Had anyone tried running a Diesel Vehicle on Veggie Oil or other substances? I often hear tales of people doing this. How feasible is it though and surely there must be big side effects? Why would people want to in the first place? Is it cheaper or something?
I can't imagine that Vegetable Oil is a similar substance to the Diesel you get on the forecourt of a Shell or BP fuel station? How can a Diesel engine run off stuff like this?
John
The original diesel engine was designed to run on veg oil (specifically peanut oil).
You should really do a bit of work to the diesel before you just run the car on it (although people do have success on neat oil!)
You should also inform HMCE, and pay ~25p/litre duty.
If you've got a modern high pressure (TDCI and probably PD, HDI etc) engine, don't do it.
Apparently (from the TDCI point of view), running the car on >5% biodiesel can cause the high pressure pump to break up internally, and fill the system with splinters of metal.
Pete.
The message from Pete Smith contains these words:
Only once he'd given up with coal dust, IIRC.
To make the oil useable in a diesel engine, you are supposed to heat it to
90deg, filter it and add a catalyst such as lye or (I believe) white spirit. There are plenty of web sites about it.Veggie Oil in Tesco is about 26p per litre, used oil is free.
Someone I know runs his 3 food delivery (Citroen ZX diesels) vehicles on neat, filtered, used oil. He also collects old oil from other food outlets that normally pay a specialist disposal company to take it away and pays the duty to Customs and Excise. They DO smell like a dirty deep fat fryer, and the performance is a little down, but so far, no long term problems and he's been using it for a couple of years now. He puts around £10 diesel to a full tank, probably about 1/4, he now reckons on about £3.50 for 10 miles, down from £11/12.
-- R
Ouch - my car works out at about 20p/mile, I'm sticking with my turbo petrol car if diesels running on veggie oil work out at 35p/mile, and 1.10-1.20 on diesel.
Sorry, read as 100 miles.... Thought I was the only one that couldn't sleep.
-- R
At a time when it's a virtual certainty that biodiesel will become more and more the norm, manufacturers actually go out of their way to design new cars that will self-destruct using >5% biodiesel.... incredible!
He also used lamp oil, petrol and a host of other flammable materials. The only reason he decided on what we now call diesel is that it wasn't in use at the time so was cheap.
Yes. Place outside of York sells it at a pump. Its reclaimed veggie oil from caterers.
If you already bought the oil from a supermarket or something, you would already have paid 17.5% on it wouldn't you? Do you need to pay an extra 25%, or just the difference? Or have I got things mixed up? Is the duty thing different? Would the oil not already of had a duty paid on it when the Supermarket bought it from their suppliers?
Do you need to pay duty for used oil?
So its a no go for modern TDis, TDCis, PDs, HDis? You can only do it with old Sdi diesels?
John
Yes, if you are using it for running a road vehicle. If it goes in a motor vehicle, the government want their cut from it somewhere.
the govenment charges you 25p per litre you use. this is worked out per mile that you do. what vat you pay for it in the shops is extra for them as they do not give that back
this is interesting though
The message from John contains these words:
Yes. You're making road fuel so there's road fuel duty to be paid.
The message from "aussie bongo" contains these words:
Just glancing at the pictures gives the impression it's made from honey.
pml i see what you mean lol
When I was very, very skint a couple of years back I ran my old Rover
825 diesel on Tescos cheapest cooking oil. I'd put in =A31 of diesel for every =A31 of cooking oil so the ratio was something like 1:3 diesel to cooking oil.I experienced no real problems. The only thing I did notice was that during the winter, if I left the car outside for hours on a cold day, it would be a bit hesitant starting. I put this down to the oil thickening due to the cold. It never failed to start, despite this - it'd just need a bit more cranking than usual and would run a bit rougher for about 10 or 15 seconds before running as normal.
Fumes smelt more pleasant than diesel ones too.
I experienced no real problems. The only thing I did notice was that during the winter, if I left the car outside for hours on a cold day, it would be a bit hesitant starting. I put this down to the oil thickening due to the cold. It never failed to start, despite this - it'd just need a bit more cranking than usual and would run a bit rougher for about 10 or 15 seconds before running as normal.
Fumes smelt more pleasant than diesel ones too.
only problem is, if the oil seperates from the diesel and gets to the injectors it will not sray as a mist but as a jet. thus it will not burn right and clogs up the exhaust ports and exhaust. i used to run a generator on the stuff 6 hours a day, but about every four monthes i had to totaly decoke it because it got clogged up,, mind you on the generator it only take 20 mins to do .. this is one bit the web sites i have seen fail to mention. veggie oil and diesel do not mix and will seperate. veggie on top of the diesel if i remember rightly.
The message from "aussie bongo" contains these words:
Did the motor ever run flat out? I can well imagine that running fairly lightly loaded as generators often are it'd coke up. I suspect with occasional blasts of full power it'd blow the clag out quite well anyway.
Is there VAT on cooking oil? I would not have thought so. It is exempt in all probability as are all other foodstuffs apart from confectionary.
Huw
I am going to do some reading on this, and eventually try making a small batch of bio-diesel just out of interest.
How do you go about paying HMCE the duty? Is there some form you need to fill out? How do they know how much bio-diesel you put in your car? A lot of this may have to come down to trust for people that use bio-diesel wouldn't it? It would be interesting to find out how much bio-diesel you can make from 1 litre of cooking oil. I am going to try making some out of interest. I'm not sure how feasible it would be though on a mass scale. It would probably be too much of a hassle and too time consuming.
John
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