How to save money on fuel… (if you own a diesel car)
I have seen those “how to be more green and save money into the bargain” programmes, where they describe how to brew your own bio-diesel. I quite fancy having a go at bio-diesel, but we are somewhat lacking in space for a reactor, which also (for safety’s sake) needs to be located a way away from your main living area.
A bit depressing, really.
However, friends of mine told me that they’ve been running their Ex-Post-Office Diesel Box Van on 50/50 diesel and used vegetable oil.
When I asked what they did to the veg. oil, they said that all they did was strain it through a coffee filter or kitchen paper to get out the lumps and put it straight into the tank. They said that you could also do this with off-the-shelf veg. oil if you found yourself a bit short. They have apparently been doing this with their van for well over 8 years.
I was unsure. However, I recently found myself “a bit short”, and needed to put a litre of fuel in my car (a rather tatty old diesel Vauxhall Corsa) . So I tried it.
It works.
Remarkably well, with no loss of performance. I’ve been told that the most they’ve ever tried is 50/50, which seems to work very well, and so that is what I’ve stuck with. I’ve used cheap vegetable oil off the Lidl shelf up to now (53p a litre) which is dropping the cost of a tank of fuel by 25%. I plan on talking to some of our local fast food places soon, as well, to see what kind of fat they use and whether we might have some on a regular basis. This would cut our fuel bill by 50%.
Just thought you might like to know that you don’t have to be a chemist to use vegetable oil in your car! And hey – cut those prices!
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Comment by Dave Bell
The reason for the chemical treatment is to remove various coumpounds from the oil which will tend to gum up the works in cold weather.
When I was farming, there was a change at about this time of year between summer and winter-grade, and as a farmer can buy several thousand litres at this time of year, we tried to get the summer-grade used before there were any frosts.
It looks as though you’re OK on taxation so long as you use less than 2500 litres per year. Several site seem to agree with Wikipedia on that figure.
So be careful as the weather gets colder.
Comment by Alan Braggins
Interesting – I’d seen cases of people being prosecuted for using SVO without paying duty, but hadn’t seen the 2500l limit Dave mentions.
But it should be pointed out that some conversion sites warn that not all injection pumps are equally suitable for SVO and using a blend may cause long term damage Example warning.