I know people who use bulk cooking oil from cash and carries. That is new and presumably clean.
Old oil would need the bits of chip etc filtering out, and the exhaust would tend to smell of whatever you had been cooking.
Of course cooking oil is combustible - ever seen a chip pan fire?
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Mr Lucas,75% mix,cooking oil and ?????
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Apparently even if you do it legally and pay tax, if you get your oil from restauraunts etc. then it still only works out at about 26p per lite! :) So I've heard anyway...
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According to last night's Top Gear:
To make 100ml:
97ml used vegetable oil (filtered through jay-cloth and sieve to remove sediment). Used vegetable oil is recommended - it works better than new vegetable oil.
3ml white spirit (without kerosene - very important).
This lot costs about 3p/litre.
You need to declare this to Customs & Excise - who will charge you 26p/litre tax. Total cost 29p/litre.
I haven't tried this. I don't drive a diesel. I suspect it would invalidate your warranty if you tried it (if your car is still under warranty).
Top Gear successfully tested an old Volvo saloon with a completely empty tank and fuel system (had to prime the fuel system first to remove the air).
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I would read some significance into the fact that Top Gear were only prepared to risk an old (very old?) Volvo in their experiment. It showed a lack of confidence.
The fact that a diesel will run on the mixture tells you little about the long-term effects on the engine, such as blocked injectors or carboned-up valves. There may not be any such long-term effects, but this experiment doesn't prove it. My own conclusion is that cooking oil should be reserved for near end-of-life Volvos.
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Sorry for not making it clearer,but 75% mix is 75% cooking oil and 25% ordinary derv,remember though it is illegal and you know how there are people out there ready to grass you up to the Feds.Maybe some cars might not like running on veggie oil but all the different people i have spoken to and running different cars have never had any problems but they are all running on brand new veggie oil.Chip shop oil is usually different, its a product called 'palm oil'and will solidify at quite warm temperatures-not much good this time of year in the UK.As ever with anything different there are going to be lots of urban myths about it.
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Iant, that's the reason I use biodiesel (mine's all legal & above board, by the way) rather than veggie oil - you can end up with coking of the injectors, especially in DI engines - IDI engines seem to be able to cope with straight veggie oil better. If you look at the FAQs on this site you'll get a few links to some sites about biodiesel and vegetable oil, including one with a list of legal, C&E registered suppliers of biodiesel in the UK.
I've run a 110 bhp Seat Leon TDi *from new* on biodiesel (converted veggie oil with all the waxes and tallows taken out) for 17000 miles. I've also been running it in my wife's Renault Clio dci 1.5 for 8000 miles. I average about 58 mpg in the Leon, performance is good, possibly a little better than on derv. The Clio tends to get about 63 mpg, but as it's a common rail engine and a smaller car I would expect that.
All VW group diesel cars (Audi, VW, Seat, Skoda) are warrantied for use with 100% biodiesel.
As has been mentioned above, doing what Clarkson did is not illegal if you pay the tax on the veggie oil you use as road fuel. Since this will still work out cheaper per litre than LPG, while at the same time giving up to double the mpg, it's hard to see why anyone with a diesel car out of its warranty wouldn't do it, especially if it's an IDI engine. One of the most popular cars people use for running straight veggie oil is the Merc 300D.
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So how much is biodiesel per litre?
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I pay 73p a litre at the moment. Collecting large quantities and treating it to produce a *quality* fuel adds to the production cost. Then Gordon takes his whack., which brings the price up. At least it's possible now - until the tax break was brought in in July, it wasn't possible to produce good biodiesel commercially that would compete with derv.
BTW, Andy22 - the diesel engine was originally invented to run on peanut oil, so it's not a new fuel idea at all! ;)
This is a quote from the biodiesel discussion forum (link in the FAQs on this site) which sums up my reasons for using a veggie-oil based fuel -
What my fuel did today:
Saved a farm
Fed some stock
Cooked 100 meals
Saved someone from cancer
Reduced pollution 95%
Drove my car to work
And by next year, it?ll do it again
Be glad it?s renewable
What did your fuel do?
