Filling up mercedes with vegetable oil carbon-neutral-car.com

[SantaHul]

I'm driving down to Venice in six weeks. If I stuck just SVO in one of these would there be any problems do you reckon? No modifications at all, I'm hoping I can just drive it down and back again with no additives.

[kentronix]

@SantaHul I am pretty sure its illegal in italy still,so its your lookout. When I did this trip it was and there were specific fines in place for tax avoidance. The fine was based on the amount of fuel you may have been dodging in an entire year so it was quite high. If you go to the carbon neutral car link in the vid and then go to the 'Laws' blog there are more details.In terms of will the car be ok, it entirely depends on the car. Most older cars will be ok,at least on a 50/50 mix with diesel

[brucxevic]

I'm thinking of switching to vegetable oil in my Mercedes MB100D. From what I've heard, I shouldn't have any problem whatsoever, except perhaps starting the van in the winter on straight vegetable oil. Are there any bio solvents that can be used for this?

[kentronix]

@brucxevic I use coldflow350, it avoid the fuel waxing at low temperatures. Its really effective. If you go to my blog carbonneutralcar com and search for coldflow there is a better description and a video showing it up against untreated fuel.

[ezrhino100]

is this straight vegetable oil that you buy anywhere?

[kentronix]

@ezrhino100 yes, normal shop bought vegetable oil. We now run it off filtered used oil picked up from restaurants but we used to run it from bought oil, as seen in the vid.

[ezrhino100]

@kentronix how do you filter it? just any cooking oil? thanks.

[kentronix]

@ezrhino100 I filter it using a plastic barrel and a 5 micron 'sock filter' hanging through a hole in the lid. The filter is £5 from ebay and is washable. I try to get decent quality used oil. So there isnt too much fat or water mixed in with it. Vegetable (or rapeseed/soya) is the best type of oil because it remains quite thin at all expected temperatures. You can use other oils but some go solid as it gets colder. There are lots more details at the carbon-neutral-car link in the vid.

[ezrhino100]

@kentronix how much did it cost you to fill? why don't you use vegetable oil anymore? thanks.

[kentronix]

@ezrhino100 I still use vegetable oil, but now I use second hand vegetable oil. So its 100% free. All it costs is my time to collect and time to filter.

I do occasionally still use shop bought oil when my stocks are low, which is between 80p and 110p a litre. I dont use 1 litre bottles like in the video. Normally I would by a 20L container which is recycled afterwards.

[heath78039]

love the music

crazy frog.

[FelchBelcher]

To call this "Carbon Neutral" is not only inaccurately misleading, it's wrong. The farmers spent MORE carbon in fuel and agri-chemicals producing this vegetable oil than any oil refinery spent making diesel fuel. Then, the veg. oil had to be transported NOT in an already built pipeline but in a truck, burning - what? - MORE fuel. THEN, it's in individual PLASTIC BOTTLES made from oil... The only thing "GOOD" was you did not pay taxes on the fuel you burned while using a tax funded road system.

[kentronix]

You are right that this particular vid isnt carbon neutral.

Its carbon neutral in its daily life,its run on used filtered (by gravity) oil from restaurants. In this vid we are using new oil because we couldn't collect used oil out there or take it across borders.

[kentronix]

The trip was to prove that small scale use of veg oil as a fuel is viable and reliable.Most of our fuel for this was waste oil picked up from legal resellers.We couldn't find many in croatia.The domain the cars blog is on is called carbon neutral car we are not in anyway suggesting the actions in this video are carbon neutral. I am not trying to mislead anyone. Sorry for 2 posts, didnt want to resort to txt speak.

[c04081130]

hi mate i live in the uk and i planning a road trip in the summer to my mates wedding in romainia....i got my eye on a d90 land rover......and i currently have an lorry fuel tank in my attick, which can hold 700liters....which i ill install in the land rover once i get a good one..can i use oil from a chip shop?..if yes it will need cleaning to prevent the smell of chips..and will i have any problem getting over to france?.. is it just veg oil u use or do you mix it with sumthin

[3ddonovan]

Next time, stick some in your engine. Check out my video.

[ryanbrownnew]

worth doing to avoid lining the greedy oil companies, but it doesnt matter how much carbon you put out because c02 does NOT cause global warming.. check out The Great Global Warming Swindle video...

