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Running vegetable oil : diesel mixture


margun
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I'm thinking about running my 1997 Jeep Cherokee 2.5TD on a 50:50 mixture of fresh veg oil and diesel. Worked out should save around £23 per tank of fuel :good:

Have researched online and found conflicting advice, some even suggesting adding a few litres of petrol to 100% veg oil to thin it down :hmm: Most

say it's safer to run 50:50 in summer and say 70:30 in winter. I'm happy to change the fuel filter more regularly but I've heard stories about knackered fuel pumps/injectors?

 

How many of you run veg oil and what are your experiences?

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If you want to run on veg oil with no problems you could get a second tank fitted for the veg oil.

This should heat the veg oil as well.

Start on the diesel then when warmed switch over to the veg oil.

Switch back to diesel before you switch the engine off.

Check what kind of fuel pump you have.

The lucas ones can fail with veg oil but the bosch ones seem better.

Change fuel filters after about two hundred miles.

 

If I was you I would look at running on used engine oil.

My friend gave me half a tank of this he had filtered and mixed with unleaded petrol.

Filled up with diesel and have cut my running costs by half.

Garages have to pay to get rid of this so my friend gets it for free,even gets the unleaded for nothing from garages when people have put it into diesel cars and had to drain the tank.

I cant notice any difference in power.

The British army has been running on used engine oil/diesel since before WW2.

Its ten percent unleaded you mix it with,don't use kerosene as this may come up as red diesel if dipped.

Don't forget diesel is just oil with petrol mixed.

I am running at a 50/50 mix but he runs it at 25% diesel 75% used engine oil in this weather dropping to 50/50 in winter.

Not sure how legal it is but if you get dipped just say I asked my wife to put some engine oil in and she put it in the fuel tank, dizzy mare,The duty's been paid any way.

When you are running about on fuel that is costing 35 pence a litre it does give you a warm glow inside.

I run a Land Rover Defender 110 and it has run on all sorts with no problems but get on a Jeep forum or veg oil forum to see what other people have to say about your model of car.

Don't be put off by the horror stories but do research and soon you will understand why all the Land Rover drivers in Hudersfield are always smiling.

The filter system can be home made with a 200 micron, a 100 micron filter and two filters the same size as your fuel filters usually about four microns.

Hope this helps and good luck.

 

Hatstand.

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I've often thought about this in my shogun. But my luck is it will all go terribly wrong and i'll end up paying mega bucks somewhere down the line.

 

I look on the forums every now and then. Maybe i'll look a bit this week - the price of diesel at the moment is mental!

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I've been running it in my 2.5 shogun for a few years now with no problems as yet, not dared to push past 60 : 40 diesel to oil yet tho and knock It right back if its cold. No real difference in performance, just change the fuel filter regulary.

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ive been running on veg oil on and off for years just started again with my discovery. but did it for thousands of miles in the old 205tdi i used to have. i even used to run that on straight oil with no mods and it never had any issues. im doing 50/50 mix at the min but ill go down to 75/25 soon. does make motoring cheaper!!!

Ref the used engine oil. How do you filter it?

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I was chatting to a bloke from customs and excise last week, as he was on our trading estate dipping the tanks of people who were buying red diesel from the fuel depot.

I asked him about the legallity of different fuels and he said that engine oil is not legal unless you declare it and send the taxman extra money, this is because no fuel duty has been paid on it even though VAT has. Vegtable oil is legal as long as you use less than 2500 litres a year, otherwise the same applies. Bear in mind if you get pulled it is up to you to prove how much you use a year in the way of reciepts etc.

 

While they were on site they had 4 people for using red, giving them all a £500 on the spot fine and a promise that they will look into their fuel usage and possibly back tax them depending on how much red they think they have bought.

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you can burn engine oil but its entirely the wrong grade and will smoke like hell, bung up the diesel filter and the list goes on, bunging in unleaded will also nicely help to ruin your fuel pump seals. It may work for a while and indeed on some old diesels it will probably be fine but really not a good idea on anything with a remotely modern pump.

Having seen a laguna running on oil when the turbo oil seal went i can confirm it looks like a steam engine the amount of smoke it kicks out

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I didn't realise you could burn used engine oil, although I'd be more skeptical about putting unleaded into the diesel tank. I'll leave that to the Mrs :lol:

I think I'd only have the ding-dong danglies for 50:50 max...

 

Yeah I thought that...until I dropped a red-hot piece of braze into a tub of old oil at school we used for oil blacking (at lower temps obviously...) where the metal poked out the surface of the oil it burned quite fiercely and with alot of black smoke! **** me up anyway!

 

Bet the kids arent allowed to do stuff like that these days though!

 

D

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You filter used engine oil before you put it in your tank.

Some people use a bucket and air pump filtering it through a 200 micron filter first then through a 100 micron filter then through a 4 micron filter.

Just using pipes and tubes out of their garage.

