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Just do it Dave, nothing ventured nothing gained. Someone has to be brave enough to do it, and many people have. The trouble is, there is a lot of misinformation on the net by the enemies of biofuels and their agents, so it's more of an art than a science. Put some diesel in a jar, swill it around, shake it, for a few minutes, get used to it's charateristics using your eyes and motor functions, then add vegetable oil and see how much the properties change. There are all kinds of molecular-level interactions which may be of significance. For example, (its over a decade since I did Chemistry at school) but vegoil is di-polar, and diesel is a mixture of polar, non-polar and bipolar, so it should act as both H donors and H acceptor to cancel out the self-attraction of vegetable oil that makes it gloopy.
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Gosh!! I did O Level chemistry at school and I don't remember that lot. Mind you, I was mucking about a lot!
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\"Nothing less than 8 cylinders will do\"
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>>>"Nothing less than 8 cylinders will do"
What, all in one car?
Cheers, SS
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If you use veg oil as an additive, premix it 50/50 with parafin then pour it in. I use approx 4 litres of this mix with the rest being forecourt derv(fuel tank capacity 50 litres). Normally I buy Sains****'s own label veg oil @ about 60p a litre(less if you buy greater quantities).
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Normally I buy Sains****'s own label....
As you're not talking about Sainsburys in a negative manner, what is the point in trying to obscure the name? It's like saying "I took my car to a Va***all/F**d/Ho**a dealership" It's blatently obvious what word you've obscured.
DD. BR Moderator.
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I seem to have missed the earlier query about mixing 1 litre of vegoil with 19 of derv - sorry about that. I guess that in the short term there should be no physical problem with it, even at this time of year, as the effect of low temperatures on the vegoil should be counteracted by the antigel agents in the derv. Longer-term use could lead to coking of cylinders, although with such a small proportion of vegoil to derv it would probably take a long time for this to manifest itself.
Aside from that, I would remind anybody interested in this that if you put vegoil, paraffin, kerosene etc in your car's fuel tank, you are legally required to pay the Road Fuel Duty on it. You can contact Customs & Excise to find out how to register, complete the paperwork, etc. Ordinary derv bought at the pumps includes the cost of the fuel duty, of course.
As this issue can affect you quite profoundly, I feel it's worth going into a little more detail here.
If you are caught by police/C&E with illegal fuel in your car, the penalties can be (and always are) severe. The minimum you are looking at is a £750 fine, but your car could be impounded/confiscated, you could be presented with a bill for unpaid duty based not on the size of your fuel tank, but on the figure displayed on your odometer. Say you drive a car with 50000 miles up. How would you like to be forced to pay the equivalent of 50000 miles' worth of road fuel duty?
C&E have greater powers than the police in terms of *not* requiring a warrant to search your house, car, garage, place of business, etc., if they suspect duty evasion. They can stop you as you drive your car and rather than asking if they can dip your tank, they inform you that they are going to dip your tank. You do not have the right to refuse. While some people perceive the risk as being minimal, it only takes one nosy neighbour or someone with a grudge to shop you. People occasionally complain about police "disinterest" when they report a crime. I can assure you that if C&E become aware of duty evasion, they will follow it up.
Happy driving!
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andymc
Vroom, vroom - mmm, doughnuts ...
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Please be aware that C&E do NOT have powers to enter your place of dwelling.
Also do not use a rebateable fuel such as gas oil, paraffin/kerosene,
It is illegal to put these fuels into the tank of any vehicle with a registration document, except for excepted vehicles (gritters, excavators etc..)
Rebateable fuels will stain your fuel system red or yellow, and they can test the filter and seize your vehicle even if there is no rebateable fuel in the vehicle.
It is not illegal to use vegetable oil, however you must pay duty, and this may be done retrospectively, although they will usually insist that you should have registered with them first.
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just having a look at some threads and came across this one,,, and must put the record straight
there are 2 types of bio diesel,
veg based with methanol and veg based without methanol.
methanol based bio diesel which is whats sold in certain filling stations will not harm modern engines(its actually a mix of normal with bio), it will however eat the rubber seals in fuel lines etc in older engines, so check first. New VW handbooks now contain sections on the use of methanol based diesel.
You will probably find that your car runs better on it.
however, remember the original diesel engine was designed to run on peanut oil, modern engines are designed to run on crude based diesel, mainly because of its anti waxing properties at low winter temperatures, in winter use only a mix of 80 normal to 20 bio.
veg based diesel is totally different. Your car will run (just) on veg oil, but when the oil cools it waxes and cloggs injectors resulting in a big bill. A mix of whitespirit and veg oil 70-30 works but is more expensive than ordinary diesel.
Bio fuel of northwales blends veg oil with spirit to produce a type of fuel, but it is thick and does clogg injectors, merc and vw engines seem to be the best in handling it, mainly because they need to as germany uses large amounts of veg based bio fuel.
unfortunitly, customs does have the right to enter your house if they think you are producing fuel for use. You can pay vat on it yourself every month via a special form but it opens you up to inspections which will happen.
