white smoke

[z71remi]

Can anybody explain this:
I filled my truck up at a diesel station right off the highway. When trying to pull out on to the highway I stepped on it and recieved no response. Looked in my side mirror and saw white smoke. Then within 3 seconds took off fast. Every tank for the trucks life I have added 4 oz. of the motorcraft cetane booster from Ford. Right after that happened I was going about 70 mph and getting ridiculous gas mileage. It was like 17 mpg for about 10 miles. Then went back to getting 15 mpg. The truck only has 10k miles on it.


The only thing I could think of is that there was water in the diesel. However, I thought there was a fuel water separator on the truck.

If I am starting to get water in my fuel is there a filter or something I might need to change. Please let me know.

[Dieseltorkin]

I would change your filters, there is a pet cok on the bowl inside the frame rail on the drivers side, its yellow. Thats your water drain, you could try draining that first if you wanted. If it were me id just drain it and change the filters anyway!

[Phil_R]

Sounds like you experienced "wet stacking" normally caused by prolonged idle... that's why idle speed needs to be increased if idle is longer than a couple minutes. The white smoke you saw was most likely condensed fuel cooking off, not water vapor.

[z71remi]

I drained the water and there was nothing but a few drops. The fuel was clean.

I dont idle unless I am stuck in traffic. Definitely dont idle when filling up.

Thanks for the comments. I guess I will see if it happens again.

[po-po 5.0]

Does your truck have the latest flash? Might you have gone into regen? Also, was this in wet/damp weather?

[twinsberry]

REGEN,
Mine has done the same thing. When stuck in slow or stop and go traffic it builds up and takes a few minutes to burn off. SUCKS

[DavidPhillips]

This is probably not fuel related. Was it wet or raining? See TSB 08-25-01

Otherwise it could have been in regeneration mode. Does it have the latest flash? Does it say Cleaning Exhaust?


Normally bad fuel does not really care if your just taking off or not.

Has it lost any coolant? Some EGR coolers are bad.

[twinsberry]

Had the new flash done, and they also replaced the cooler. No more white smoke. Dash lets me know when in cleaning mode but no smoke. It had to be the anti freeze issue.