[kentronix]

I actually agree, although I would prefer if all info on both sides of the case was more available. For me personally its also about sustainability. Dinosaur juice will eventually run out. I would much rather run from a sustainable fuel. Especially now we run off used oil so its a waste product from the food industry.

[honussa]

Check out the Tundra methane problem!! That's gonna be a real problem - and there is an article about an expedition in the far north of Russia and North america in the LA times. Check it out!

Co2 DOES cause the global warming because there is so much of it - inform yourself! P.s. There naturally are far worse gases, but they are being relased much less. Methane by the way is at second place, right behind of Co2. Maybe Methane will become more important then Co2, but only in future!!

[greenbeaner69]

with all that saved gas price u also just hurt the enviroment by using all that plastic. hope u refill the bottles.

[kentronix]

They were all recycled at the campsites each night. Not ideal I know but far better than using fossil fuel and the car now runs on waste oil so we reuse the same containers.

[jfb005700]

god... you hippies just have to find something to complain about...

[greenbeaner69]

well i shoulda put lol at the end of my comment cause i was kidding

[bennyboobenny]

Nice list of countries you went through. Did you get to see much of them though ?

[kentronix]

Absolutely, we only had to fill up every now and then and didnt normally do the entire tank in one go (like this vid). The trip was amazing and we got to see some unual places and meet some people that we never would have if we werent driving a car covered in stickers and asking for bulk amount of veggie oil. There are lots of photos we took of the scenery linked from the top of the carbon-neutral-car blog. Croatia is amazing.

[alysonjohnsonsmith]

The video is sooo funny

[kentronix]

cheers, it felt pretty funny at the time, apart from the fact I was pouring with sweat,

It was done in midday sun, 37 degrees. It seemed to go on for ever.

[shilano]

Waste vegetable oil is the way to go:

- It is free

- It is going to be converted to CO2 anyway

- You are doing the restaurant a favour by collecting it for free

- It is totally carbon neutral

[theveryangryman]

Is veg oil actually carbon neutral ?

[kentronix]

Shop bought veg oil (SVO) isn't. Its better than diesel but fossil fuels are used in the production and distribution, as well as the bottling.

Filtered waste oil (WVO) is totally carbon neutral. We filter cold using gravity so there isnt even electricity being used. And we collect it with the veg car so the transportation is carbon neutral too.

[m0stlyharml3ss]

Getcha hair cut !

[kentronix]

no :)

[violet46]

I drive a gasoline (petrol) fueled engine. What could I use in place of gasoline for fuel?

[kentronix]

You may be able to use bio-ethanol, or a percentage of bioethol at least. The benefits arent as clear cut as veggie oil though.

You could have it converted to run of LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas). The hardware is about £500 in the uk. And probably a couple of hundred to fit. Its about half the price of petrol at the moment.

[palarce]

How much did the vegetable oil cost you over 3,000 miles?

[kentronix]

We lost track.We meant to keep good records but what with all the tolls,maps,storms and the like we didnt get a real total. We were getting 8 to 8.5miles per litre. Thats about 38 mpg.

We were paying about 60p per litre in most of europe and about 80p-90p in croatia (we didnt buy much there).

So thats about £220 between the 2 of us. The car is now running of waste oil, next trip will be ZERO fuel costs, assuming we can work out the croatian for 'can we have your waste oil please' :)

[bastuson]

but how does vegetable oil make sparks to make the engine run like on petrol?

[kentronix]

Veg oil is a replacement for diesel, not petrol. Diesel is just another type of oil. What ever you do, don't put veg in a petrol engine :)

Petrol doesn't make sparks either, the spark plugs make the sparks which ignite the petrol.

[rratynski]

do you have to convert your diesel engine to run on veg. oil

[kentronix]

if you go to the blog in the vid it has more details but for the old mercs in warm conditions nothing needs doing other than changing the filters and engine oil more often. If its cold then heating is needed to keep the oil thin. I use an £8 baby bottle warmer wrapped round my fuel filter. I have also bypassed the fuel thermostat but that isnt a requirement. When its really cold I tend to mix a bit of diesel in as well, just to be safe although it does run fine on 100% oil.

