Can I Use Kerosene in My Diesel Engine?

Discover the pros and cons of using kerosene in your diesel engine with Blain’s Farm & Fleet.

Whether or not you can use kerosene in your diesel depends on your engine. Kerosene will burn fine in most diesel engines without harming them. In fact, many newer diesel engines list kerosene as an approved fuel.

Do not use kerosene in your diesel engine unless your owner’s manual lists it as an approved fuel or you have checked with the manufacturer!

Kerosene is created from a distilling process that makes it a pure fuel. This means that it has no additives like diesel does. Because of this, kerosene burns cooler than diesel and has no lubricant additives like diesel fuel does.

This means that if you do run kerosene in your diesel, it will put a strain on your injector pump, unless you add the right lubricant to the fuel. You can do this by adding a quart of Marvel Mystery Oil to every twenty gallons of kerosene you put in your tank.

What are the benefits of running kerosene in a diesel engine?

Kerosene doesn’t gel as easily in the cold as diesel fuel does. So some diesel owners run it in their trucks during the winter, and then use diesel during the summer.

However, since kerosene burns cooler than diesel, it can reduce the power of your engine and lower your gas mileage. While the resistance to gelling is a nice benefit of running kerosene in a diesel, it’s not worth the loss of power and efficiency.

If you store your diesel engine outdoors in very cold weather, adding kerosene to your fuel may keep it from gelling. However, there are approved diesel fuel additives that will also fight gelling. And they will do a better job of it for less money per gallon.

You will get the best results from your engine if you use only the recommended fuel and the additives that are designed to supplement it. Kerosene is fine to run in emergencies when no diesel fuel is available. But it is still best to run regular diesel fuel as much as possible.

If you store kerosene and diesel to use in your truck, make sure you store them in correctly-colored cans.

For more auto tips, check out our Maintenance & Repair Blog.