Used Veg Oil In Deisel Cars

[Lexusgs300sport]

As talked about before i am using a mates MERC E300 deisel at the moment and found it did the same on fuel as the Lexus i own(due to the price of deisel).After a long talk with my mate we thought we would try his MERC on used cooking oil from a friends curry house.We got 30 liters of used oil and warmed it up a bit by in a pan(to make it thinner and easier to strain),we then poured it through a cotton pillow case over a container,this leaves clean oil with no bits.We then mixed £10 of deisel(thought we would use a bit of deisel just to thin out the cooking oil and add a bit of what ever they put in diesel to help) and poured into the MERC.

I have did 400 miles and i can say that the car starts the same,runs the same,pulls the same and apart from selling like a curry house from the exhaust pipe,is the same as if on diesel!!!

I will change the fuel fillter every 3 months(at a cost of £6)just to be sure.

My mates curry house can-not supply me enough old cooking oil so i bought some new oil from tescos at a cost of 88p per liter,and mixed £10 of diesel again.This works just as well,just not as cheap!!

I really did not think it would work,i have gone 700 miles with no problems at all.I would not try it on cars under warranty,but apart from that i cant see why people pay £130(and going up) for deisel.

Not sure what the tax man thinks about it,but stuff him!!!!!! about time we found a way of avoiding some tax.

[Jackal321]

I'm not 100% sure but I think you are supposed to pay tax on it....

[T7RY B]

I'm not 100% sure but I think you are supposed to pay tax on it....

Why would you have to pay tax on it?

You have paid tax on it when you bought the oil from Tescos. If you put it in your tank or the chip pan is your choice.

[Tango]

I'm not 100% sure but I think you are supposed to pay tax on it....

Why would you have to pay tax on it?

You have paid tax on it when you bought the oil from Tescos. If you put it in your tank or the chip pan is your choice.

A few of our Welsh brethren started doing this way back in 2002, but it was noted that the sales of cooking oil went berserk. Police couldn't miss the cars running it because of the smell and started to prosecute and/or report them to Customs and Excise 'cos it's tax avoidance http://www.sovereignty.org.uk/features/foo...th/biofuel.html I like the bit about Germany having done it for years and as a consequence Mercs are so accommodating that they'll run on lard

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/2312521.stm ...and you might to tell your mate about the possibility of a seven year jail sentence.

[KnightUnit]

I believe you can make/use 2500 litres a year before you have to inform the tax man.. but correct me if im wrong

[Lexusgs300sport]

I'm not 100% sure but I think you are supposed to pay tax on it....

Why would you have to pay tax on it?

You have paid tax on it when you bought the oil from Tescos. If you put it in your tank or the chip pan is your choice.

A few of our Welsh brethren started doing this way back in 2002, but it was noted that the sales of cooking oil went berserk. Police couldn't miss the cars running it because of the smell and started to prosecute and/or report them to Customs and Excise 'cos it's tax avoidance http://www.sovereignty.org.uk/features/foo...th/biofuel.html I like the bit about Germany having done it for years and as a consequence Mercs are so accommodating that they'll run on lard

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/2312521.stm ...and you might to tell your mate about the possibility of a seven year jail sentence.

See now that does not suprise me,what a country we live in,we would rather the chippy and take aways pour the oil down the drain and cause all sorts of problems than let people use it as fuel!!!!

God forbid they may lose tax

Still,like i said stuff-em

[aaronabbott]

one of the lads at work has run his citroen zx on chip oil for the past 2 years with no probs

[Lexusgs300sport]

Heard on radio one today you can use 2500 liters before you pay tax.And how do they know how much you have used?

[tHomBleached]

From what I know you can make 2500 ltr for personal consumption, thereafter you have to pay 23.8p per litre in duty

Taken from another forum I frequent:-

thing to check for..

what kind of fuel pump do you have? most bosch systems are known to run well without modification but dependant on vehicle and other factors

has your diesel injection system got a pre heater? without a pre heater the diesel could wax in cold weather

is it turbo or normally aspirated? some sensors on some turbos are very sensitive to vegetable oil and can fook them up

are the fuel lines well insulated under vehicle ie plastic coated? again cold weather waxing

also what are your hoses to your crankcase ventilation made of? biodiesel can dissolve hoses from the inside out on older cars.

also different vehicles need different veggie oil to diesel ratios.

you can get mod kits that preheat the fuel tailormade for different vehicles.. around the £300 mark

like i say some cars etc run just fine on 50/50 or a slightly varied mix ratio.. but better safe than sorry.

best bet is to ring your dealer and ask them, mercedes should def tell you no problem and i would imagine yours would run just fine, preheater is ideal but not essential, again other factors all figure. more important is pump type and injection type, I will do some research and post back later, but im pretty certain that most merc diesels are good to go on biodiesel with little or no modification. but even so you do need to find out the ideal ratio mix for your car.

some manufacturers release the info on the cars in their range that will run on bio, good publicity n all that.

apart from the waxing in winter (where depending on temp, a higher diesel to oil mix would resolve that) the biggest problem (imo) is biodiesel eating some types of rubber, apart from the crancase ventilation system, which in all fairness would take time to dissolve, you also have rubber seals throughout the fuel system, i think, in fact im sure mercedes, bmw, VW etc all use the correct type of rubber seals and has done for many years, the newer the car the more likely it is to be using the newer types of rubbers that are immune to biodiesel.

The worrying thing is if you dont have the right rubber hoses and seals it may seem your car or van is running just great on it and you start saying things like paid for itself in 3 tanks, money in the bank blah and then one morning it wont start or driving down the motorway.. cough splutter oh dear me... new fuel pump and injection system... that'll be £1200 thankyou very much... and thats a understatement on some cars lol.

Like i said before say some cars etc will run just fine, i really dont mean to scaremonger lol. But anyone thinking of doing it should absolutly do the research first on their vehicle, some will need full on modification ie new pipes, hoses, seals and preheater etc and some will need none at all.. all depends on how forward thinking the manufacturer was and how much the bottom line was on the factory floor.. fords, even the newer ones for instance dont have the correct rubber seals and they will fail in time.