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It’s okay if you’re not too savvy with your car or truck—that’s what car engine mechanics in Santa Clara, CA are for. It does help to know certain things about your vehicle, like how your old gas engine and your new diesel engine work differently. The more you know about your car, the more you can do to maintain and care for it. Watch this video for a comparison.

Gas and diesel are types of fuel and types of engines, but what’s the difference between them? The big difference is the ignition of the air-fuel mixture, which relates to how the engine causes combustion. The temperature an air-fuel mixture has to reach to combust on its own is called the self-ignition temperature. With a gas engine, you don’t want to compress so much that you break this threshold, but with a diesel engine, you do want to exceed the temperature.