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red diesel


islandgun
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many years ago while still farming we had a pickup which was only used to carry hay provin etc up the farm track so we ran it on red. had a visit from customs they went round a few farms locally. when they asked what we ran pickup on told them red "you can't do that" long story short I had to show out of date insurance tax and test to prove it wasn't road legal.

Basically if its been road registered it must run on white whether its road legal or not.

 

You have been miss informed there. As has already bee said above if you re classify your vehicle as agri you can run it on red including limited mileage on the road just like a tractor/quad.

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a tiny trace is alright as long as you've got a good excuse,for example you've been using the vehicle for agricultural use off the highway (therefor not needing agri registration),before you put the vehicle back for road use.obviously they expect you to have drianed the tank of red before you did this!

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I own a garage and we have done services in the last 12-18 months on more than a dozen cars ALL of which were running on red diesel i.e. fuel filters full of red diesel and they are not all old bangers either some worth more than 20k

 

its not my problem so i just keep stum, quite a few of our polish friends run on red for sure

theres a good sized machinery auction i go to where the ministery men used to wait outside in the layby,they'd wave all the 4x4's and lorries in to be dipped,but they let every car pass.i've know folk there with brand new merc's etc that ran on red all the time and never got dipped.that was a few years ago.

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Sonicdmb we have just had the same problem, we had two large cherry pickers on industrial estate a private site customs, appeared and fine ud a £1,000, for running these vehicles on red we argued that they were on a private site and had not been on the road ,for 6 months the security guards confirmed this but to no avail we were fined because they were taxed and could go on the road at any time

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theres a good sized machinery auction i go to where the ministery men used to wait outside in the layby,they'd wave all the 4x4's and lorries in to be dipped,but they let every car pass.i've know folk there with brand new merc's etc that ran on red all the time and never got dipped.that was a few years ago.

 

measham by any chance :yes:

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i have heard that if you call vosa and inform them you have mis fueled by accident on the farm, say you have drained all you can get out but there is still some in there and you have filled up with white (say if theres a white and red pump near each other) they give you a bit of grace with the next few tanks of fuel as you have informed them before you set a tyre on the road! this wont work more than once or twice a year but if you are planning on a long journey where the chance of getting pulled over is increased its worth a shout, this may be a load of bull im not sure just a rumor!

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1 Litre of 2T oil to 20 litres of heating oil is as good as it gets with no colouring to give the game away - as far as I know from being told !!

nope heating oil is a different specific gravity they can test for that it's not as obvious though.

 

I should of said unless you reclassify a road going vehicle you can't run on red, if it's sorn you may just be warned but as my info came straight from the horses mouth so to speak I take it they could of done us for it. Had they wanted to.

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On a related thread David Basc pointed to the recent change in red diesel regs - it would suggest that even running a vintage tractor a couple of miles on the road to carry wheat for your local shoot is illegal - check the HMRC website. Conveniently it has the consequences for those who get caught.

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when I bought my Defender 90 I had a few jobs before I put it on the road one was to service it, when I changed the filter it was full of red diesel so I also drained the tank, at the time we were running HMRC exhibition trailer so I asked the chap delivering it to ask about the situation and was told, drain the tank and change the filters and that is all that can be expected, so near as damn it from the horses mouth and that was what I did, then kept receipts for diesel from when I bought it just in case there was any argument

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Thanks for all the excellent replies (PW come up with goods again)

So its alright to use the red if your reg as an agric vehicle and you only go from one part of your holding to another,

Red will disperse with a couple of filter changes if by a weird mischance you managed to splash some into your tank.

Another question

Years ago I was an agric contractor and did hundreds of miles per year in Ford 5000's, is this now illegal?

Hope you all have good year

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Its not the colouring of the dye you should be worried about its the analysed partcles that the particle detector icks up,Our company vehicles are regularly stopped by VOSA

they can tank test and take a sample

or they can place a particle analyzer up the exhaust pipe to detect misuse of fuel.

 

step1 remove old filter contaminated with the dye

step2 Use garage or forecourt bought fuel

step3 If caught only once you will be fined,if caught again the vehicle is impounded and you will get a bigger fine 3rd time you dont want to know...

I have run diesel vans ( Escort/ Combo type vans) for almost 30 years, 9 at one time. None have EVER been stopped or dipped for red diesel. I was pulled off the M6 myself with land rover and trailer, they were more concerned with the trailer weight and my tacho ( or lack of at the time !!), even then the land rover was not dipped.

 

A

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I have run diesel vans ( Escort/ Combo type vans) for almost 30 years, 9 at one time. None have EVER been stopped or dipped for red diesel. I was pulled off the M6 myself with land rover and trailer, they were more concerned with the trailer weight and my tacho ( or lack of at the time !!), even then the land rover was not dipped.

 

A

I think it's your luck I also have driven vans, off road vehicles etc on the road for years and never been checked . But when my wife had not long passed her driving test about 4 years ago she got stopped in the family car with the kids in it and they dipped and checked the tank !!

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Twin tank the system, they never know the second is there. Thats how my veg oil system works, been dipped once when my car was really muddy but was totally in the wrong tank, never told them though. When I run out of veg the odd few barrels of red have gone through, seperate filters tanks and fuel pipe apart from where the switch over valve is. Never been asked what it was under the bonnet either. My car is only worth a few hundred quid so id quite happily let them take it if the worst came, I do have proper diesel receipts as when on veg the car has to be warm and then flicked over.use around £15 of white a week.

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