Running Euro 3 Engine on High-Sulphur Diesel?

Does anyone know what happens when you run a Euro 3 diesel engine (ie., an engine expecting <50ppm sulphur) on relatively high sulfur diesel? I am thinking of taking a 2003 Renault Trafic dCi Turbo van back to NZ at some point in the next couple of years. The engine is
Euro 3 compliant, and expects close to no sulphur. NZ diesel currently has about 1000ppm (ie., 0.1%) sulphur. This will be reduced to about 500ppm by late 2004, and to <50ppm by 2005. From what I can see in the specifications, NZ diesel is in line with European diesel in most other respects. However, there are a number of turbo diesel engines from the major manufacturers that do not yet come to NZ because of the diesel. Just wanting to know what would happen if you ran one of these engines on 500ppm for a while before the newer grade arrives?

Thanks Thomas. Someone else sent me a few PDF docs with some interesting research. One of them was by Detroit Diesel giving detailed analysis of the effects of sulphur. I don't have a web link for it. It is about 500kb so I can forward it to an email address if you are interested.

Anyway, on the question of sulphur being a lubricant etc. one of the quotes reads: "Although diesel fuels containing more than 0.5% sulfur are considered high sulfur fuels, piston ring wear studies have shown that the combustion of fuels containing more than 0.3% sulfur significantly increases ring face wear rates. High fuel sulfur forms acids during combustion, particularly during idling and low temperature operation. The best defense against the effects of acid formation is to shorten oil drain intervals."

First, 0.5% and 0.3% sulphur are pretty high percentages (ie. 5000ppm and 3000ppm), so this does not apply to NZ levels (~1000ppm).
Secondly it confirms what the other reply from Huw is saying about oil changes.

One of the other articles focusses on the reduced effectiveness of the different types of cat converters from high sulphur and low grade diesel generally. I don't mind replacing the cat, fuel filter, and even the fuel pump once in a while, but I don't want to have to rebuild the engine all that often

Still, it makes me wonder why all the leading manufacturers have not starting taking their clean diesel consumer engines to NZ already if there is no real problem. Perhaps it is just a matter of warrantees etc. There is an interesting bit of govt research about NZ's policy and strategy at http://www.worldenergy.org/wec-geis/publications/ default/other_papers/NZConf/06.asp and http://www.med.govt.nz/ers/oil_pet.html in case anyone is interested.

"Paul S Bryant" wrote

No problem for the engine or injectors (sulfur is a lubricant).
Of course your SO2 emissions will rise, because sulfur has some influence on the diesel-oxi-kat (no damage, but works less good).

But many european countries still have 350ppm, and there is no problem to run your french engine in Switzerland or Austria.
India (with euro-X compliant norms and engines) has still 1000ppm.

In case NZ also has euro-X norms you may have difficulties to still get the same norm with this different fuel.

You won't have to. Diesel cats are unregulated and the exhaust emissions are not tested in any annual test that I know of, although soot might well be tested for. The cat has no positive effect on soot emission. High sulphur fuel does produce noticeably more soot than 'clean' fuel.

This will only be a problem if physical dirt gets into the tank

and

It might be that you could rebuild the engine for less money than overhauling the fuel system!

The new technology is led by legal emission standards. Since the fuel is high sulphur then one can assume that emission standards are very lax for diesel engines and therefore there is no advantage [and a competitive disadvantage] to marketing engines which cost much more to build than competitive models. It may also be the case that there will be more maintenance and therefore a higher running cost where this fuel is consistently used through high pressure multi-stage multi-hole injectors, which may be more sensitive to soot build up. I would not worry about it though.