Use Vegetable Oil If You Have A Diesel Car

BAILIFFCHASER

GarethK wrote: »

not a surprise. 1.8 TD's have Lucas fuel pumps and siezed up/destroy themselves with more than one bottle of veg.

Gareth

I drove around for 3 weeks in it on veg then sold it as the car started to jerk.

n3phi1im

inmypocketnottheirs wrote: »

I am very close to buying one of these:

http://www.biofuels4less.co.uk/?page=freddy

For the very reasons stated above. I can get free waste veg oil. This will produce 100 litres at a time, does not need titration, is self contained and only requires about 20 minutes of user time per 100l batch. It isn't the cheapest way, but it is fully self contained. I drive 40,000 miles per year and I reckon I will break even in about 6 months, so to me its a no brainer!

So how is it going (and be honest now ). Any mechanical problems? Does the car feel as responsive? Does it smell strongly? c'mon, do us a write up of the experiment...

n3phi1im

cutterschoicenotmine wrote: »

Can you spot a trend here? Cooking oil straight you need a conversion kit. Biodiesel for anything diesel between 94-2003 roughly. From the pump its around 92p. To make at home its around 30p after an outlay of around £100 if you DIY a brew tank up and get the oil cheap and chemicals in bulk.

Thing is, it aint that bio. The amount of electricity needed to cook the stuff and the other ingrediants make it about nuteral after all the energy has been put in.

Well the logical next step is to install a generator that can run on the biofuel as well (or even better on WVO)

inmypocketnottheirs

n3phi1im wrote: »

So how is it going (and be honest now ). Any mechanical problems? Does the car feel as responsive? Does it smell strongly? c'mon, do us a write up of the experiment...

I'm at home now just doing the final wash on my 6th batch. Drying tomorrow so then have some cheap fuel for next week.

I have an E Class Merc 300 Turbo diesel and it runs fine, more responsive and smoother even. Need to change the fuel filter this weekend as bio diesel does have a cleansing effect and clears all the mineral diesel deposits in the fuel line.

Regarding the smell, its like walking past a chip shop with an open door. Certainly better than mineral diesel fumes.

If you require any further info do please ask.

n3phi1im

inmypocketnottheirs wrote: »

I'm at home now just doing the final wash on my 6th batch. Drying tomorrow so then have some cheap fuel for next week.

I have an E Class Merc 300 Turbo diesel and it runs fine, more responsive and smoother even. Need to change the fuel filter this weekend as bio diesel does have a cleansing effect and clears all the mineral diesel deposits in the fuel line.

Regarding the smell, its like walking past a chip shop with an open door. Certainly better than mineral diesel fumes.

If you require any further info do please ask.

A year on and it is looking good. How much fuel are you making in a batch and how much would you say it is costing in materials and electricity to make?

inmypocketnottheirs

Making 100 litres at a time. Total cost per litre to include chemicals and power, less than 20p.

veggiecar

Just to bump up an old thread!.............who is still doing this? Who has joined in? Any issues?

My Merc engine has been running no problem on straight vegetable oil for some time now. No issues, no problems, and usually with free oil.
There are now loads of websites available to read up on this, and safely, knowledgebly take the plunge for older diesels.

Wig

Where do you get free SVO from?

SVO is a term used to describe clean unused (not cooked with) vegetable oil. And it costs in the region of £1 per litre now so there is no longer any significant advantage over using diesel.

WVO - Waste Vegetable Oil - is a term for used vegetable oil which you can get free from a friendly chipshop.

If you use WVO that is not professionally cleaned you do not officially (or are highly unlikely to) qualify for the 2500 litres annual duty free allowance.

To qualify for the dutyfree allowance of 2500 litres you have to register with HMC&E, and your fuel must reach their cleanliness standards for biofuel or biodiesel. HMC&E reserve the right to ask you to prove that the fuel you use meets their standards. If they do ask, you can tell them that you use SVO (as defined above) show them your reciepts and they will be happy, because they know that clean-unused veg oil meets the standards, - it has been tested and is known to comply. If you tell them you use WVO (as defined above) They might challenge you further to prove that it meets their cleanliness standards. This is because WVO is known (a batch was tested) to fail the tests on sulphur content and possibly other elements.

Put simply:
It is your responsibility to be able to prove the fuel you use meets the cleanliness standards, clean veg oil automatically passes
Dirty veg oil automatically fails unless you can show you have had your oil/method of treatment tested to show that it passes.


This does not make it illegal to use dirty veg oil (WVO), you just are required to pay the normal road fuel duty on it which is roughly 50p per litre. If you get it free and you pay duty of 50p per litre then they cannot touch you. If use 2000 litres a year and you only declare 500 litres a year and pay duty on the 500litres, you are running a risk, but they probably will never question it.

veggiecar

Thanks for the info Wig

Wig wrote: »

Where do you get free SVO from?

SVO is a term used to describe clean unused (not cooked with) vegetable oil. And it costs in the region of £1 per litre now so there is no longer any significant advantage over using diesel.

WVO - Waste Vegetable Oil - is a term for used vegetable oil which you can get free from a friendly chipshop.

If you use WVO that is not professionally cleaned you do not officially (or are highly unlikely to) qualify for the 2500 litres annual duty free allowance.

Tescos with free internet Money off Coupons.
£7.50 for 10 litres.
Even without coupons, it is 25% cheaper than paying at the pump, and smells much nicer.

For the WVO.. the following is from Biofuels: simplification of regulations (Acrobat PDF, 46KB) on the HMR&C website here
We are looking to ease the burdens of the biofuels regime on non-commercial
producers and on HMRC. It is no longer cost-effective to maintain on the register the
steadily growing numbers of very small and often inactive home-based producers, all
of whom currently have to register. We therefore wish to introduce a de minimis
production level of 2,500 litres per annum below which they do not need to enter
premises or submit returns.

So I would read it, that anybody who has done their homework, cleans WVO to a standard that they would be happy to put in their car,and doesn't do high mileage would "probably" be ok, but should be prepared to have a batch tested, and maintain records to show they have "produced" (or cleaned/filtered) less than 2,500 litres.

It would probably not be in the public interest to prosecute a low volume user for trying to cut back on fossil fuels.

Wig

veggiecar wrote: »

So I would read it, that anybody who has done their homework, cleans WVO to a standard that they would be happy to put in their car,and doesn't do high mileage would "probably" be ok, but should be prepared to have a batch tested, and maintain records to show they have "produced" (or cleaned/filtered) less than 2,500 litres.

I believe there is no way a home user can clean WVO to the HMC&E specification for Biofuel/biodiesel. I believe the requirement for legitimately claiming the 2,500 litres annual duty free allowance is that you know or have reason to believe that your fuel will meet the specification.

I think that an HMC&E officer who knows his stuff would look very closely at a user who says they use WVO in their 2,500 duty free allowance, and could theoretically ask you to back pay 50p litre duty on all your previous useage, until you can show them evidence that your WVO meets the standard - which you would never IMHO be able to do.

It would probably not be in the public interest to prosecute a low volume user for trying to cut back on fossil fuels.

It has already been done -albeit before the 2,500l rule came in- They only care about recovering duty that should have been paid which wasn't, and discouraging people from dodging taxes unlawfully. I don't know if they have had any cases after the 2500l rule. Presumably they atleast check to see that you are registered user.