Running your car on veggie oil

[Tom]

I'm considering having my car modified to run on pure vegetable oil. I'm considering this because I'm not entirely certain if I could get away with pouring it straight into the tank.

I have an Audi A4 1.9Tdi, basically a VW engine, which is designed to run off rapeseed oil as well as normal DERV.

The advantage for me is that I can buy 20litres of veggie oil from Makro at £10, that means I can fill my car for about £30, a lot cheaper than the £50 it costs with DERV.

Yes I know about the taxman, but tbh, I'll still be putting some money his way because I'll run the engine on a 60/40 mix of DERV/SVO (if it doesn't need modding), and we all know how motorists are a cash cow for the government.

Anybody here done a similar thing?

 

[Summo]

Cars running on vegetable oil is madness and unnatural. There'll be a woman in Downing Street next.

 

[maxi--]

I'm pretty sure, you can poor oil straight into the tank (after filtering it).

It was discussed that you could probably run around your local chippy and get their used oil (for next to nothing, they have to pay to dispose of it anyway) filter it, and use it.

Also, the major drawback is, it's not the taxman you have to worry about, its a C&E 'issue' as far as i know, and they'd throw the book at you, as they'e fuckers, and not leaniant in any way.

 

[Big G]

I've heard quite a lot of people talking about it, and there was an article on Top Gear about it.

If it were my 1.9 TDi, i'd wait until someone had done it for long enough 'cos i wouldn't be 100% confident that it's completely safe for the car in the long run. Additionally, doesn't the veggie oil have to be treated and/or mixed with something else? (i seem to remember some additive was mentioned on Top Gear article).

Good idea though, fook the tax man tbh

Think you also get a smell of McD's out the back of the car too

G

 

[Gumbo]

Yup, you still have to pay excise duty to customs when you use it, might still work out cheaper though.

 

[Tom]

Well, the main thing is that the oil thickens at lower temperatures (so does diesel btw), and that when cold your engine might have difficulty sucking the oil through the pump.

When the engine is nice and warm, the oil flows nice and easily. This is when you can pour neat veggie oil into it, it runs fine. There are conversion kits that use a heated fuel pump, and a heat exchanger on the fuel lines, to get around this problem, so you can run your car on 100% veggie, but for my annual use this would take a year to pay the cost of the modification back, so its definitely a long term consideration. There are other kits that use a switch and an extra tank, you start the car running on normal DERV and when the engine is warm, you switch to SVO. When you reach your destination, you flick the switch back before you turn the engine off.

I reckon doing 20 000 miles a year, I would save about £400 annually if I ran the car purely on vegetable oil.

I'm quite fortunate in that my car actually says in the manual that it will run on rapeseed oil fuel, which is basically the stuff sold as 'biodiesel' in a surprisingly high number of fuel stations around the country (although none around lancashire/cheshire).

In terms of engine damage, the only possible damage would be in the fuel delivery system, and that damage might only take the form of fuel clogging.

 

[Tom]

Originally posted by maxi--
I'm pretty sure, you can poor oil straight into the tank (after filtering it).

It was discussed that you could probably run around your local chippy and get their used oil (for next to nothing, they have to pay to dispose of it anyway) filter it, and use it.

Also, the major drawback is, it's not the taxman you have to worry about, its a C&E 'issue' as far as i know, and they'd throw the book at you, as they'e fuckers, and not leaniant in any way.

The only problem with using filtered waste vegetable oil, is that it is normally contaminated with animal fats, and that can clog the fuel system up quite easily.

I'm troubled by how many people laugh at the idea of my car exhaust smelling like a chip shop, after all, diesel fumes aren't exactly palatable are they

 

[Gumbo]

Under the Hydrocarbon Oil Duties Act 1979, section 6A, any liquid which is not a hydrocarbon oil, but is used as a fuel for an engine, motor or other machinery, is chargeable with excise duty at the same rate as the fuel for which it is a substitute. At present, therefore, the excise duty rate on vegetable oil, when used in an engine which would otherwise be powered using diesel, would be the same as that for ordinary diesel, which is 51.82 pence per litre.

Tim Ward
Transport Environment and Taxation Division
Department of Transport Local Government and the Regions

Is it still economical?

 

[Gumbo]

Hmmm further reading seems to suggest that if you use waste oil then the rate is set at 25.82p per litre, however you have to register with c&e as a manufacturer of fuels.

Seems an awful lot of hassle for a small saving.

 

[Big G]

just don't tell them

 

[kameleon]

I think theyd soon realise when all the neighbourhood cats start following Tom's car cos of the fish smell

 

[Farsight]

Um....isnt it going to be a bit difficult in a practical sense?

Its not as if you can pull into the motorway services and fill up on four-star rapeseed , is it?

Unless you are planning to carry round a spare 20 litres with you on a trailer

 

[Mr.Monkey]

Why run your car on vegetable oil?

