Vegetable-oil As A Diesel-fuel

[SilvioTO]

Hi, I have Toyota Hi-Lux 2400D 4x4 extra cab year 1994. Anyone experience with vegetable-oil as a diesel fuel? Blend of 50% diesel-oil and vegetable-oil (on this car)? Is my car ready for this bio-fuel?

Thanks.

Silvio.

[G6AArgh]

i have expeirience of this. about 18months ago i bought a 1987 205D for £100 with 160k on the clock to use whilst i was looking for a decent car. you should only use old USED (deep fat fryer) veg oil that needs to be filtered through a cotton filter 2 or 3 times. The companys that supply catering establisments supply them with the oil sometimes to prolong the life of the oil. then when it has been filtered you should add 3parts white spirit to 100 parts oil (this is not essential but it helps) and use as you would normal diesel. i only tried this cos i am a chef at a large establishment and we had about 150litres of oil going through the place in a week.

I would not recommend it for you silvio as your vehicle is quite new and worth some money as i am not sure what the long term effects of this fuel are although it worked in my 205 for a few weeks (the exhaust smells a bit funny) then i got paranoid as it is also VERY illegal. although the old oil at work goes to a company that sends it to france where they have been running agricultural vehicles on this stuff for years!!

so in summary NO not recommended for your hilux but maybe in a cheaper older runabout but it depends on the laws that apply in italy for fuel like this.

[SilvioTO]

Thanks G6AArgh, I readed manual of my car and page "fuel advising" specify that used fuel must have a number of cetane not lower than 50 (50, 51, 52 and so on is ok). cole-seed oil is 54, therefore is perfect. The law in Italy allow blend of 5%.

[gordypix]

Don't expect Toyota to be impressed when ya smoke ya engine...........

TOP GEAR did a report on this type of fuel a few years ago. Over here of course the Police can smell the fumes a mile off - so used to deep fried doughnuts that they are.......... :D

[raymundo]

Don't expect Toyota to be impressed when ya smoke ya engine...........

TOP GEAR did a report on this type of fuel a few years ago. Over here of course the Police can smell the fumes a mile off - so used to deep fried doughnuts that they are.......... :D

←

I started experimenting with used veg-oil a year ago, with my MasterAce 2.2 TD. It went fine on a 50-50 mix with pump diesel, so I took it more seriously and registered with Customs & Excise as a producer. Since then, my family have used it in a Discovery, a Focus, a Shogun, a L/rover 110, an Astra and a Fiat van. In hot weather, the percentage went up to 70-90% veg-oil.

I bought a Granvia 3 litre TD in June and was a bit wary, because of various warnings that I had read about "modern systems" and "electronic controls" being unsuitable for veg-oil, although there were never any technical explanations given for this. I started a trial at 20%, rising over some weeks to 60%, with no problems that I could detect.

I have now covered about 6000 miles, averaging 50-50 mix and have had no worries, even starting at zero Celcius was normal.

I pay 27.1p/litre fuel duty, monthly in arrears, so my overall fuel cost is around 60p/litre. Of course, in Summer at higher levels, the cost will fall.

One thing to note, however, is that C&E are adamant that white spirit, turps etc are not acceptable in the mix, as they are not "marked as road-vehicle fuel", so I use diesel instead, which is no dearer and has good additives.

The Bio-power site has more info, but still suggestes white spirit.

Hope this helps.

Raymundo

[dazwan]

I remember reading that one of the large Supermarket chains (I think it was Asda) was thinking about fueling some of their vehicles on used vegetable oil from the in store cafe.

[scionic]

Vegetable oil by itself is too thick to use as fuel.

Cars equipped to burn veggie oil typically have two tanks. They run on diesel to start and then have veggie oil come through a heated line into the engine and burn that once it is warm.

In order to burn vegetable oil straight into a diesel motor it needs to be de-esterized first, that it have the waxy, fatty stuff removed so you wind up with a very fine, thin oil, the consistency of regular diesel fuel. This is also known as biodiesel. If you Google "biodiesel" or just go to http://www.biodieselamerica.org/ you can learn more.

If you want to experiment, I would suggest something more like a mixture of 25% vegetable oil and 75% kerosene. That is more likely to make your car happy. I assume no responsibility if you try this, but the consistency of that mixture would be much closer to proper diesel fuel than 50-50 veggie oil and diesel would be.

Keep in mind also, that modern diesels with high pressure fuel pumps are much more sensitive to crap fuel or weird mixures than an old school diesel is. It's easy to damage or break things so do your research first.

I can tell you that proper biodiesel is great for your motor, it acutally has better lubricity than petro-diesel which helps fuel system last longer and biodiesel is about 60 cetane naturally. I ran a few tanks of this through my Bora TDI and it purred like a kitten.

[sotal]

I don't think it's illegal to use old veg oil, as it's recycling or something. It's only unused veg oil which you have to pay tax on. There was an article about the local chippy who ran his car on the old oil and they said that was perfectly legal.

They have been doing a trial in some places with buses running on thes tuff

[earpl]

you have to declare how much you use and pay tax on it. also it needs to be treated propers else you get a build up in the engine. ive got a book some where so i'll have a better look.