Using vegetable oil in a diesel car?

D

DaveD

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Lots of videos on Youtube, they tried it on Top Gear and I was even driving behind a pickup claiming to use used veggie oil but anyone here tried it yet?

What tax is payable to the revenue if you wanted to use veggie oil in your own diesel car?
 
Do you have to have any work done to your engine to facilitate the change over? I heard an interview with one of the GP TD's a while back and she talked about hers. Said she had the pleasant smell of a chipper from her car, I imagine the salt and vinegar was optional though!
 
modern diesels would struggle on chip oil,either the oil would need processing or the engine modifying.
 
Have a 00 transit, poured veggie oil in it for six months with 50% diesel, not an ounce of trouble. stopped doing it cos its easy fill it up with diesel. although with diesel prices soaring I may start again.
 
Older diesel engines are less likely to need modification, I know a Mercedes 190d will run on filtered waste vegetable oil (just through a cloth to remove bits) or new oil without modification, no diesel mixing needed wither. However, it all seems to depend on what fuel injection system and fuel pump are used in the car, other factors such as ambient temperature are also a factor as veggie oil has a higher viscosity that diesel.

BUT, i rang the Revenue guys and while they have no problem with it they say you MUST pay the applicable excise duty of 39.6c/l and this is easier said than done. You need to be registered with them in order to pay it and the impression I got was that this was a lot of effort. Once you pour the oil into the car its reclassified as a fuel rather than a food so you owe them money. Apparently "big fines" can be imposed for non payment.
 
a modern engine needs to be converted, there is no way to "process the veg oil for modern engines", unless you use veg oil as a constituent part in biodiesel, but that's a different topic.

also, I wouldn't process waste veggie oil (WVO) by just running through a cloth, it has to have the water removed and other stuff.

check out www.vegetableoildiesel.co.uk
 
Modern (common rail) diesels will not like this fuel. It also harms fuel pumps.
 
I gather there are fuels on the way to the market which will use, say, 80% plant oil, 20% diesel and will be mixed already.

A number of car manufacturers have even said they'll extend warranties for them as the fuel burns at lower temperature/with greater lubrication so less engine wear.

Engines wont require modification to run on same.

I looked into the issue in good detail before but the best that could be done was to get a german kit to modify the engine, run dual tanks so you start and end on diesel and use the bio-fuel in the interim. However you'd need to be doing long consecutive miles to make this worthwhile so in my case it wasnt worth the hassle.
 
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