OT: Biodiesel

Talk to Shell/BP and more particularly Ranult/Vauxhall. I don't believe that the current vehicles that you and I run would be suitable, plus the fuel isn't widely available enough or the economies sufficiently good to make it worth while.

Peter

-- Peter & Rita Forbes Email: snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk

I told my boss that but he still insisted I waste my time :-))

Your liesure time or company time?? If its the latter at least you are getting paid for it.

Andy M

Andy,

Work gets done in work time, when I am away from home in a hotel then I might surf the net for work but just to pass the time. At home my time is mine.

Martin P

In message , campingstoveman writes

Depends entirely on what vans they are! I have been running my VW polo for 12 months now on 100% bio. The problem comes if the engines in the cars/vans are built to the Euro4 standard, most of these will not run 100% bio. That really means that any car/van later then about 2005 is going to be more difficult. Certainly most VW and Vauxhall cars pre 2005 will run on 100% bio with no mods.

A further problem is supplies, my supplier has decided not to deliver since before Xmas so I have had to resort to dino diesel. As for cost it was great 80pL..........

Heres a link to someone who is using 100% Biodiesel in a tractor.

thing needed is extra filter. May be of interest Anthony

i run my motorhome (1997 iveco turbo daily) on bio-diesel when ever i am in germany, there's over 900 petrol stations there that sell it and counting (along with bio-eathanol, CNG, LPG and 2 or 3 stations selling hydrogen)

My van has the old style mechanical injection engine, and that works just fine on bio-diesel, just bung it in the tank and drive, when the exhaust smells of freshly cooked do-nuts, your on the bio-diesel, idle increases by

50 to 100rpms when on bio, due to the better lubrication of the pump and upper cylinders apparantly, fuel consumption remains about the same if not very slightly better, i do find my self having to use less throttle and indicated turbo boost for a given speed when on bio,

cheapest i paid was 88 cents a litre (actually i paid nothing that time, they said they took visa, filled up and found out they didnt, so they let me have the fuel for free as it was their failt!!! imagine a petrol station doing that over here :)

most expensive i paid for bio was 1 euro 20, that was in november last year when the fuel prices shot up, went from 1.16 for dino diesel to 1.45 over night, but then the prices came back down daily, some times bi-daily, when we left germany in mid december dino diesel was 1.23 a litre, bio was around

1.05 a litre,

I've seen a petrol station in england selling bio once, they made you sign a form saying if it wrecked your engine then tuff shit, and they wanted more than dino diesel cost at that station for it, so i gave it a miss,

The bio-diesel in germany is certified to be fit for use in diesels that can run on it (i.e. not the very latest very low emision jobbies it seems) and it's guarenteed to be fine down to minus 20 something degrees C, But it is a big buiseness in germany this bio fuels lark, 5 or 6 companies make the stuff, we parked next to one of the 'refineries' tipper trucks bring sun flower seeds in one end, tankers take bio diesel out the other end,

Unfortunately england is waaaay behind the rest of europe as usual, there are a couple of petrol stations selling bio diesel, but it dosent seem to be commercial stuff, and the stuff i came accross wasnt certified to be any good or anything, there are a few private individuals who sell bio diesel and veggie oil from their garage, but again there's no certifcation, you could be the unlucky bugger who gets the bad batch that screws your engine up.

So in reality in england, the only way to use bio-diesel in your own/companies vehicles, is to make the stuff your self, not that hard to do, takes a bit of time, but of course that's only of use if you never need to fill up away from the place the fuel is stored, deffo no use for my with a motorhome, unless i towed a 500 gallon fuel bowser trailer of the stuff :)

"Julian Tether" wrote (snip):-

There's ironic - building an engine to meet the latest environmental standards effectively prevents it running on a 'green' fuel! What is the root cause of this incompatibility?

Nick H

Nick,

According to what I have just read this very afternoon common rail diesels can gum up with bio fuel I assume because the injectors are not directly in the cylinders where it can burn them clean.

Martin P

The issue is the bio-diesel breaks down under the high pressure of modern common rail systems (we're talking 1300+bar, with pressures over 2000bar in some systems). I've seen lorries where everything in the fuel system is coated with what can be best described as a sludge, and having questioned the manufacturer about it, they say it's from the bio-diesel content of standard diesel breaking down under pressure. IIRC, modern diesel contains around 5% of bio-diesel to help boost the lubricity of the fuel, and compensate for the lack of sulphur.

The gumming up problem can be attributed to the cleaning qualities of biodiesel .

