Hi i want to run my 2.5 di non turbo transit on used veg. oil. How much white spirit do i add. ? I keep getting conflicting advice. please can anyone out there help. cheers
|
Don't add any white spirit, for starters. It's not a duty-paid fuel or a duty-exempt fuel, so your van will get crushed if you get caught using even small amounts of white spirit, kerosene or any other "additive". Thin veg oil with diesel or petrol, and nothing else.
All DI engines need twin-tanking. That means one small tank of diesel to start/warm-up/stop the engine, and the main tank for veg oil. You need a switch-over device, and something to warm the veg oil, normally a coolant-fed heat-exchanger.
All info on the forum at www.vegetableoildiesel.co.uk
|
"so your van will get crushed if you get caught using even small amounts of white spirit, kerosene or any other "additive"."
How would anybody ever know, who checks these things?
|
|
HMCR have the power to run spot checks, and they do, by the roadside, in M-way services etc. If you get stopped by a VOSA check there will normally be an HMCR guy there to check diesel tanks.
|
I'm sure you're right, . And I for one can't think of a better way for a Customs officer to spend his time.
Oh, I suppose he could have a go at drug smugglers.
Or maybe people who import guns illegaly.
But we've got to stop this white spirit menace at all costs!
Edited by Webmaster on 12/06/2008 at 01:43
|
|
|
Police, trading standards and HMRC were doing such checks near me just this week, specifically looking for rogue traders. Full check of vehicle, (including tank dipping) and occupants.
A small offence can quickly lead to the discovery something bigger.
|
"A small offence can quickly lead to the discovery something bigger."
A chum was then driving the Area car in W London. He stopped a car with one defective rear lamp. Didn't smell right. The follow-up led him and his colleagues to nine illegal immigrants held against their will in a basement three miles away.
|
|
But what about private vehicles?
|
Any class of vehicle can get dipped if they are diesels. Red diesel can only be used in agricultural vehicles - tractors, combines, fork-lifts and handlers etc.
Anything in a road-going vehicle has to be duty-paid from a forecourt, or duty-exempt bio-fuel, which is only duty exempt when produced (and putting fresh veg oil in the tank is producing a fuel) for personal use, and with a maximum of 2,500 litres of biofuel per annum from a single address.
|
|
Fascinating. I never knew this was going on. I though you had to pay duty on the veg oil anyway.
|
|
|
Anything in a road-going vehicle has to be (...)
Yet during the last "fuel crisis" it was possible to actually use central heating fuel, and declare the usage to HMRC to pay the extra duty. What's changed?
|
HMRC were doing such checks near me just this week
I heard recently they have been at car auctions sites, doing spot checks and dipping tanks in the car park?
A friend of a friend (a farmer) got caught about 15 years ago, running his old Landrover on Red diesel on the road.
That was in the days before they could sieze the vehicle but he got fined about £1500 IIRC.
|
"Yet during the last "fuel crisis" it was possible to actually use central heating fuel, and declare the usage to HMRC to pay the extra duty. What's changed?"
Nothing. eg if you make biodiesel for sale, you have to pay the VAT and duty to HMRC. Same is true for any road fuel.
|
|
I thought you said that fuel has to be bought from the forecourt, or be bio-diesel? Central heating fuel/red diesel is neither.
|
|
If you declared the central heating oil as road fuel and paid the tax on road fuel, then you can use it, I guess. Cars don't like it much though IIRC. You can not declare red as road fuel and pay the tax on it though.
Edited by oldnotbold on 05/06/2008 at 16:32
|
|
|
|
|