[beaumec242]

ok thank you for the answer so if i change to a bosch ine,would be ok so

[kentronix]

You would have to check around with people who know your specific engine, I only really know about the merc ones. I do know that many people run vag diesels of veg oil. The main requirements are a strong fuel pump and indirect injection. If you live somewhere cold you will need to address the cold running issues as well but there are some surprisingly cheap ways of doing that.

[beaumec242]

did you ever try to run vag 1.9 diesel engine on veggie oil???if so,could you give me some feedback especially the engine with lucas injection pump???

[kentronix]

I wouldn't advise it unless you are planning on replacing your pump with a bosch or similar. Lucas pumps are a bit too weedy for long term veggie oil pumping.

[mk3stargazer]

hi i got a 1985 ford escort on 165,000 miles and 35,000 of those is on waste veg oil with 10% white spirit and my Lucas pump has been fine. i know of several turbo diesels using Lucas pumps and so far been ok so i wouldnt go so far as to say they are weedy,,,,

[kentronix]

They do tend to fail if you run off 100% veg oil for a prolonged period at low temps. I am not saying they wont work for a while, or indeed if you mix with a lighter substance to thin it out. Or if your lucky enough to live in a warm country. Its all about trial and error but I wouldnt have risked going to croatia on 100% veg oil with a lucas pump :)

[mk3stargazer]

i run my engine with a Purflex water heated fuel filter housing ;-}

[alanheath]

Some very valid points on your website including that of legality. Excise duty is the responsibility not of the EU but of individual countries which may interpret the law as they see fit. Heating oil, which is the same as dieel, costs less for political reasons and is illegal to use in your car. I noticed no difference in performance when I used it although it is only freely available in Slovenia.

[alanheath]

Brilliant video - I drive the same car and cannot imagine changing.

I am going to your website now.

Expect a lot of communication from me!

[kentronix]

communicate away :) I now have a second 190d for veggie motoring. Its a 2.0 so a bit slower but still perfectly fine on veg oil.

[alanheath]

I have a 2 litre and 2.5 and I much prefer the smaller engine.

Yesterday I went shopping for vegetable oil and I was rather disappointed by the results. Having read that in the UK it can be bought for 25 - 30p a litre I thought I would achieve the same here. Unfortunately the cheapest oil I found was PLN3.60 (just over one euro) when normal diesel costs PLN4.10. So that rather took the edge of things given worse fuel economy!

[kentronix]

Where can get veg oil for 25-30p ?

Shop prices are generally about 70-75p now. Including cash and cary type places. Cheapest I have found is 58p.

Your obviously a 190 fan, you should join mercedes190 dot co dot uk, lots of like minded people in there. Great technical advice too.

[alanheath]

I saw that price somewhere on the internet. As I do not use cheap vegetable oil I did not know. But clearly in the UK is cheaper than here in Poland.

I cannot see myself driving anything else. I think the 190 is a great car. Here it is really cheap as parts are easily come by.

Apparently the 190 can run on lard! Not that I will be trying!

[moggiemadman12345]

Excellent Video did you put any mods on that engine to run on oil,and do you use a heater for the winter?

Cheers

[kentronix]

At the time we had no mods. I cleaned the injectors and lines and changed both the fuel filters. Since we got back to england we have added a £8 canister filter heater made from a baby bottle warmer and injector line heaters. If you go to the url mentioned at the start and end of the vid there are more details although I havent put the baby bottle heater post up yet, I will do it shortly.

[fearthedreadlox]

nice 190e.

[kentronix]

190d, well, in fact I guess its a 190v :)

Great cars.

[moviking]

Was that popcorn oil, I have'nt heard that song since the 70's.

[kentronix]

Yep, its the 1972 version by hot butter, it just seemed to fit so well. To be honest if its filtered correctly the car would probably run on hot butter as well :)

[trumpsy]

nice car, thats quite a few countries, any vids of your travels ?

[kentronix]

Yep, I will be uploading some roadtrip style vids some time soon.

[kentronix]

The carbon neutral car project is long term, when using filtered waste vegetable oil collected from restaurants it is carbon neutral. You're correct that using shop bought oil isn't quite due to the bottles and indeed the fossil fuels used in the making of the oil itself. Incidentally, the bottles were recycled each day at when we arrived at the campsites.

[oztayls]

Carbon neutral? I don't think so. It cost a lot of CO2 to make those PET containers. AND you left them on the roadside :)