Biodiesel

[G!zmond0]

The diesel got more expensive than the petrol,now how dull is that?Kind of ruins the whole idea of buying a diesel.
Bio diesel returns the enthusiasm.It's not very popular and it will be hard to gain people's trust.How can you convince me (currently MB E 320 Cdi)that it's problem free or let's say someone that has bought q7 or BMW 7 serie or x5?
It's easy to experiment with some car that you signed off but if you gave 30000 - 50000 eur.

 

[Toledo Steve]

And so the discussion continues. For Tornado red, I have not converted my Toledo (99 model year) in any way...it is a standard (stock?) 110 TDI S (yep I missed out on the nicer accessories of the SE) I maintain that it even runs quieter on Straight vegetable oil instead of the TDI 110 clatter (yes they are more raucous than the 90 TDI) on Sainsburys Veg oil, the cheapest around here (unless I go "cash and carry") and I have run this car for over a year on Sainsburys veg oil....( I do change my engine oil at around 3000 mile intervals on all my diesel cars (always have) previous to this car, I ran a Rover 2 liter TDI (similar Technology developed at around the same time)Now I am not some geriatric driver, I push my cars way above the speed limit and on motorways in the early hours, for extended periods, that Rover 2 liter TDI still runs well, is approaching 150,000 miles and still eats veg oil. I push the Tolly hard as well, It is only on around 100,000miles but I will keep everyone posted it still runs as it did when I purchased it a few maybe 3 years ago (was pre owned by a Dr. of Engineering who used it solely as his daily work car (some 30 miles, mixed traffic ) He was the only person who had ever driven the car previous to me, no one had even sat on the back seat.) I have run older generation engines on cooking oil Kerosene and mixes of diesel and all of the above. I am offering my experiences with my Toledo and eventually with my Common Rail Renault (80PS version) to all on this site.....how long will I have to go before I can convince you that it is OK in MY engine (note I said MY engine - they are all just a little different) it will take me couple of years to get to 200,000 and I think I will be changing it for a Beetle soft top next year (I rarely buy new so I,ll be looking for one of the last of the 110BHP TDIs) and my Toledo will stay in my family with the proviso that they run it on cooking oil (student so probably will)So stick around everybody and look out for my horror stories....but so far (over a year) so good, running sweet as a matter of fact. (And this is STRAIGHT COOKING OIL from Sainsburys not mixed, not treated, no special equipment, just pour it in the tank.) And put up two fingers to the Chancellor and his pet Buzzards.

 

[TornadoRed]

Toledo Steve: I don't care a whit what you do, and I'm sure it wouldn't matter, you will do what you want. I suspect you will continue to run the straight veggie oil until something goes seriously wrong with your injection system or the engine itself. Then we won't hear anymore from you.

I have read too many horror stories about TDI owners with two-tank systems, with pre-heaters to get the veggie oil hot and lower the viscosity. And they still get clogged nozzles and motor oil contamination. You're apparently not taking any precautions, so it's like sky-diving without a reserve chute.

 

[Toledo Steve]

Hmm Tornado Red you still don,t see that you won,t have to suffer at all if something goes wrong with my TDI, neither will anyone else...I just checked, I have done around 20,000 miles on Veggie oil, the Rover TDI has done some 50,000 I say again, you might never be convinced, but some others may use the benefit of my experience. I mentioned before that if my Toledo does suffer catastrophic failure, I will be man enough to report what I find is wrong, I soon mentioned when I lost turbo boost due to cold weather viscosity problems in fact that should have shown how well engineered these engines are, as soon as the viscosity increased the ECU sensed it and shut down the boost, the car was still driveable as normal but simply performed like a non turbo version (sold here for Taxi drivers as the SDI) another reason that I will report is: TDIs have been very popular here, it is not a vast country and accidents do happen, used engines abound in varying states of wear/use etc. so I should be able to replace the engine quite cheaply and easily if it does go wrong, plus the car will eventually be passed to a student nephew, probably next spring, even so, I will require the nephew to run the car on cooking oil and to report to me as a condition of getting the Toledo for free. I too have read all the horror stories, but if some of us did not experiment or take chances, nobody would ever have sky dived. So I suppose I could say something like OK, if my engine is still good after 50,000 miles on cooking oil then it just may be OK for others to try it. Anybody with me? or do I really have to take it to 100,000 before anybody else dare go for it? (Its OK I do know that some of you out there have done as many or more miles on it than I have....but trust me I have been experimenting since the mid eighties and have never lost an engine yet ,nor suffered major failure.

 

[Husbandofstinky]

I believe that there is a temporal rift in the space/time continuem with this thread?

How much is diesel per gallon in the US please.....?

 

[Viking]

I think the big problem arises when people read the thread title "Biodiesel" and presume the topic is "cooking oil".

 

[Husbandofstinky]

How much is diesel per gallon in the US please.....?

Well got fed up waiting for our friend in the States to confirm the price of fuel over there. Went on the net and found the following official US government statistics (Energy Information Administration).

Just to confrim that as 10 March 2008, the US were paying an average (varies across the country just like here)

- Diesel - $3.82 - per US gallon

- Gasoline - $3.23 - per US gallon

Convert that into sterling in excess of two dollars, well you can do the math (as they say in the US)

Clearly this is the reason why such 'experimenting' with vegatable oil does not exist. Maybe when it gets closer to $10 per gallon, attitudes might change.

