Gasoline or Diesel?
Fuel is fuel. Well, not always. You wouldn’t weld with a gasoline torch, and you wouldn’t put butane in your car. But both gasoline and butane are forms of fuel, along with others you may have heard of such as diesel, methane and propane.
Cars and trucks typically run on either gasoline or diesel. Each fuel type requires an engine built specifically for that fuel. Informational site How Stuff Works explains the primary differences between each of these chemicals.
Know the differences
While both gasoline and diesel come from crude oil, the engines that burn them differ in significant ways, according to energy giant NCH.
- Diesel engines don’t mix fuel with air – In a four-stroke gas engine, the intake stroke mixes fuel and air. In a diesel engine, the intake stroke simply takes air in.
- Diesel engines compress air – This heats the air, which allows the fuel to ignite in the next stroke. A gasoline engine compresses the fuel and air mixture in the compression stroke.
- Diesel engines don’t need spark plugs – Because the compression stroke heated the air, all that needs to happen in the ignition stroke is the addition of fuel. Gas engines ignite the fuel and air mixture with a spark plug in the combustion stroke.
Some auto makers such as Mercedes offer sedans with diesel engines. Otherwise, you typically will find diesel engines in industrial trucks and machinery.
On a related note, don’t put gasoline in your diesel engine or vice versa. If you drive a diesel, try not to fill up your tank in a distracted state. To help avoid these costly mistakes, diesel nozzles are typically much larger than gas nozzles.
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