Telling the difference between gas and diesel

[Perplexed]

Yesterday afternoon, I spotted a 5-gallon fuel container in the ditch near my house; when no one had claimed it by this morning, I went to pick it up. To my surprise, it was full of fuel! Must've fallen off a landscaping trailer or some such. It's one of the yellow diesel-marked containers, but it got me wondering - how can you tell the difference between gasoline and diesel? I'm aware that the latter feels more oily and greasy, but I was wondering if there was an objective way, using household materials, to determine more definitively which fuel it is...

 

[smstonypoint]

Have you checked the fuel color? If it's red, you have off-road diesel (or some mixture of off-road diesel and ?????).



Regardless of whether it is gasoline or diesel, I would be leery of using it in my equipment/vehicles.

Steve

 

[MikeInEburg]

I just follow my nose. Gasoline and Diesel fuel have very distinctive odors.
Mike

 

[JakeBrake]

I would not use whatever is in the container. I would take the container to the nearest hazmat collection station as soon as possible.

 

[Transit]

Gas will flash when it burns and diesel will not. If you take a small amount of this fuel in a metal container well clear of everything and drop a match into it, if it burns it is gas, if not it is diesel. Would I do it, NO WAY!

 

[ragkar]

Spill a little on a flat rock or pavement. If the puddle is gone in 15 minutes, it was gasoline. If it's still there six hours later, it's diesel.
But I don't know how to tell diesel from kerosene.

 

[mjw357]

I just follow my nose. Gasoline and Diesel fuel have very distinctive odors.
Mike

Exactly. Smell it and compare to the smell of a container of known fuel.

 

[tungularafishcamp]

My nose quit working a few years ago but you can tell by feeling, diesel is much slicker also gasoline feels colder cause it evaporates so quick. If it is diesel I would save it for burning brush piles, stumps, garbage, crosses in the yard or whatever.
Rick

 

[brucew44guns]

Can you pour the fuel from the pail----into another pail, slowly? Check it out, if there is no water or color of rust or dirt when the last runs out, pretty good chance it's clean and ok--just a lost pail off someones rig as it sped by. I assume you've smelled gas sometime in your life? Diesel has it's own smell, it's oily too. The flash test will tell you something if you try it. It could be a mix of things though, and was discarded by someone, just trying to destroy your tractor and your life. 20 bucks worth of fuel could ruin you, you might not ever recover!!

 

[LBrown59]

They taste different.