can be stacked and get more out of as
you go. What's unique about the Hot Shots brand is that we engineer it right at that curve so that
it's maximized the performance at that dosage. Historically in our industry, again, lubricant
industry needs to take the blame for this, by putting poor water down products out, it kind of
restructured the consumer's mind in that the old adage of, well, if a little's good, a lot must
be great, you know, and people tend to see that in the additive market a lot. It's gotten a little
better, but it was really bad for a while there and it still is in many places. And that's because
there's a lot of poor product out there that are, that's just diluted, you know. It goes back to
like the laundry detergent, you know, like how much you're really getting out of it. Once they
dilute it down, what happens is people put extra in because they're like, I think I had a little
gain. I'm not sure. I'm going to put twice as much or three times as much in. And what happens is
they get a little bit more gain when they do that and it pisses me off and drives me nuts in my
industry because it's like just formulate it out of the gate and give them a proper dosage because
now what you have, you have the consumer making their own proper dosage of let's call it active
ingredients fighting through all the filler to get a real dose in there. Or you can just take
all the fillers out, have concentrated product that gets the job done in a concentrated dose.
And when you do that, there's no more to gain out of ours. So the whole, the people that have been
brainwashed into it, not am I going to say brainwash because they actually do experience that
gain when they add more, you're not going to get that out of our product because it's already at
that peak point, which allows you to get a true cost per treatment out of you can shoot 400 gallons
out of this. Whereas some competitor products might claim a certain, you know, treatment ratio,
but if you end up having to use, like you said, three or four times as much as the cleaner,
well, if you have to use three or four, much as times as the additive will now,
the math changes because now that just got three or four times as expensive too.
I bet this gets that, that math and the cost to treat and what you can save. I was just thinking
of fleets. I was thinking, what if I had five diesel trucks or I had 10 50? And
you're responsible for all those vehicles. Now you're taking that $6 gallon gas number,
you know, with the examples you gave, multiplying that times five or 10 or 50,
that's got to be a huge, that's probably, in my mind, one of the huge
benefits I would see was if I had multiple trucks or fleet of trucks that I was dealing with and
times like these. Oh, sure. And also math's math, right? So if you are looking at your average
mile per gallon and you go, it's a lot of these fleets we work with, or if you take the big rig
stuff, these guys that are doing six miles per gallon, it's the same thing. It's the same percentage,
right? So if they're trying to get the break even payback that we calculated earlier on your
18, which was 18.15 from 18 to 18.15. Well, if you transfer that down to, you know, six,
six miles brown, you just have to get to 6.05 to get that payback. So, but those guys know in
that world, if they get a tenth of a mile per gallon, and if a fleet can do that across an
entire fleet, again, it adds up, it adds up to big money. And it certainly makes it very affordable
to pay for the product, if not paying for itself. And then you get to see all these added benefits.
Stuff that you don't even know you'll deal with unless you've had the problem before in the past,
but you're not going to have water in your system, your fuel is going to be remain stabilized.
We have a rust inhibitor in here to prevent oxidation inside the system. You're protecting
that CP4 pump. So let's just assume, let's assume you're that guy that you said earlier,
you know, a guy who's got squeaky clean injectors, your brand new truck, let's say,
he's doing a really good job. He lives in California or somewhere that has, and he's
getting 60 ctane fuel. He's going to let's just assume no benefit from my upper gallon on it,
you know, there are still all these other advantages of each one of those components
does great things like the ctane boost that I that helps give you that more complete burn for
the efficiency side. Well, the byproduct of doing that is you're burning more of the fuel.
So there's less particulate going out. That's less DPF regions on a truck with the DPF.
And we know these emission systems, like the way I, the way I describe them is
they've got so many regions in them. So use them slowly, like the less you can region will be the
shorter time until you have to deal with a problem and fix that expensive system. So
that's a benefit of high ctane. Not even touching, you know, my upper gallon on it. That's a great
benefit. The injector cleaners, you know, obviously, have you seen the price of injectors?
They're not cheap. So injector health longevity, keeping them clean and running well.
And that's part of the keeping of a some people are open to a good deep clean. But the dirtiness
and cleaning this and the dirtiness and clean cleanliness of injectors also wears them down too.