I know someone who uses paint paper filters and throws them away after and some people use steel 200 and 100 micron filters which they wash afterwards.

The main thing to be careful of is that there is no antifreeze or other polluntants have been put in with the oil at the garages you get the used oil from.

Just do your research for your vehicle,

there's plenty of people on the internet doing this and showing you how to.

I don't use this all the time only when my friend gives me some for helping him out and I don't do that many miles but I reckon I've saved more than a brand new engine is worth over the last two years.

His used engine oil doesn't smoke at all in mine,might be because its a 50/50 mix.

His latest batch is used hydralic oil which I will be trying at the weekend.

I'll let you know how it goes.

 

Hatstand.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Well..

 

I tried a tank of 50:50 diesel and veg oil straight from Morrisons shelf. No problems in running at all, except it smelt like a chippy when running :lol:

I got some funny looks tipping it into the tank but at 94p per litre (a family member works for Morrisons so I get 10% off) its got to be worth it.

 

Not sure I have the balls to run 50:50 all the time though, I'm still paranoid about the injectors and fuel pump.....

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Well..

 

I tried a tank of 50:50 diesel and veg oil straight from Morrisons shelf. No problems in running at all, except it smelt like a chippy when running :lol:

I got some funny looks tipping it into the tank but at 94p per litre (a family member works for Morrisons so I get 10% off) its got to be worth it.

 

Not sure I have the balls to run 50:50 all the time though, I'm still paranoid about the injectors and fuel pump.....

 

 

keep an eye on the fuel filter, i ran a 20% mix on my first xtrail, ran ok but fuel filter was clogged when it went for a service, i was told to change it more often if using veg oil

 

shaun

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The haulage industry used to run on kerosene central heating oil the old diesel engines will run on anything neat cooking oil red & glow plug cleaner in the summer a diesel engine will run on neat clean cooking oil in the winter you have to have an inline heater to diesel warm the oil as it becomes to thick but people running on central heating oil is still a big problem for HMRC so the have died it yellow

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I have always used veg oil in my Land Rovers, more diesel than oil in the colder weather though, never had any problems once the crud had cleared from the lines (veg oil cleans out the fuel lines so change the filter after the first couple of tanks and you should have no more bother with clogging)I stopped using it when veg oil became more expensive than diesel.

 

As for declaring it to the tax man, don't bother, just wait until you are dipped and tell them it's the first time you have used it and it's just an experiment. :good:

 

I used to do a fair bit of offroading and old diesel engines can run on almost anything from heating oil to used chippy oil (wouldnt recommend this as it's full of salts and other nasties to damage your car), one bloke even used to add some of their lasses pot pouri oils to stop it smelling so bad :lol:

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I have used vegetable oil in my Toyota Surf (3.0 turbo diesel), usually on a 60% diesel/40% veg oil ratio, for the last 10 years.

Fuel and oil filter changes at the once a year service, no mechanical or general performance problems at all.

 

The last lot I bought (25litre drums) cost 84p per litre, much better than 1.45p for diesel. :good:

 

I would not use reclaimed vegetable oil unless it had been "professionally" cleaned.

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The old diesels used to run great on cooking oil but in those days it was half the price of ordinary diesel fuel. You could run all year round on nothing else. Now

1) there is not as significant a price advantage

2) modern diesel engines are different and its too risky

Edited by Vince Green
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Anybody using veg oil on a Mitsi Shogun? Mines a 51 plate DD-I

 

I have a feeling it wouldn't go that great due to it being a modern direct injection lump?!? Anybody?

 

Ben

 

Yeah your right Ben don't do it newer engines don't like it!

The old shoguns,pajeros and L200 work fine on it.

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Be very carful about buying veg oil from supermarkets. Only use cash and dont use your loyalty card. All details from your points card are kept and available to any government department who requests them. If you use Asda or Tesco you can go online and find out what you have bought for the past few months.

Edited by bigstancwsw
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Be very carful about buying veg oil from supermarkets. Only use cash and dont use your loyalty card. All details from your points card are kept and available to any government department who requests them. If you use Asda or Tesco you can go online and find out what you have bought for the past few months.

 

Too true. I understand that there is an entire government department dedicated to going through every single one of the billions of annual tesco shopping bills and bank statements looking for excessive vegetable oil use. If you have ever seen Spooks you will know the sort of technology we are up against. Once you hit that 2500 litre limit they call in the SAS and your house will be surrounded by huge blokes with automatic weapons and balaclavas. Before you know it you'll be on a rendition flight to Gitmo with only a few weeks of waterboarding to look forward to before you finally crack and admit to the crime.

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The 2500 litres "allowance" for veg oil a year works out at about 48 litres a week.

Then allow that you don't run on 100% vegetable oil (say even 50/50) and I doubt many people are using 96 litres of fuel a week.

 

As I posted before, I am paying 84p a litre for vegetable oil against up to 145.9p a litre for diesel.

Thats worth the "messing about", which is actually not a lot of effort.

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