Running my Vauxhall Astra on veg oil

Rolandtheroadie

Lol, had a course at work last week and they gave us a hired Meriva. Was exactly the same (although it was a diesel).
Air con on and a hankering for a bit of luxury again.

worried_jim

Absolutely ragged the bollox off it. The M25 was clear, the M40 was sooo fast, parking was easy in Birmingham and the sun came out. Shame that on the way home there was a landslide at Croydon station so everyone had to drive to Gatwick and it took 1.5 hours to go from the M25/M23 junction just to pass the Gatwick turn off.
The car was an Astra sxi 2 door and it was fast and the brakes where awesome, in fact when I got back in my old Astra I nearly crashed as I pressed the brakes and nothing happened. I had to stop the car and get out to check the brake fluid level as I thought there was a fault, there wasn't it just took some getting used to (old crap brakes that it). Managed to burn through £70 of petrol in 400 miles- glad I am not paying. Lovely car though, easily faster than my old '89 Celica.

molerat

A poster on HUKD is saying Asda are selling sunflower at 65p/l at the self scans (£1.70 on the shelf label), might be worth a look if you are passing.

Rolandtheroadie

Its coming to that time of year again.

Cars getting harder to get running of a morning (mainly veg, odd tenners worth of diesel) needing 2 attempts and a bit of a rev to get running. As long as I can filter oil, I'll probably make a batch of bio to stop the tenners worths and increase the mix.
Never got round to heated filters and wider fuel lines, may be an idea now.

Thats the astra done 8k miles under my ownership, thought it was 7 but double checked MOT (mainly veg whether oil or bio).

MOT early Dec, thinking of doing it just now to sort of guarantee another year out it. Shouldnt need much and I'd rather lie under it now than a fortnight before christmas.

worried_jim

I have stopped using my car today for a while as I am off to work in Leeds for a week on the train and on my return I shall be jetting off to Turkey for two weeks so I have purposefully run my tank of 100% wvo down to the red and I'll stick some dino in it tomorrow so when I return from the lovely warm sunny Aegean coast to the p1ss poor UK weather in October there should be no problems starting it.
Still got 50 litres of filtered wvo mixed with 5% unleaded in the garage ready for next spring but that's me done now for this year on the veg. A few painful months now actually paying for fuel, but the money I've saved has more than paid for the holiday so bonus.
Scotsman- get the MOT done and it could be another free year motoring as well. Good luck.

davemorton

Talking about MOT's, am I better off having dino in the tank for the test, r will veg be okay for the emmissions??

Rolandtheroadie

Veg will be better, sisters car was a bit smoky (think it's more a smoke test than emissions in a diesel) but it flew through.
Readings were very low, only got a harry ramsden quip.

worried_jim

davemorton wrote: »

Talking about MOT's, am I better off having dino in the tank for the test, r will veg be okay for the emmissions??

Get the veg in it. it will fly through the emissions.

Rolandtheroadie

Fired the car in for an MOT today and unfortunately it failed.

Priced up the parts, £45. Pick them up tomorrow.

Hopefully should have the MOT by the middle of the week.

Rolandtheroadie

MOT sorted, unfortunately it looks like the HG has gone. I've fired in a tub of kseal, we'll see how it goes.