So a two step system like this, where you're doing a really deep clean, but then having a
maintenance dose cleaner in every single tank to keep them cleaned out. And then you should do
a deep flush every once in a while prolongs the life of injectors that pushes that expense down
the road further. So you don't have to buy injectors prematurely. The lubricity, obviously,
you know, I've talked to Lupristi a lot about, you know, wear protection on the fuel system,
the fuel pump, CP4 is the problems with that. Water emulsifier, huge. That's becoming a more
and more big issue with all of the bio that's in the field. The bio is like a sponge to this
water. So that gets in the system. You get water in the system. It allows for algae to start to grow.
You don't want that to start to grow because then you have to go to a microbiome site to get out of
there. It's a nightmare. Well, that's one of the components in here that you're getting out of a
fuel additive. There's a water emulsifier that shocks the fuel and drops the water out of solution.
So you get moisture removal, prevention of algae, and also wear protection because the water in the
fuel affects the lubricity. So you can do, you can do all the great job you want and add lubricity
to your fuel to protect your CP4. But if you get water in there, it's going to wash down the ability
to lubricate and you're going to have wear. Rust inhibitor I mentioned, anti-oxidation,
system cleanliness it helps with. And of course, stabilizer. We've also talked in the past, I
believe, about how quick diesel fuel can start to oxidize in 30 days. So what happens when the fuel
starts to oxidize? And again, fuel is already at about 30 days when it gets from the refinery
to the pump. So you're already usually on borrowed time. That's why we always recommend going to
high turnover fuel stations. So it's not that fuel hadn't been sitting there very long. But it's
important to keep the fuel stabilized because as soon as it becomes unstable, everything we just
talked about starts to fall out the window. C-tane starts to drop, lubricity drops. So again, you
can do the greatest job in the world on some of the aspects. And then one that we didn't really
talk about too, but anti-gel, of course, you know, like that that's that's a additive that goes in
prevents, you know, the fuel from gelling in the winter. So there's all these components that we
put into this fuel additive to, again, protect your really expensive diesel fuel system and treat
the poor fuel that we're getting from the pump. So if we set aside the benefits of the
mile per gallon gain, there's value to pay good money to have that value in your truck.
Add the MPG gain, even at a 1% gain. Now we just paid you to use it. So those that are on the fence,
wondering about all these benefits that you can get out of it, you certainly shouldn't be weighing
it over it, but it's the cost worth it. Because if you actually look at the cost of it, at a bare
minimum, if you get zero gain out of it, you're paying five cents a gallon to have all those
benefits. That's that's a cheap investment, especially at a $6 price tag to raise that
fuel to a premium standard for a nickel a gallon. And if you get 1% gain, pays it all back.
I think that's where the fuel price has changed the context of the conversation when it comes to
fuel additives. It was like, I understand the lubricity side with through our conversations,
I understand all those things you went through. And in the context of maintenance costs and
everything's more expensive now, injectors are labor is more expensive,
downtime and the money you lose is more expensive. All that makes complete sense. But I think when
you interject the fuel cost of it, which people are doing, we're filling up once a week or however
often they're doing it, you're filling that pain every single time you pull into a fuel station and
push your card in and run it. And you're like, where, where does it end? What can I do? And I
think that's another area where people can really get sidetracked in, especially when they're new
to this is where do they go for it? Do they go to the tuning side? Do they go to,
do they change the gearing in their truck? Do they, you know, do all these other hard parts that
might have, you know, some claims or or some fuel economy proposals to it? Or am I going to keep it
simple? And can I just, you know, grab that bottle, it's got the chamber in there to dose it,
put it in my tank, fuel up, go about my day. So I think the ease of doing it is also another
aspect to it compared to what might be some other claims out there as far as fuel economy.
Sure. Sure. You're right. It is, it is an easy, an easy way to get there, I think. So the whole
world should do it. I don't know why everybody doesn't. Where you hoping for 50% of the people
out there. I'm hoping it's a little higher, but, but I will say also, and we advise a lot of fleets
and we do a lot of, we try to stay in our lane, but the, it all does matter. We work with,
we work with some class 68 stuff, some big red guys that do mile per gallon
record setting stuff. They're towing major loads at over 10 miles per gallon on fold
semi tractor loads. And it's really impressive what they do. And the funny part is they do it all.
