DUTCH VanAtlanta

Just finished an 8,057 mile trip through 16 states as well as parts of British Columbia and Alberta.

1.) Diesel fuel was not available at all "gas stations", but this is not unusual.
2.) Found a couple of stations in Canada that were labeled "Low Sulfur", but not Ultra Low Sulfur, so I passed on them. I have a hunch it was old labeling, but better to be safe than sorry.
3.) Found 3-4 stations with improper fill nozzles (too small or too large) to open the safety flap in the Q7.
4.) One Conoco Flying J truck stop had a sticker on the pump that said it contained 5-20% biomass additive. Since the TDI is only allowed up to 5% biodiesel, I purchased just enough fuel to get me to the next station.

Overall fuel consumption average of 25.2 mpg with lots of 75-85 mph driving on Interstates and local highways with high speed limits.

PARealtor

after experiencing what I had to go thru yesterday to get 5 gallons of diesel for my friends back hoe, it made me wonder if TDI was for me. I can picture my wife (who always forgets to fill up) driving around on E with no station in sight. The worst part is that its not like we dont have plenty of stations around us (probably 10 within 5 miles) but only 1 carried diesel. and it was about $3.25 a gallon. (I usually see it for $3 at other stations) Makes for a serious consideration that is making me lean more towards the 3.0T.

2PUTT

diesel price has been dropping this past week. also, keep in mind that you get close to double the miles for the price of diesel. i paid $2.65 from a Sunoco the other day. on a full tank, the computer states i can get 550 miles. it really should not be too much of a concern. also, the nozzles are different size to help prevent accidental gasoline fills. =)

kristatos

Dutch, I see similar things when I travel out to the midwest in that there's more diesel that's either suspect or a high percentage is biofuel. I've heard of people running higher percentages of biofuel in their VW TDIs with no problems, I even know a guy in the St. Louis area that's been doing this for a while in a Jetta TDI. I wonder how much of an issue this would really be in the Q7 - sounds like you ran a higher than recommended percentage of biofuel for a short while.

The long trips I take are up and down the state of CA, so no lack of Diesel 2 and given the high volume of commercial trucking prices seem to always be pretty good. Still, I think there's a good lesson in your post - if you're going to embark on a very long trip and you don't know the diesel availability it's probably best not to wait until the tank is low to find a fill-up.

One question - how did the "nearest diesel gas station" locator in the MMI work for you? Was it reliable? Just curious how that worked since you covered a lot of ground.

PARealtor

not really concerned about her putting the wrong fuel in there. more concerned about her running out of gas with 2 kids in the car. Just seems that most stations in my area dont carry diesel. I do mostly local driving so I could see it being a real PITA to have to drive 20 minutes out of my way and then pay a .25 premium per gallon just because its the only station in the area that has diesel.

Is there somewhere online where you can search for local diesel stations? I seem to remember seeing something like that once.

2PUTT

http://gasbuddy.com/

DUTCH VanAtlanta

Never used it. My practice, especially when going into areas that are away from big cities - and we were in a lot of them, is to not let the tank get down too much below 1/2 full before filling up.

arU4ic

Also, if you have Nav, you can select the gas stations in the content menu and there will be a D on the icons for gas stations that have diesel.