I have read numerous accounts of diesel cars being run on various cooking oils...I am thinking of giving it a try.
I have an Astravan 2003 1.7 dti with 35000 miles on it.
Has anyone tried this or is it a false economy.
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A) totally illegal unless you've declared to HMC+E B) veg oil thicker than diesel, so it'll be too cold to flow and start, probably. Some installations have two tanks, and use diesel to start, and turn to oil once warmed. Others also have a fuel line heater for the oil to make it flow/vaporise better.
Newer diesels use higher pressure, which does not suit veg oil. Do some Googling to find sites that give advice.
I'd try it out on an old scrappy before using a 3 year old vehicle!
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You can only use vegetable oil in the old-style indirect injection engines. Apparently it all comes down to fuel droplet size and spray patterns.
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=34553
I suspect you've got a direct injection engine as your van is only three years old.
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What config is the Discovery 200TDi?
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All Discoverys are direct injection, even the MK1.
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You can only use vegetable oil in the old-style indirect injection engines. Apparently it all comes down to fuel droplet size and spray patterns. www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=34553 I suspect you've got a direct injection engine as your van is only three years old.
Tell that to thousands of Germans who regulary fill up at Metro and similar wholesalers every week in New Mercs down to clapped out polos.VW even do a mod kit for their range.
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There is a VW bio-diesel option that can be specified on ordering in Germany, but fitted in production, to allow use of bio-diesel. Not SVO SFAIK.
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Tell that to thousands of Germans who regulary fill up at Metro and similar wholesalers every week in New Mercs down to clapped out polos.VW even do a mod kit for their range.
There's quite a big difference between bio-diesel and cooking oil. The main one is viscosity but cooking oil also produces more harmful acids and deposits (which can clog the injectors) when it's burnt.
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PS Cooking oil also solidifies at a higher termperature than diesel. This means that it will wax-up in moderately cold winters.
Don't put cooking oil in an direct injection diesel engine unless you want to sabotage it.
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for more info on DI engines
journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_TDI.html
AndyMC will be along shortly and he will clarify matters.
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I would google your engine and find out if its got a Lucas of Bosch fuel pump, the Lucas ones go wrong pretty quick and expensively but the Bosch tend to be more tolerant.
Don't buy veg oil buy sunflower oil much thinner at all temperatures, and just put a mix of 10% - 20% oil to derv in to avoid the law as it won't smell too bad. You will still be saving money at 50p a litre so you should be able to recover your road tax costs over a year. Just pour it straight in.
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We've researched this question with a view to swapping the company vans to bio-diesel. The Bosch/Lucas pump thing is crucial, because of different kinds of seal and need for lubrication.
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dont do it.i have seen the damage to a vehicle run on cooking oil
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Only way you could consider it would be if you converted the engine with a fuel preheater kit at a cost likely to exceed £800. With biodiesel it's the fuel that's converted (from vegetable oil) to suit the engine. Comments above are correct wrt the need to register with C&E (aren't they now merged with IR to become Revenue & Customs?), as well as tendency of vegetable oil to become heavy/viscous at relatively high temperatures. I suppose you could get away with mixing in 5%-10% vegetable oil with diesel, but it wouldn't be something I'd bother with unless you did some more research and looked into the suitability of that particular engine.
--
andymc
Vroom, vroom - mmm, doughnuts ...
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