Fought a war
Killed a child
Helped a dictator
Raped the wilderness
Poisoned the ground
Poisoned the air
Started a cancer
Then drove you to work
Be glad it?s NOT renewable
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Thanks. Had a quick look around on google and it ranges between 74p and £1 per litre.
I wish it were available in more places - at least we would have a choice - even if it does cost more.
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£1 a litre suggest biodiesel made from unused veggie oil - 74p is more likely to be made from recycled cooking oil. Some people reckon this is actually better for the engine. Don't have any experience of the dearer stuff myself, so I couldn't comment on that.
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I know what this is going to lead to. All of us chip loving fatties are going to be seen as tax evading criminals every time we buy a couple of pints of cooking oil. Then it's back to the lard and all of the subsequent health problems.
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Does anyone know how much cooking oil your average Fish and Chip shop discards each week?
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Having just bought a used Mitsubishi Carisma diesel, I am interested to know if I can run it successfully on a mixture of diesel and new vegetable oil as I do not want to go to the trouble and expense of conversion kits etc. The main issue as I understand it is whether or not it is direct or indirect injenction and the type of fuel pump that is fitted. I understand that it is in fact fitted with a Renault 1.9 turbo diesel engine, would this be a suitable candidate? If so, what sort of ratio of diesel to vegetable oil (duty paid to HM Customs, naturally!)would be best?
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Timp,
According to the Committee here, the filtering should be through a silk stocking and not a 'J' cloth. Who am I to argue?????
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10 microns is the best filtering for veggie oil/biodiesel - silk may not even be able to manage that!
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Does anyone know whey kerosene can not be part of the white spirit; when kerosene can be mixed with diesel to prevent waxing at low temperatures, and used in a diesel engine? In the earlier comments it says:
"To make 100ml:
97ml used vegetable oil (filtered through jay-cloth and sieve to remove sediment). Used vegetable oil is recommended - it works better than new vegetable oil.
3ml white spirit (without kerosene - very important)".
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No keresene,
Thats easy, kero is a absolute no no for a road fuel as its not taxed as a road fuel or even as a rebated road fuel, its the same reason we're not allowed to use parrafin for road fuel.
Pastyman..
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I like the comment about 'sustainable fuel and telling OPEC johnnies etc.'. If running diesels on cooking oil really caught on, (a) would we all have to eat as many chips as possible to maintain supply, (b) would fresh cooking oil rocket in price or just become unobtainable, and (c) would most of our arable land disappear under a forest of sunflowers ? [ where does he think much of our cooking oil comes from - UK ? ] I think it is a superb idea for getting further use out of used oil, but on a national scale? - I think not.
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I think it's possible for the UK to replace up to 15% of its diesel use with biodiesel - can't remember though if that's for biodiesel made from used oil only, or if biodiesel made from fresh oil is also included in that. But think how much of an impact even 15% would have! At the moment, the usage is a fraction of 1%, so there's still a long way to go.
As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure that the figure of 15% is based on production of food-grade oil. As this crop would be produced for fuel, it would be non-food grade oil. As far as I remember, this means that the yield could be significantly higher, though I'll have to check back and confirm that.
As far as forests of sunflowers go, it would more likely be rape - rapeseed oil makes some of the best biodiesel, has a high yield per hectare and is ideally suited to our climate - don't think sunflowers are, especially not this week!
On a more serious note, many farmers are paid an EU subsidy to set aside land for disuse, as a means of controlling food production and prices. Why couldn't they get that subsidy for growing our own domestically produced fuel, which would contribute to our own economy, make agriculture productive, and reduce our dependence on imported fuel?
Of course, the French do this already. And they add around 5% biodiesel to ALL diesel fuel sold at the pump in France. Which means all Peugeot, Citroen and Renault diesel engines can use biodiesel. And aren't Nissan sharing engines with Renault too?
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