I was filling up my '82 300 TDT yesterday and the tanker driver was filling up the station I was at at the same time.
I went over and asked him if he knew if the Ultra Low Sulfur diesel made cars harder to start. He said it did and that the company gives them bulletins about it and how to get their trucks to start and precautions they have to take so they don't get stranded when they deliver to cold places.
I told him that he was the first oil company guy to admit that there were cold starting problems with the new fuel, that none of the higher ups I called would admit it.
He said that was par for the course and he wasn't suprised.
The issue is higher flash point, just as I suspected.
And the reason the new fuel is eating your fuel lines and he told me they just got an advisory that it is eating the "O" rings out of injectors is that they are trying various additives, probably like the toulene someone on the list was recommending, to raise the flash point of the fuel.
So they are testing additives on the public's vehicles to try and find something that will raise the flash point but not dissolve all your seals and they haven't succeeded on either count yet.
Paul Fretheim