It’s a cheaper fuel than either diesel or petrol and it could increase the power performance of your car. It is currently possible to walk into most major supermarkets in the UK and buy vegetable oil for 46p/litre. Once you have paid the 25.82p duty to the HM Customs and Excise, to make it a road fuel, your total cost is 71.82p/litre which is currently cheaper than petrol or diesel. This price tumbles even further if you use waste vegetable oil from restaurants that can often be obtained for free. With free waste vegetable oil it should be possible to soon recoup the cost of engine conversion.

Independent research has shown that rather than decreasing performance, cars that are converted to run on pure vegetable oil have an increased power performance as compared to diesel over most speeds. This is maybe because vegetable oil, being part oxygen, burns in a different way to diesel.

However there are more important reasons than plain economics for using vegetable oil as a fuel:


For all those who worry about pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every time they get in a car, there is a relatively easy solution to your dilemma. Chances are we will all get very old, and the planet a whole lot warmer, if we wait for the motor industry to gets its act together and produce a hydrogen or an electric car that really works. However running a diesel car on vegetable oil is an easily achievable reality for those wanting carbon neutral motoring today.

Thousands of people especially in Germany and the rest of Continental Europe are already running their cars on vegetable oil. This website sets out to promote this quiet revolution to more car owners especially in the UK who want to reduce their existing contribution to global warming.

This technology is not new and is in fact a renaissance as the very first diesel engines were run by Dr Rudolf Diesel, the inventor of the diesel engine, on Peanut Oil. In 1912 Diesel said, “The use of vegetable oils for engine fuels may seem insignificant today. But such oils may become in the course of time as important as petroleum products of the present time.” Dr Diesel was a genius before his time and hopefully his words will now finally become true.

Disclaimer

The wide scale use as veg oil in modern cars is a new and growing field with little in the way of published literature. Information on this subject has been gleaned here from private individual’s personal experience, other websites and word of mouth rather than extensive scientific testing. This has to be remembered when using this information. The Veg Oil Motoring website can in no way be responsible for any damage caused to vehicles by advice from this website.

And more about the C&E side of it at http://www.veggiepower.org.uk/legal.html

How much does it cost to convert and run on vegetable oil?
There are a couple of kits available, each has its own merits. You can always construct your own from commonly avaliable parts. The three options are briefly explored below.

1. The Elsbett conversion kit
The Elsbett system from Germany is a very well established and uses a number of electrical heaters to allow you to start the engine whilst the oil is cold and still thick. As soon as the engine has warmed up there's a heat exchanger to feed engine coolant heat to the fuel and the electric heaters then shut down. This has the advantage that you can use the existing fuel tank in the car. Bigger fuel pipes are supplied in the kit to allow the easy flow of the thick oil coming from the fuel tank and the kit comes with all the bits and pieces needed to effect the conversion. These kits currently cost around £600+VAT but this varies from car to car. To have this fitted to your car by a qualified fitter will cost another £600+VAT. At present there are no approved fitters in the UK but I hope to remedy this soon. Also supplied in the kit are a set of new injectors (set to a slightly higher injector pressure) and heavier duty heater (glow) plugs as these are left on when the engine is first started to help with cold starts.

2. Goat Industries kit
Considerably cheaper than the Elsbett kit is the one made by Goat Industries in North Wales. This works on the principle that you have two tanks and that you start your vehicle on mineral diesel. Supplied in the kit are all the components you need except the fuel filter and fuel tank. Kits cost £300+VAT and I reckon you could buy a cheap tank and filter for less than £20 or buy new parts and spend as much as £200 on these items (boat suppliers have a range of fuel tanks). This kit has the advantage that you can switch from vegetable oil to mineral oil at any time. It means the engine is never left with vegetable oil in the injector pump and cylinders. There's certainly a danger that if this is left for long periods of time the vegetable oil will thicken or chrystallise inside the engine and injector pump and prove difficult to shift.

3. Do-it-yourself
This is what I've done but I wouldn't recommend it for most people as its very time consuming. My conversion cost about £ 170 and took two full days to complete as well as two weeks collecting the pieces as I went about my normal business. It would have been much faster to use a kit and probably better engineered as I had to compromise on a few aspects through shortage of components. Again there are a number of ways you can go with this and various theories about what's best out there if you look for them. For me, I like a combination of the two kits described above. I have built a system which uses waste heat from the engine to warm both the fuel line (halfway back to the tank) and the fuel filter. In summer months I had no problem starting on unheated oil and running without using any diesel. As the weather got cooler I noticed it was getting more difficult to start so I switched to starting with mineral diesel in winter months. My next modification will be to add electrical heating to the fuel line.

Cost of fuel
New, fresh oil will cost around 37p/litre in the supermarkets - go for the cheapest as it's usually rapeseed oil and that is grown in the UK. Vegetable oil bought in bulk will normally cost about 40p/litre delivered to your door in 20 litre containers. Waste vegetable oil costs about 10p/litre delivered but this needs to be filtered before you can use it. It's possible to buy cleaned filtered waste oil which is the best of both worlds for about 25p/litre. Contacts for bulk oil available on request.

