Alternatives to Diesel?

[carabind]

I’ve seen various threads about using bio-diesel – or just using VO (vegetable oil) in lieu of diesel. I understand that a little petrol has to be added to the VO to make it burn properly, and there are viscosity issues when cold (i.e. winter)

I wondered why it took till now for this to be apparent (i.e. why weren’t we all thinking about this back in the 80-90s) but I believe technology has moved on and diesel engines are far better equipped to burn VO

Now, I’m not proposing that we all fill up with VO and deprive Mr Brown of the excise duty, I’m certainly not going to risk the rest of my MB warranty coz clearly there could be side effects on the engine.

But I wonder what would be the effect of the occasional 4-5 litres of just VO mixed in with say 60 litres of Diesel?

And has anyone really used VO on a regular basis and found it a worthwhile saving?
(i.e. more than say 25% compared to pump prices)

Sorry if this has been done to death before.....

 

[ba9rn]

Petrol is not added to VO to make it burn. It burns fine in diesel engines. It is added to make it less viscous (more important in winter). There is also advice at VERY low temperatures to add petrol to diesel.

Here is a recent thread on the subject... http://forums.mercedesclub.org.uk/showthread.php?t=22934

 

[carabind]

Thanks Ba9rn, this helps a lot. Anyone know if VOs an option with a 220CDI engine ?

 

[ba9rn]

I think that advice is best coming from someone who does it - I only know someone who does, and he gets on fine (and saves loads of money).

AFAIK, as long as you adjust the viscosity (ie. with petrol or white spirit), any diesel engine will run OK on veg oil. There are some arguments (scare stories?) whether the high pressure pump for common rail will cope, so maybe a diesel/veg/petrol mix is the way to go (there are posts about ratios in the link I posted).

The biggest down side is the smell - my mate's car smells like a doughnut shop! It is very obvious that you are running on veg oil, which is why it's also important that you register with the Customs and Excise and pay 27p/litre duty (because it is used as a fuel, and not for cooking). My mate does not pay for as much as he actually uses, as there is no way they can prove quantities - they can prove you use it though!

 

[carabind]

Thanks. have read through the link you sent - had alreday seen the start, but not the end. Looks like food for thought, but at 40P per lt and another 27p to pay on top to stay legal I wonder if its really worth the risk to save 23p. Would need a lot of 23p's to pay for a new pump/injectors !! ie 50,000 miles would save me £1300. Inital reaction is to stick with Shells finest. Now I can see why we're not all doing it

 

[Flying Scot]

you can run 10% SVO easy peasy and 20% without any problems a common rail pump is just like a simple inline pump that only feeds one CYL in this case the common rail accumulator BUT since it is supplying all of the CYL's and not just one as an inline pump would do with separated elements for each CYL it has a total capacity equivalent to an inline or rotary pump - i hope that is all understandable the clever bit is that the ECU controls the pump and the injectors so in effect you have much more control over the injection process. NOW SVO WVO and BIO D are BIG in Germany NO TAX on BIOD in the EU except in BROONLAND :-( so you should go hunting for info from German sites there is plenty of ONLINE INFO on SVO WVO and even making your own BIOD The 'RECOMMENDED' route for SVO would be the twin tank route with heated SVO and different injectors - http://www.elsbett.com/

GREAT SITE

http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_svo.html

ENJOY