Running on veg oil.

Deadly Dave

I know that my Hi Lux will run on veg oil but I am wondering what the legal situation is on it. In the UK you can run for a limited mileage on it without paying tax on it. Do the Gardai test for veg oil here. I have seen them testing trucks and vans but I presume thats for agri diesel.
Cheers
Dave

wet-paint

It's legal to use SVG or Bio diesel in your car, as long as you've paid the additional duty on it as you're not using it as a food stuff.
They can test to see what you're burning, but it won't tell them if you've paid the duty. So some people keep receipts from the resellers with the additional VAT on it. Others just go into tesco and get ten bottles of veg oil.
It's customs and excise that test for it. And I doubt they've started yet, it'll take them a while.

peasant

Unless you're doing it for your "carbon footprint", running on veg oil has become kind of pointless. Prices have shot through the roof recently and there are very little savings to be made. (at least if you're staying legal and pay all your taxes)

Add to that the additional hassle and the cost of minor modifications to the engine (different filter, tweaked injectors, stronger glow plugs, etc) and it really becomes a non-runner.

wet-paint

If you run on 100% SVG then you'd have to modify the car alright, but mine runs fine with a 30% mix. And it's less than three euro for three litres of veg oil from tesco, bringing the price of a tank down a good bit. No noticeable loss in power or efficiency. I might lighten the mix for winter though.

aravan

wet-paint wrote: »

If you run on 100% SVG then you'd have to modify the car alright, but mine runs fine with a 30% mix. And it's less than three euro for three litres of veg oil from tesco, bringing the price of a tank down a good bit. No noticeable loss in power or efficiency. I might lighten the mix for winter though.

My knowledge is that this is illegal. You must buy the veg oil from somebody like Biogreen etc and you pay the necessary duty then.
I put an elsbett kit into a 05 Hilux vigo so it can run on svo and it hasn't missed a beat.

wet-paint

Yeah, I did allude to that a couple of posts up.

Deadly Dave

I have run the Hi Lux on 95% veg oil 5% petrol and it goes fine. It needs a little more petrol in the colder months though.

vibe666

aravan wrote: »

My knowledge is that this is illegal. You must buy the veg oil from somebody like Biogreen etc and you pay the necessary duty then.

not at all.

as long as you pay the fuel duties on it you can run your motor on whatever you want.

i know that (assuming yuo want to stay 100% legal) if you make your own bio-diesel from veg oil that you have to register as a small scale fuel producer and will have to keep records of the chemicals you use to show how much fuel you are making but as long as you keep track of what you put in the tank and pay your dues there's no problems.

contact your C&E for the forms necessary to pay the duty.

IMHO your best bet is to find yourself a good supplier of WVO (waste veg oil) and filter that down to 1 micron and (if you want to do it right) de-water it and use that. if you know for a fact your motor will run long term on veg without problems (such as eroded pipes or seals which are quite common on certain motors) go for it, but make sure you know it'll be fine before you start or it could get very expensive very quickly.

if you do decide you want to do it long term you'll want some sort of conversion kit to get the most out of it. some sort of pre-heater system for the colder months if you're using a high % of oil and `maybe some new injector nozzles better suited to veg as well as advancing your timing slightly as the flashpoint of veg oil is different to regular diesel.

it's nothing you can't find out with a bit of research though and there aren't any radical things need doing in most cases for people with older diesel engines, just be sure and steer clear if it's a common rail engine or you won't be doing it for very long.

and yes, C&E are dipping & testing for it and (in most cases) know what the deal is.

argosy2006

guy in kilkenny selling rapeseed oil and wvo spec fuel,, he is one of the few in country who can selling it minus the duty legally, you should all buy oil from him,, its way cheaper than diesel,,
buy come on you need to fit kits to your cars and trucks,, whole point is to run on pure vegetable oil and only start and knock off on diesel,,
typically irish to lazy to fit the heated tank and system to there trucks,cars,,
yea i,m irish,lol, but i did fit heated system to my truck, and run on pure vegetable oil,
any truckers out there who want to do same? must be? am the only trucker looking to have extra few hundred euros in my pocket at end of every week due to the huge savings?
come on

paddy147

If customs find out that you are running a car or any road machine on veg oil and its not fully legit,then they will have you and they will also take the car off you aswell.

They will view it as tax evasion and you will have a nice big fine too.

They are now doing checkpoints where they dip the tanks for illegal fuel.

argosy2006

its fully legit,there are few pilot schemes going, few guys in ireland are allowed to sell veggie fuel exempt from excise duty, but they pay VAT on it,,
he is one who is allowed,
so you can buy all the fuel u like from him, and its fully legit, will give you receipt and everything, been a truck driver been dipped loads of times with veggie oil,just show receipt from where it was got and your fine,
its a government run scheme after all. diesel up to a 1.00 eur a litre again, he sells at roughly 0.80 or under,,,, 0.80 x 1500 litres a week to run truck is 1200,, on diesel its 1500. 300 saved, x four weeks in month = 1200, enough to pay a mortgage! yay!
you can buy a whole ibc full if you want,, but i think mixing is silly,get your car or truck fitted with kit,, and do it right run on 100% veggie,

leitrim lad

now dont laugh but instead of dumping the oil in the chip pan i recycle it, using a pair of tights and a tondish it ends up in the tank of my landcruiser, mixed up with 70 or 80 litres of diesel great job,

i dont eat alot of fast food so that happens about once a month, it seems to change to color of the smoke from dark to clear aswell.