Sounds like fun, but untill I can be shown that the fuel economy beats my 55mpg on motorway driving, I'll stick to diesel.

 

[Tom]

My tank was nearly empty, so I went and bought 40 litres of veggie oil for 20 quid from Makro. I put 20 litres in the tank, and ran up and down the motorway for a bit (the car, not me) and didn't notice any difference. Fuel economy was the same (as displayed by the on board computer), when I got home, I filled the tank up with normal Diesel, and let it run for a few minutes to mix the two fuels. Hopefully I won't have any problems starting it up tomorrow if its cold.

If you rev the engine, and leg it around the the exhaust, you can smell 'the chip shop' scent, its not as vinegary, more like slightly burnt chips. Its a much nicer smell than normal Diesel.

BTW regarding the tax, I don't intend to pay any.

 

[Mr.Monkey]

Originally posted by Tom
BTW regarding the tax, I don't intend to pay any.

In that case, I hope you are caught.
I don't like paying my fuel tax to cover your use as well. Sponger.

 

[Tom]

Got any warez on your computer Monkey?

 

[Mr.Monkey]

Nope.
Nor any mp3's that I don't own on CD.
I even pay for shareware I like. So sue me.
But not a good point anyway. Tax dodging is ever so slightly different from stealing.

 

[Gekul]

Why would they need to tax veggie oil?

 

[Cyfr]

Its already taxed when you buy it from the shop..

 

[Gumbo]

Originally posted by Tom


BTW regarding the tax, I don't intend to pay any.

You do realise that if caught you will likely lose the car, have to pay back taxes, and could go to prison though, right?

We also know that your name is Tom Jeffs, and you come from the Lancashire/Chesire area, and we could be eligible for a community action trust reward.....

 

[Gumbo]

Originally posted by Cyfr
Its already taxed when you buy it from the shop..

Nope, you may be paying VAT on it, but not fuel duty, which is an entirely different thing.

 

[Cyfr]

Originally posted by Gumbo
Nope, you may be paying VAT on it, but not fuel duty, which is an entirely different thing.

:doh:

Infact, don't you get VAT back from Makro?

 

[Gumbo]

At this point we need an accountant to explain the intricacies of VAT...

 

[Tom]

I could register with C&E, and then pay duty, trouble is, how would they know I'm paying the correct amount? They wouldn't.

I'd be more worried about the 10% of drivers who don't have roadtax or insurance if I was you.

 

[Gumbo]

The only thing is, if this gets really popular and noone pays tax on the veggie oil they're using, then the fuel tax for law abiding people will go up even more than it currently is.

So, just like happens when insured drivers end up paying more to cover those who aren't insured the same will apply for those legitimatly buying their fuel.

Personally I hope that Customs get the resources to shut this down before it really takes off, because I don't fancy subsidising the criminals.

I do believe you can still make a saving even if you do pay the duty, not as big a saving obviously, but a saving nonetheless. It should even be encouraged as it's environmental impact is much less than mineral diesel. Respect to people making the effort to give it a go legitimatly. Equally, good luck to Customs going after the thieving scum who aren't paying their dues.

 

[Summo]

I think we should do away with taxes and adopt an 'American restaurant' style of government. We'll pay what we think the service is worth.

 

[Tom]

Personally I'm all for doing away with income tax and only paying VAT (albeit at a higher rate). Much fairer IMO.

 

[Tom]

OK I've had a think about the tax thing, I understand what you guys are saying about duty dodgers, I won't complicate the issue with comments about the high taxes we pay generally, thats another matter.

I'm contacting the C&E to request details of how I should register, I'm already VAT registered anyway, so I would still save a lot of money. I'll let you know what they say.

 

[Ash!]

Tom

whats the saving compared to something like LPG and converter kit. Which is supposed to be government subsidised and a lot cheaper. ?

 

[Mr.Monkey]

Originally posted by Gumbo
At this point we need an accountant to explain the intricacies of VAT...

You really don't want me to explain VAT. It's hugly boring.

But as far as "the people" are concerned (ie not self employed) it's 17.5% added to everything that you buy in shops.

Some things are exempt - Land, insurance, postal services, betting/gambling, education, finance, investments in gold
Others are zero-rated - Food (not confectionary, catered food or takeaway), books, clothing and footwear.

The difference between the two is the ability of the supplier to claim on their VAT calculation. Exempt cannot have their supplies claimed for, zero-rated can.

Relevant here is:
Reduced Rate Supplies - Domestic fuel or power, womens sanitary products and childs car seats.

This means that VAT is charged at a different rate than 17.5 (I seem to recall 10%, but the govt changes it at their will).

Tax evasion has several civil and criminal consequences.


Here is a good picture stolen from the bbc for educational purposes