Off Road Diesel vs Regular Diesel – Do You Know the Difference?

You may have lived your entire life not knowing that there was a specific type of fuel called “off road diesel”. We all know about regular diesel. It’s the liquid petroleum derivative that powers heavy machinery and large vehicles. It is also used by a certain number of automobiles. But did you know there is a separate category of diesel for off road vehicles only? If not, now you do.

In actuality, it is the same exact thing as regular diesel but the cost is less. This is because off road vehicles don’t use public roads or highways. Therefore the tax that is built into regular diesel is not included on off road diesel. Off road diesel saves construction companies millions of dollars every year by them not having to pay road taxes.

So why doesn’t every vehicle just buy road diesel and say its regular diesel? Well, that’s illegal and can result in serious fines. You may now be asking yourself “how would they ever know?”. We asked Donna, who sells off road diesel in Lynchburg Virginia this same question. She informed us that off road diesel is actually dyed red so that inspectors know what type of fuel you are running in your machines. Inspectors will spot check fuel suppliers and road vehicles attached to construction companies from time to time and make sure they are not “running the red”.

Off road diesel can be as much as 25 cents per gallon cheaper than regular diesel so you can imagine how quickly that different amount adds up when you are talking thousand of gallons per year. At that scale we are talking hundreds of thousands of dollars or even millions of dollars when all is said and done. This savings allows job to be done cheaper and is fair to everyone involved.