New Vegetable Oil Cheaper Than Diesel

[Issangeorge]

It has happened, I took a trip to Tesco in Mukdahan today and they had vegetable oil on sale for ฿44 a litre, on the way home Diesel was ฿44.15 a litre. It is getting very close to the time when I have to start to think if I want to run some vegetable oil through my tank and save some cash and help the environment. Issangeorge.

[Carib]

Google and they shall find.

Lots of sites about using vegetable oil instead of diesel.

[nakhonsi sean]

It has happened, I took a trip to Tesco in Mukdahan today and they had vegetable oil on sale for ฿44 a litre, on the way home Diesel was ฿44.15 a litre. It is getting very close to the time when I have to start to think if I want to run some vegetable oil through my tank and save some cash and help the environment. Issangeorge.

If your car has DI or common rail engine then better not. Their injectors can quickly become blocked when using veg oil. Engine will also coke up fairly quickly. Also check to see if you have a rotary or inline fuel pump. Rotary pumps pack in very fast on the stuff. Older ID engines with inline pumps are generally happy on cooking oil. Try to avoid soy oil, palm is good. Run my car on the stuff, B37 at Carfour.

[Crossy]

Yup, Google is your friend

I certainly would not put straight veggie oil in my common-rail diesel although converting the oil to bio-diesel would then be OK, but of course that will negate the cost advantage.

It does however run the local farmers iron buffalo and our waste oil collectors ancient Nissan pickup just fine (although I believe both put diesel in with it to thin it down).

Have a look here http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_svo.html

[Galong]

If your car has DI or common rail engine then better not. Their injectors can quickly become blocked when using veg oil. Engine will also coke up fairly quickly. Also check to see if you have a rotary or inline fuel pump. Rotary pumps pack in very fast on the stuff. Older ID engines with inline pumps are generally happy on cooking oil. Try to avoid soy oil, palm is good. Run my car on the stuff, B37 at Carfour.

The problem with injectors getting clogged up is not the fault of biofuel, but rather of petroleum fuel leaving sludge behind. When you switch to vegetable oil you MUST replace your fuel filter very often until your system is clean. Then, it's not going to be a problem.

SVO (Straight Vegetable Oil) cars still usually need to start up on regular diesel. Then, there are options as to whether the system switches over to veg oil automatically or manually. Oil viscosity is an issue, so the straight veggy oil needs to be pre-heated. There are kits for this that you can find online. YouTube has some videos on the subject too.

Best of luck if you make the switch. Let us know how it goes.

[nakhonsi sean]

ID engines have a hotspot in their pre-combustion/mixing chambers, this allows much better vapourisation of the veg oil. DI engines do not have them as fuel is injected through multi-hole nozzles. Some of the veg-oil ends up not being burned especially on start up. This then gums up on the cylinder walls and nozzles as time goes on this carbonises, blocks nozzles and leads to serious engine damage. There are conversion kits, either duel tank systems where you start on diesel then switch over after a few minutes. Single tank systems are also available which utilise modified injectors and heated fuel filters to get the temp of the veg oil up before it goes into the engine.

The viscosity of veg-oil has also caused problems in many cars with hi-tech fuel management systems, the electronics just don not seem to like the stuff.

[Galong]

The viscosity of veg-oil has also caused problems in many cars with hi-tech fuel management systems, the electronics just don not seem to like the stuff.

You'd think that engineers would be able to figure out how to improve on this problem. It can't be that difficult... maybe the interest simply isn't there.

Check out this air powered car from India.

[Crossy]

The viscosity of veg-oil has also caused problems in many cars with hi-tech fuel management systems, the electronics just don not seem to like the stuff.

You'd think that engineers would be able to figure out how to improve on this problem. It can't be that difficult... maybe the interest simply isn't there.

Check out this air powered car from India.

The Aircar was originally from France, Tata have licenced the technology. If they compress and use the air we have some days in Bangalore it certainly won't be 'zero-emissions'

As to the technical problems of straight vegetable oil, there really are none. BUT, you will need new injectors with a different spray pattern and your ECU will need re-programming to handle the different characteristics of the stuff, sort of negates the 1 Baht per litre price advantage (at present).

Better to use old cooking oil and process it to bio-diesel which you can put straight in your common-rail turbo