All this talk is completely pointless however, the british government is about to pass a law that changes how veg based diesel can be produced and used. If you produce veg diesel without the use of methanol, you will need to be registered as a bio waste handler and recycler, which is very expensive, also anyone who uses your fuel will have to be registered as a bio waste user, hmmm another expensive job making it pointless.
shame the rest of europe is using veg based bio diesel and we are basicly banning it. or making it very hard to produce and use.
the final answer ---- reduce fuel tax on diesel and save the worlds oil reserves.
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First of all on the issue of powers of C&E - I've read the relevant section of the document above and am a bit perplexed. The reason for this is that the practice obviously does not match the theory. I'm aware of at least one person whose private dwelling was raided by C&E unannounced and without being told "we have a warrant to search your premises" - at least, that is my information. It's always possible I was misinformed. Regardless, he had a substantial amount of illegal material in the house, so they had him bang to rights on that score, but what they did clearly contradicts what is written in that document. I'll see if I can find out more.
On the issue of types of biodiesel -
Oh dear, this could be a thorny one, but I hope not. I would like to be supportive of all renewable fuels, since I am an advocate of biodiesel and renewables myself, but I cannot advocate that anyone should buy the product described above as "a mix of white spirit and veg oil 70-30". This is not biodiesel. The best explanation/definition I have encountered for these fuel products so far is that they are a mix of vegetable oil unspecified "thinners" - sometimes, but not always, white spirit.
To be referred to as "biodiesel", the fuel has to be the result of a chemical reaction between vegetable oil and either methanol or ethanol, the end product of which is called an ester - hence the abbreviation RME, for Rape Methyl Ester. This name means the biodiesel (ester) has been made by reacting rapeseed oil with methanol. Any vegetable oil will do, it doesn't have to be rapeseed (in fact you can even use animal tallows), but there must be a chemical reaction rather than just a non-reactive mix of substances which are then put into the fuel tank together. Otherwise, you do not have biodiesel - as described above, you have straight vegetable oil, in this case mixed with a solvent but not chemically altered in any way.
I had substantial correspondence with some users/advocates of this product last year. Unfortunately, despite multiple attempts, I did not get specific answers to specific questions about:
- the content of the fuel (i.e. what the thinners are put in when white spirit is not used)
- any awareness they had personally of potential damage it could do to engines
- whether any research had been done by the producers to show that using this substance as fuel would/wouldn't cause engine damage
- whether it was produced to meet any recognised fuel standard
- whether the company selling the product would undertake to repair (or pay for repairs of) any such damage to their customers' engines, should this occur.
As I say, I received no clear answers to these questions. I can only make the general observation that it's one thing for people to choose to experiment with their own cars in the full knowledge of what they are doing. It's another for people not to be made aware of any risks they *may* be taking when buying an alternative fuel they (mistakenly) believe to be biodiesel.
Biodiesel (in other words, the ester product) is not being banned, and is subject to a 20% fuel duty concession from the treasury. There are recognised standards for this fuel which I have reproduced on this site before.
On another point, I am at the beginning of my fourth winter on biodiesel. The lowest proportion mix with derv I have used is 90% biodiesel to 10% derv. If the fuel is produced to the recognised industry standard, a bio:derv blend as low as 20:80 is not necessary in our climate. By the way, I'm fairly sure one only needs to register as a bio-waste handler if the feedstock is waste cooking oil rather than fresh, unused cooking oil. I agree that for those wishing to make their own alternative fuel for private use, there should be a much more benevolent legislative regime. However, I believe that all commercial producers/suppliers should be held to the same quality standards.
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andymc
Vroom, vroom - mmm, doughnuts ...
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A 2derv :1cooking oil ratio has no ill effects on older diesels. Pre mixing is not necessary either. Coking problems is just a worry theory. By the time that happens if it happens the aging vehicle will be due for replacing anyway.
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Yes, I run 50:50 in a BMW tds, have done for around 50,000 miles 2.5 years, and the engine is sweet as a dicky bird! I also have no coking or injector fouling problems touch wood. I don't use additives as a rule, I just thing food-grade oil is so clean due to the horrific process it goes through before being put in clear bottles!
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Fair enough. With such a high derv content I would guess there's little enought risk of coking anyway, but I freely admit I don't know enough about running SVO as fuel to comment more than I already have. I wouldn't put straight vegoil in my own car, but each to their own. This sort of reinforces what I was getting at before - you are doing this with your own car, you know what risks there might be and you're making an informed decision with your own property. Of greater concern to me would be the possible effects of unspecified solvents used to "thin" vegetable oil, with the resulting mix sold commercially as road fuel.
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andymc
Vroom, vroom - mmm, doughnuts ...
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I've been running a 2001 citroen HDI on esterified biodiesel (from ID oils near York), for last few hundred miles - the tank is now pure biodiesel, I reckon. Runs great, but two questions please - It is a bit slower to start in the morning now (i.e. turns over 2-3 times before firing, instead of instant like it used to) - is this because the weather is colder? and the engine has done 84000 miles, teh filters and oil were changed when I ought it at 80000 miles, and I ran it on mineral diesel or Rix diesel until fairly recently, so is it due a change again. If I have to start using Rix again (I live about 50 miles from york, so can't be sure will always be able to use bio), will I have to change filters a third time, when I return to bio?