I'm not so sure if Steve would be going down this route yet if we were all paying less than £2 per gallon for diesel or £1.60 for petrol?

Please find attached link. http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/gdu/gasdiesel.asp

 

[muddyboots]

- Diesel - $3.82 - per US gallon

So if I'm right (using xe.com to convert):

Gallon of US diesel : £1.88 / $3.82
Gallon of UK diesel : £5.00 / $10.13

TornadoRed - you cover an awfully high mileage, work out what that would cost you in fuel if you paid UK prices....you can see why UK drivers are more inclined to experiment with alternative fuels

EDIT:
Your sig shows you've covered 266,000 miles in ~5yrs. Let's assume you achieve an average 50mpg.
That's 5320 gallons you've used. At the current fuel prices, you'd have paid an extra $33569 (£16562) in fuel if it were the equivalent of UK price. Maybe if you had such a potential saving you might be more inclined to experiment, after all, you could replace your engine quite a few times for that money !!

 

[Husbandofstinky]

Its funny how things have gone a bit quiet about the price of fuel question?

 

[Toledo Steve]

As I said earlier, I would still experiment, maybe I,m that type of guy, allways liked to drop unorthodox diesels into cars/Landrovers etc. On the price of fuel I,m more inclined to push the Politics of the situation as we all know the Brits don,t speak up and or Riot if the Taxes on our fuel are not only exorbitant but morally wrong and the fact that the UK Govt intends to use the Army (as per Tianamen Square ooops... well what do you know...another communist government up to no good) to stop people legally protesting against those said fuel taxes. I know it would take a very courageous government to think outside the box and say, Hmm fuel taxes go down a lot, transport prices follow, everything becomes cheaper, people buy, the economy starts to rise..I didn,t find that difficult, will someone tell me where we are going wrong (other than electing the wrong kind of people with very evil ideas and eventual intent). Fuel is not that expensive....The Taxes are. Until we can get a large number of people repeating that, in the media and elsewhere then we are stuck with high taxes.

 

[Viking]

When doing your maths to work out the cost of a gallon of fuel in the States, don't forget the conversion for a US Gallon (3.8 litres) to a UK gallon (4.5 litres).

That would make a cost comparison of £2.22 per gallon for diesel (equivalent to ~50p per litre) if we were to pay at US rates for our diesel.

 

[Sir Nodrick]

Me and the missus have a 2004 ibiza FR 130PD and i've just started looking into the use of bio diesel or vegetable oil solution.
I'm new to it so bear with me, this is how i understand it...

I think there's a lot of confusion getting mixed up between the two. From what i can gather from my friends who currently manufacture their own Bio diesel, veg oil and bio diesel are different things,

Veg oil - is just simply the direct use of a cooking oil, your basically using sunflower/veg oil 100% or you mix it with fossil diesel to make it a bit thinner 75%/50%/25%.

bio diesel is a process where you mixed veg/sunflower oil with caustic soda and methanol/alcohol to manufacturer a fuel??

am i correct???

The problems with Bio diesel is that if it is manufactured with the wrong amounts of each ingriedient, thats when it starts causing problems. for example, If there is too much alcohol/methanol used, thats when it eats seals....

A car that upto now has been ran on fossil diesel, will have deposits of cr@p in the fuel system. then with the use of bio diesel with its methanol content cleans and dislodges all this cr@p from the system down the lines blocking the fuel filter and maybe injectors.

My friend who makes his own says that most people new to the use of BD, go straight from fossil deisel to BD 100%, it dislodges all the cr@p and blocks everything up. he says that start off slow with the transition from one to the other to clean the system slowly.

In fossil diesel, sulphur is used to lubricate pumps, etc., whereas in bio diesel, there is no sulphur additives, but the fuel is thicker meaning it lubricates itself that way...

 

[glynnd]

As I said earlier, I would still experiment, maybe I,m that type of guy, allways liked to drop unorthodox diesels into cars/Landrovers etc. On the price of fuel I,m more inclined to push the Politics of the situation as we all know the Brits don,t speak up and or Riot if the Taxes on our fuel are not only exorbitant but morally wrong and the fact that the UK Govt intends to use the Army (as per Tianamen Square ooops... well what do you know...another communist government up to no good) to stop people legally protesting against those said fuel taxes. I know it would take a very courageous government to think outside the box and say, Hmm fuel taxes go down a lot, transport prices follow, everything becomes cheaper, people buy, the economy starts to rise..I didn,t find that difficult, will someone tell me where we are going wrong (other than electing the wrong kind of people with very evil ideas and eventual intent). Fuel is not that expensive....The Taxes are. Until we can get a large number of people repeating that, in the media and elsewhere then we are stuck with high taxes.

I am up for lobbying parliament
Anybody else!
Glynn

 

[Sir Nodrick]

i looked at the owners manual last night regarding bio diesel and it says words to the effect of "use of RME biodiesel can be used 50:50 during the winter months and any ratio in summer" but i looked in the boot at the vehicle information sticker thingy and it doesn't have any mention of "2GO"

 

[canonman]

When I had my arosa tdi, it the manual it said you could use bio diesel fine, but on my fr tdi on the fuel cap in big letters it says no BIO DIESEL! . lol Stuff out the pump is fine but not jsut normal veg oil.