Bio Diesel as well as cooking oil works much better as a solvent than Diesel or kero. I have been using cooking oil in my parts washer for about 20 years. A mixture of bio Diesel and cooking oil is even better and it works really well for honing oil. But I don't have access to small amounts of Bio Diesel.
Several years ago, when I still had 2 Mercedes turbo Diesel wagons, a vender gave me 2 55 gallon drums of Bio to play with. On straight Bio, they ran much quieter, did not smoke at all, and I noticed no difference in performance or fuel car. But pretty soon both cars smelled like a hamburger. And then the temperature dipped to around 20° and the stuff clouded in the filters. A heat gun on the filter got them started, but they ran like crap in 20° weather.
Since Bio is a strong solvent, it breaks loose crud in a tank and lines and of course that stops up filters
Most of what I sell now is 5% Bio. I run my trucks on fuel cards, and there is absolutely no difference in mileage. We change filters at our 15,000 service intervals and have no trouble. However, we have all aluminum tanks. It might be different if we had steel tanks. But steel tanks are a headache with clear Diesel.
I have used up my Bio and I wish I could get some more to mix with the cooking oil that I use for parts washing. I got rid of my Safety-Kleen about 20 years ago. And of course they report former customers. The environmental could find nothing wrong with cooking oil. And we go into plants were carriers get filed for spraying their trailers with Diesel prior to loading pre mix and no one says anything about our bottom dumps smelling like a hamburger.