The biodiesel is a good cleaner so if you add it to say a vehicle that is five years old it will start to strip the gungy residue that ordinary diesel leaves inside the fuel tank .

This in turn finds its way down the pipes and into the filter and finally the injectors .

But you wil get an early warning of impending stoppage you will start to lose power as your filter clogs up . The way round the problem is to fit a second easy change filter like you find on older land rovers between the tank and your injector system and change this filter every 3 months or so .

I have used this system in the past without any problems

Steve

:-

I would say to ask the manufacturer of the vehicles, not the fuel companies (I work for Shell). There is now a fuel standard, just ask them can you run B5, B20, B100 bio-fuels. If you want to go outside their recommendations, then forget the warranty and start saving for the new engine. I don't think asking the fuel supplier is the right way to go. Normal forecourt bio-diesel is only 5% (B5), so I presume you are looking at 20% (B20) or 100% (B100) formulated fuels (and not a quick nip down to the supermarket shelves).

I noted on one of the Land Rover groups that a lot of people are running on 50% supermarket vegetable oil (rapeseed oil preferred). These are the models with the mechanical injector pumps (200TDi,

300TDi), not the common rail systems. Although the price of this has gone up to about 60p per litre, that saves you money. This has been promoted by the change in the law that allows you to prepare 2500 litres of fuel without duty, and it appears this applies whether you use it or sell it (but I am not a lawyer so don't quote me on that).

Subtle problems can crop up. In some cases the bio fuel has dissolved things lurking in the tank (e.g. paint) and clogged filters. Also modern pumps run to very fine tolerances, the tiniest bit of corrosion due to lack of pH control or high temperature breakdown or whatever could be expensive. This is especially true for common rail diesels.

I would keep an eye on German manufacturers for the lead, they have a very strong green lobby. If they can make a vehicle that will run cleanly reliably and economically on high bio diesel (>5%), then they are not going to be shy about telling you.

Hope this helps, and I also find it ironic that we have traded fuel economy for flexibility, with old engines more flexible on fuel, but I think the pendulum will swing back now oil is $90 a barrel - it just takes time. Steve

Gentlemen,

Thank you for your input, most interesting. I have a lot to put on paper for my boss and I don't think its totally good news not in the short term. I think the best way is to train the van drivers, for instance my one month old van is fitted with an mpg gauge and I do my best to keep this as high as possible and in the month I have had it it indicates around 37 mpg which for a 2 litre Vivaro which is half full with equipment most of the time I think is pretty good and that is motorway at 70 - 75 mph, where as we have a chap in his twenties with the same van whose uses the throttle like an on\off switch and gets nearly 150 miles less from the same tank full than I do.

I do have one more interesting thing to ask, I was treated to a Sat-Nav for Christmas, I do know my was around pretty well but I find it very useful for finding suppliers in towns I don't know when looking for parts etc. What I have noticed is that according to the Sat-Nav when I am travelling at 70 mph on the Speedo I am doing 65 mph on the Sat-Nav, as I slow down to say 30 mph the Sat-Nav says I am doing 27 mph so the faster I go the greater the error. I am assuming that Sat-Nav technology is pretty accurate but my Speedo which is also electronic cant be that far out surely. I have not got the bottle to go past a 30 mph speed camera at indicated, Speedo, 33 mph though :-))

Martin P

I've seen a webpage that cites a 0.5mph accuracy for a satnav with good view of the satellites, as velocity is calculated directly it is also valid on bends but the display frequency may introduce a delay. Speedometers have to read +0% -10% so are bound to read slower unless they are dead accurate.

Andrew Heggie

Yes I agree, I use a GPS to check the speedos on my vehicles. Typically the speedos read 3 to 5% slow, and maybe a bit more if the tyre pressures are low or the tyre tread low (especially on my Land Rover with deep tread tyres). Once they had a speed display board at a local roadworks, and that also suggested my speedo read low, so I tend to believe the GPS.

Steve

The tachograph on my van agrees with the speedo almost 100%, and that was calibrated before I got it new. Satnav distances by map are pretty good, and agree with road marking distances.

I wouldn't personally take too much notice of satnav speed figures, as they can only go by linear distance between satellite accesses, and don't take into account other factors like bends and roundabouts.

Peter

-- Peter & Rita Forbes Email: snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk

This is wrong, velocity is directly computed. As I said there is likely to be a bigger discrepancy in the time it takes for the new velocity to be displayed.

Andrew Heggie

I would think that a bend/roundabout from several miles up would be a straight line relatively speaking and on a motorway the speed change as I slow down and speed up is instant so there is no visual delay involved. Unless I am being to simplistic! Martin P