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Guys,

With the price of diesel going back up....

I know it would be illegal, and therefore totally hypothetical question only. How well would the 300tdi run on 50:50 vegetable oil?
Any long term issues?

Thanks!
 
As far as I know it's not illegal to run your vehicle on veg oil. Dunno about the 300tdi specifically but the 200tdi will run happily on 50:50. Just lower the ratio of veg oil to diesel or biodiesel in colder weather and check your filters regularly. Can be useful to have 2 tanks and run on diesel till everything warms up and then swap over, you could probably increase the ratio in warm weather.. That's as far as I know for a 200tdi mind.
 
I thought unless you declared the duty on the oil, it was classed as tax evasion? Not like Dodgy Dave isn't doing it anyway....
 
Nope, seems to be veg oil as well Dippy. HMRC refers to it as biofuel and other fuel substitutes:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/excise-notice-179e-biofuels-and-other-fuel-substitutes

"Other fuel substitutes

Any liquid that is not hydrocarbon oil, biodiesel, bioblend, bioethanol or bioethanol blend but is used in place of mineral oil to fuel any engine, motor or other machinery is classed as a fuel substitute. Please see paragraph 3.1.1 for further details. This includes either:

  • any liquid used as a fuel in place of mineral oil
  • any liquid which is used as an additive or extender to a mineral oil
  • any liquid which is used as an additive or extender in a fuel substitute"
 
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This is from the HMRC website link I posted above:

"This notice explains the legal definitions of biofuel products, Excise Duty rates and the roles and responsibilities of producers (and in some cases, users) of these products."

And if you read the extract above it says specifically used, not produced. Section 2.2
 
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Guys,

With the price of diesel going back up....

I know it would be illegal, and therefore totally hypothetical question only. How well would the 300tdi run on 50:50 vegetable oil?
Any long term issues?

Thanks!
You can use 2000 litres without paying duty but who checks? You would be better putting pre heat system if you're going to do it.
 
I was pulled by customs while running on almost 100% veg and they didn't care - they were after heating oil! I explained I'd used hardly any veg up to that point - the weren't interested............................... = legal
 
At the moment, its pretty irrelevant, Diesel is still slightly cheeper than veg oil :'(
Thanks for the help guys.
 
I go to the petrol station about 2x per year - for the chainsaw.

I run all our vehicles on bio, and have done for about 6yrs or so.

The allowance is up to 2500lts, per annum. Thats for veg or bio.

Technically, veg is a triglyceride, whilst bio is a methylester. Bio is not veg with some sort of thinner in it, despite what the chap down the pub says.

Personally, i would not run a 300tdi on veg, without twin-tanking, and running with heat exchangers. Again, bloke in the pub will say its fine though....

The reason - its a direct injection. The spray pattern from the injectors, firing on cold, viscous veg will be poor. This leads to unburnt fuel, ring gumming, seepage into the sump oil, and emulsification. Not happened to me (as i dont run on veg) but has happened to people i know (as in in real life) on other direct injection engines.

Sure, it will work for a while though.
 

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