Like they do all the aerodynamic stuff. They do all the, the electronic stuff they do.
We do some crazy stuff with the lubricants that in the engine oil, the transmission fluids,
the gear oils, the hub grease, every type of aerodynamic thing they can do. And if you ask them,
because we get interested now because we're focused just on the, on the fuel side and the oil side
with them, but then we see all these crazy things they put on there. And it's like, well,
what's that gain? And these guys are really good. They do a lot of testing on this stuff.
And a lot of times that gain is 0.2%, 0.3% documented over hundreds of thousands of miles.
They can show you a hard dad on this stuff, but it's 0.2, 0.3, 0.4%. But a bunch of 0.3s add up to a
lot. And so that kind of goes back to your first comment, you know, when it's like somebody
has this experience and they say, Oh, well, I use this cab wind deflector and I get pretty good
mild gals. Well, another guy throws it on. Eh, it's like, I might have saw a little bit. Well,
that guy probably did too, you know, and they all add up and there's only one out there that
will give you the payback on the same tank. And that's a fuel additive. Like you might do
a major gear changer, again, aerodynamic thing. They have a bunch of electronic stuff or tuning
or stuff like that. It's tough to see the payback on some of this stuff, but very few of those things
give you a full payback at a 1% mileage gain. And that's why you're right. I think it is the
easiest one to go to. It certainly is a great place for people to start. And like I said,
this is where we are seeing a lot of newcomers into the market that are dealing with this crazy
fuel prices. And they are coming to this product for the mile per gallon gain. What we find is
that person then sees the benefits of the product all around. And you nailed it earlier as well,
like that newcomer to us, they likely are going to see a pretty good gain on that first one,
because that system has not seen any cleaner or anything. So they're going to get the
cleaning gain as well as the Cetane gain. Well, then what happens is that customer is like,
let's say we move six months down the road, prices come down and there's, we got $2 diesel,
you know? Well, that we can keep that customer because the experience of them chasing the
MPGs, when they go away and you're still going to get that same percentage gain, it's just not
going to be as high as payback because the dollars, you know, smaller on the fuel cost.
Well, now they've seen, well, you know what? I've been re-jettling less, you know, in the last six
months since I started doing this. I've, you know, in fleet, see it in downtime, you know,
they try to call the downtime on these trucks than the service side. So it's one of those
things where I want to get people to experience getting on a fuel system diet. Everybody can throw,
you know, want some stuff in one tank and see if they like it or not. That's great.
And we, we do it all the time. As you know, I think I've told you before, I'm on the road every
weekend at events. We hand free bottles of EDT out to everybody that comes by our booth. And the
reason why we do it is because, because we're an additive company, we know it and nobody believes
anybody. So I can sit in a booth all day and tell you how great it is, or I can hand you a bottle.
And I can't tell you how many people that I hand a bottle to on a Friday at like a tractor pole or
a drag race comes back to the booth on Saturday and says, I can't believe it, but trucks started
better, running better, idled better, got better mile per gallon, all in this first tank that I
used it on. Well, they'll see that, you know, like, like right away from that. What I want to do is I
want to keep that customer for the long term and do preventative maintenance on that so they don't
have problems. And usually that customer sees it by being introduced to the product when they're
chasing an MPG gain. And we see more people chasing that when the fuel price gets so high.
So I just want to make sure I try to invite those people to the additive world and say,
I'm glad you're, you're looking us up now and Lord knows you need it with these fuel prices,
but commit to a fuel system diet at least for a short term. Like don't give it one tank.
Now's the time you're going to get easy payback on it because the fuel's so expensive.
So now's the time to try and add it up for your first time. And then you'll see that the gains,
the byproduct gains that you get from all the other components that we put in it. And then
that way when the fuel prices come down, it's not really a hard decision for you to say,
five cents a gallon all day, it's worth it.