TIA
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Not sure about the slower starting - thinking back, I guess something similar has happened with my cars, but only on very rare occasions after a particularly cold night, when it maybe takes fractionally longer for the engine to "catch". To be honest, I don't think it's anything to do with using biodiesel, as this would when there has been a fairly severe frost overnight. When I say slightly longer, I'm talking literally fractions of a second longer for me to run the starter motor. I've never had the experience of sitting there with the starter motor chugging away, failing to get the engine going - my cars have always started first time, every time, without a struggle.
One thing that can happen is that if a car has done a lot of miles on derv, there's a possibility that a certain amount of sludge has accumulated in the fuel system. This is normal, especially if the derv previously used hasn't always been top quality. However, biodiesel is a solvent for this stuff (in much the same way as commercial injector cleaners are, I suppose) and cleans the fuel system out till it's clean as a whistle. Whatever gunge is cleaned out will be deposited in the fuel filter, which (if there's a lot) can lead to a slightly suffocated engine until the filter is changed. It has happened to me, much more noticeably with the old 525 TD than with the Passat, even though both had about 90k miles on the clock when I acquired them. This is why I advise anyone changing over for the first time to straight biodiesel (B100) or a blend with a high bio content (say, B50 or higher) that it's better to do so a relatively short time before a service - say 1000 miles or so. That way, you're replacing the fuel filter anyway and it has time to accumulate the extra gunge. Once you've started using biodiesel on a semi-regular basis (say, as little as every tenth fill) it will keep your system cleaner, so you shouldn't get the same build-up and sudden flush-out of dirt - I can't see it happening again.
BTW, my supplier is about 50 miles from me as well - when I call in, I'm in the habit of filling as many jerrycans/drums as will fit in the boot. That can keep me going for six or seven weeks at a time. If I do run out, I just run on derv until I get more biodiesel - hasn't caused a problem in nearly 100k miles. I've bought a fuel pump that attaches to my battery drill, so filling the car from a jerrycan on the driveway is quick and easy. If you do this, just make sure you wipe up any spills from the paintwork straight away, or it could have the same effect as using washing-up liquid as screenwash.
One last thought - I don't know off the top of my head what ID sells, but is the biodiesel you're getting from Rix a 5% blend? If so, there's not much difference between running on that and running on derv. My comments apply to running on a higher proportion of biodiesel - 50% or more.
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andymc
Vroom, vroom - mmm, doughnuts ...
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many thanks, andymc. Will do a service ASAP!
The Rix is the B5:M95 stuff, ID is B100%, esterified from waste fryer oil.
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It might actually be worth waiting another few hundred miles before doing a service, just to make sure that the same thing doesn't happen to your next fuel filter - give it enough time that most or all of the gunge is cleaned out onto the one you're about to replace.
Also, if you're not doing the service yourself, ask your mechanic not to dump the filter, so you can cut it open and have a look inside. Then you'll know whether or not any excess gunge has been cleaned out of the system.
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andymc
Vroom, vroom - mmm, doughnuts ...
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can anyone tell me if the common rail engine, the HDI produced by peugeot/Citroen can run on biodiesel (i mean blends stronger than 50% bio)? Also, for the same engine, are there any issues with running about 5% blend of pure, new vegetable oil in the tank with conventional derv?
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PSA diesels are warranted to run on up to 30% blend. However, I have never come across a valid reason as to why it shouldn't be 100%. I used that in a brand new Clio dci for about 12k miles with no ill effects.
As for mixing in 5% vegetable oil, there is still the possibility (however slight) of the same risks described above in previous posts. This would also be a breach of warranty, if there's still a valid one.
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andymc
Vroom, vroom - mmm, doughnuts ...
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Hi Horsepower,
I live in York and drive a Citroen HDi too and would like to start using bio-diesel.
Are you still using bio-diesel from ID Oils ?
Even using TESCO Diesel (5% bio mixture) my car is still slow to start on cold mornings; 4 to 5 turns when the temperature is below 5oC.
Varoius Bio-Diesel Forums recommend changing the cars filters soon after switching to bio-diesel as it acts a cleaning agent. So you may need to replace the low pressure filter at the front.
Can you let me know how you are getting on with using Bio Diesel from ID Oils too, as then I to may buy some from them.
Regards
Pazza
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Hi Horsepower,
Pazza, unfortunately he hasn't been back to this forum since Sun 14 Nov 2004.
DD. BR Moderator.
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The handbook for my wife's Polo 1.9D (R plate) actually mentions that RME biodiesel can be used instead of conventional diesel fuel.
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Yep, all VAG diesels have been warranted to use 100% biodiesel for years. It's only more recently that other manufacturers have started to catch up.
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andymc
Vroom, vroom - mmm, doughnuts ...
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