Is it true that if you mix English red diesel with Irish green diesel (both duty unpaid) that you end up with colourless diesel?
I know it's illegal, but hope some one on the best web car/road discussion site can tell me the answer.
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Reportedly true and a favourite pastime of Northern Ireland terrorist organisations who then export it to north-west England to raise funds for their version of the "peace process".
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There is some tracer chemical in the fuel which Customs & Excise can test for in roadside checks. The mixture may or may not be coloured, but can still be identified. Similarly, removing the colour with absorbents (Fullers earth) won't remove the tracer chemical.
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There was a very good programme on the radio regarding Pirate diesel the other day "File on Four" worth looking at BBC website.
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Has anyone ever been stopped and had their diesel checked (aside from trucks that is)? I've never seen or heard it happen?
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Happens quite regularly around here mainly on one or both of the bridges crossin the Menai Starits, catching vehicles coming off the boats fro Ireland I suppose.
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I am not talking baloney here but I had a mobile, yer mobile HM Customs & Excise articulated-HGV Laboratory turn up at my front door asking, no, demanding to dip my tank!
We were buying cherryade from a local agric-merchant to run plant, space heaters, etc on (honest!) and they had traced records to us.
They dipped the tank on my Pug 205 GRD and it was NOT red but they took it into this huge lab (parked outside the village post office in a rural Somerset village!) and tested it. They don't look for the colour - they add various reagents and then look at it through UV light. An additive also added apart from the colour will show up at a certain frequency and that's when they nab you.
I have a degree in Analytical Chemistry so was interested in what they were doing, to the dismay of the **** trying to nick me! It is all kosher stuff I'm afraid. What the terrorists get up to is up to them but as sure as sugar and weedkiller makes bombs - they WILL be able to tell if you have used cherryade.
More importantly, my Mother was not amused - what on earth did the neighbours think??!!
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Customs must be getting soft. Years ago I heard of someone 'running on red' with two tanks in the landrover. When C & E arrived he happily took off the fuel cap to be greeted with 'that's OK sir, we'll take the sample from the fuel pump'.
Oops!
You're right though, they won't worry about the colour - they'll look for the chemical marker.
Regards
John
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Problem is that you may have unwittingly bought a tankful from a garage that has got from an "under the counter" dodgy supplier. Try proving it though!.
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