Thinking, you know, with that skeptics part, and, and, you know, I'm kind of naturally
skeptical about everything, but I, there, there's, there's, when it comes to like truck stuff,
I totally get it. But if I looked at the worst case scenario that bottles $20,
the EDT, the worst case scenario, I'm out 20 bucks. If I look at anything else pertaining to
a truck that might give me better fuel economy, minimum, I'm talking hundreds of dollars more
than likely into the thousands. Depending on what I'm doing, if that's such a harder jump to make,
especially how things are to say, I'm going to invest thousands of dollars into doing this or
hundreds into that. I hope it works. And I hope I get paid back on it. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And then
how long does it take me to do it? Because of the investment that you're having to, to, you know,
put up up front. So, and, and you know, I've said before too, yeah, we're only a $20 experiment
here. So it's not, we're not asking for, for a lot there for you to try it. I challenge anybody
to do our two step system, which is our diesel extreme and EDT. So if you've never used a fuel
out of before, now it's time to try, I would literally start with a 16 ounce bottle of diesel
extreme. Let's do a deep clean to get you a clean slate, and then run one bottle of EDT. It's going
to take you 400 gallons to run through this bottle. Between the two, you're talking under $40 for
to treat 440 gallons technically through both the deep clean and it. Once you make it through that,
if you haven't seen the gain yet, then something's wrong. And here's the good part. We, we've always
had a 100% money back guarantee. So this is the time to freely try this product. It's always free
to try because we'll give you your money back if you're not happy. We don't even ask questions.
We'll just give you your money back because we want people to experience it. We don't want
people to like try a buddy's little bit. And I'm going to put a little bit in my truck like,
no, make a commitment, go put yourself on a two step program, push it through a month,
get your 400 gallons in, let chips fall where they may, after your 400 gallons are done,
give me a call, tell me, tell me what you think. If you're not happy, you get your money back.
I bet you'll see that not only did you save my upper gallon and save some money and actually
probably pay for itself, but you start to see all these other added benefits that you don't mind
paying 5 cents a gallon for if you didn't even have a return on it. Makes sense. The math was
really helpful with this to, to go through it and for someone like me to, to be able to see that,
like I can't, I can't really argue with the math because you covered, you covered a truck that's
relatively new or treated really well at 1% or, you know, what's average at 5% gain or, you know,
just splitting it right down the middle and saying 3. But I think it's a really good topic
to cover right now with fuel prices, where they are, who knows how long they're going to last for.
And hopefully not all. Like typically summer, people are driving more than they're going on
trips or doing things. And so that fuel usage goes up. So I appreciate you chatting with me today
about Kyle going through some, some math with me and, and helping me explain it or helping
me to understand what you explained. I always love coming on with you and I appreciate you
having me on and hopefully, hopefully we'll get some people out there to try their first-ever
fuel additive and for those that are already using it, keep up the good work and keep those systems
clean and running good. Don't forget diesel fans, make sure and head on over to kershaw.kaiusa.com.
Use code 20TD8FR26 to get 20% off your order. Kershaw has got a whole lineup of knives to
meet any budget that you might have, whether it's a new knife or EDC hunting, fishing,
something around the job site around the house, they've got you covered with a bunch of different
choices for blade steel, blade shape, different handle designs, opening mechanisms, and you also
get free shipping over $50. So we really appreciate them offering that discount code just for diesel
podcast listeners. Also want to give a shout out to some of our Patreon supporters, Robert, John,
TSW, Diesel, all of our other Patreon supporters, all of you who follow us on social media. We
appreciate all your support here in your 10 of the diesel podcast and look forward to bringing
you more of the content that you want to hear in 2026. Until next time, keep the shiny side up.
About this episode
Fuel prices are driving renewed talk about diesel fuel economy and whether additives can actually pay back. The hosts address skepticism, then lay out cost/benefit math using recent price spikes and conservative MPG assumptions. They explain how higher cetane (“C-tane”), injector cleaner, lubricity, and water/soot control could improve combustion and reduce wasted fuel, DPF loading, and even protect CP4 pumps. They also discuss dosing, cost-per-treatment comparisons, and a “two step system” with deep cleaning plus a maintenance dose.
We tend to be skeptical when it comes to fuel economy gains because it
can vary so much depending on the product. Hot Shot’s Secret tackled
this skepticism with us during a discussion about fuel additives. Can
the math show a fuel savings?
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