Running my Vauxhall Astra on veg oil

patman99

Never did buy the Ranger. Still an agency worker, so unable to get a loan to buy a car.

Ever tried making 'Black diesel' ?. Have heard it is fairly easy to do and is one way to get rid of used engine oil.

Rolandtheroadie

Never looked into the legalities of it in this country in a road vehicle + you would need to pay duty on it. I HAVE thought of it as an alternative to kerosene for my home heating.
Lot of cash to lay out initially, but i suspect it would pay for itself in a year to 18 months.

worried_jim

patman99 wrote: »

Never did buy the Ranger. Still an agency worker, so unable to get a loan to buy a car.

Ever tried making 'Black diesel' ?. Have heard it is fairly easy to do and is one way to get rid of used engine oil.

Funnily enough I've been reading about it today and I've decided that if it is beyond saving in it's MOT then I'll bung some wmo in it to drive to the scrap yard as an experiment!

Farzackerly

worried_jim wrote: »

This is the thing- for the price of getting a car through an MOT you can buy a car with an MOT. I have an half hour slot booked for mine so it will be hot when I take it, especially as I have the first appointment of the day and will have spent 20 mins ragging the bollox off it up and down the Downs before I get there giving it an Italian tune up.

Get a litre of ATF and tip it into your fuel tank a couple of hundred miles before the MoT. It will clean the injectors a bit and might make the diff between pass /fail. The ATF must be Dexron II.

Farzackerly

patman99 wrote: »

Ever tried making 'Black diesel' ?. Have heard it is fairly easy to do and is one way to get rid of used engine oil.

I'd not risk it, even on my old snotter, as a car with a working fuel pump is more valuable to me than saving just a few quid. Mine works fine on vegoil and biodiesel, but both of those are clean - used motor oil, no matter how well filtered, if it's still black it's still got sh&t/carbon in it and it's not suitable to be putting through an injection pump. Burn it cleanly to heat you house, sure.

worried_jim

The days of running an Astra on veg are drawing to a close.

-Rear registration plate deteriorated
-Nearside rear parking brake recorded little or no effort
-Nearside front wheel bearing has excessive play
-Offside rear (inner and outer wheel arch) suspension component mounting prescribed area is excessively corroded.
-Offside rear (inner and outer wheel arch) seat belt anchorage prescribed area is excessively corroded.
-Parking brake efficiency below requirements
-Offside inner rear tyre tread depth below requirements of 1.7mm.

I think it will be cheaper to get another car with 12 months MOT than get this repaired.

Rolandtheroadie

Think you're right, bit too much price wise in that.

Took mines on a 500 mile round trip yesterday pulling a trailer. Bust a power steering hose and the exhaust is now blowing.

Assigned to the scrap yard too.

worried_jim

Have cleared everything out the car ready for the scrap yard, MOT runs out on 18th and will be spending the day driving around looking at replacements and absolutely thrashing the living daylights out of it- don't pull out on me today!
Just added up all the bills that I have spent on it at the garage and in three years it comes to a grand total of £1065.26. I can honestly say that I will never buy another Astra again and I will probably give any GM manufactured cars a miss in the future, it truly has been a dog and the build quality of it shocking- the only saving grace is that I have probably got through about £1k worth of free fuel during my ownership.
Scrap collection service has offered £135.

Will be changing the name of this thread form-

Running my Vauxhall Astra on veg oil

to-

Ran my Vauxhall Astra on veg oil.:rotfl:

Road_Hog

I expect a full prompt report on vehicles inspected today.

worried_jim

Picking up the new wheels in 1 hours time! What have I done?