Diesel sells for 4.20 a gallon. Costco sells new veggy oil for 2.20 a gallon. whats wrong with burning a 50/50 mis of diesel/veggy? any downsides? Just trying to stretch a dollar. Ernie

Why not 100%?

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DJ


84 300D Turbodiesel 190K with 4 speed manual sold in 03/2012

I don't want to clog up filters and possibly hurt the injector pump. It needs lubrication.

What do you think Veg oil is???

Doc.

With a good fuel heater it should be okay. It also would be better to start and warm up on diesel plus shutdown on diesel. Cold engines and cold vegatable oil in any reasonable percentage are not the best mix. Why take chances?

I finished disconnecting a vegatable car that was running on fundementally unheated vegatable oil quite awhile ago. Have not had a chance to really drive it till now. The only evidence of a fuel heater was a coil of copper wound tightly around the upper radiator hose. Plus a booster pump back by the tank. I do not think he ran it long enough on this system to do any lasting damage. Or hope not. I will never know how long he was using as I will never talk to him.
As soon as I get a few thousand miles on it I will know. It does seem to have good compression but smokes a little more than it should at idle with fuel oil in it at present. This is a little strange as the engine exhibits the least blowby of any of my diesel engines. Maybe coked injectors?
If the guy had used good heaters on his system I might have considered leaving it. Also since the car is really good and has true low milage it would be quite distressing to do the engine or injector pump in.
I tend to believe anything but a well engineered system should be reserved for a true beater. With out enough heating of the vegatable oil you may markedly shorten the engines life. I try to keep an open mind. Too many people try to do shortcuts in my opinion.
Read the vegatable oil sites. I am also all for saving money too. Making quality biodiesel with a group of guys seems to make more sense to me. Sounds like less than a dollar a gallon when you get underway. In my opinion that would be an investment in the future as well.
Prices of fuel will generally tend upward over the long and short term in my opinion. There may be some short term blips downward but one should not get false hope when they happen. Remember we north americans have had it better than most of the world for a long time. That time in my opinion may slowly be passing with countries like China and next perhaps Africa probably starting to become world beating economies.
Japan took about twenty years. China seems to be taking about ten. The next major country will be even faster. It is inevatable in my opinion. I hope I am wrong for my grandchildrens sake.
There is little doubt in my mind that we are engaged in economic warfare of a very complex nature. On this basis planning and using cheap fuel makes a lot of sense to me. If you do the biodiesel well you can sell the reasonable surplus easily enough to negate your cost for what you burn. I guess it all depends on how much cheap or free base stock is in your area.

My next door neighbor's daughter's ex-boyfriend has a 2-tank conversion Mercedes and runs Costco veggie oil all the time. I don't want to go the conversion route but I bet I could mix 1 part veggie oil to 3 or 4 parts B100 (we are now paying about $4.35/gallon here in NorCal) without any problems, especially in warm summer weather. Maybe even in our mild winters, but I'd like to hear from someone who has done it first.

Jeremy

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"Buster" in the '95

Our all-Diesel family
1996 E300D (W210) . .338,000 miles Wife's car
2005 E320 CDI . . 113,000 miles My car
Santa Rosa population 176,762 (2022)
Total. . . . . . . . . . . . 627,762
"Oh lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz."
-- Janis Joplin, October 1, 1970

Done it.

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Mark in MA
05 MB E320CDI 402k Granite Grey Metallic
05 MB E320CDI 267k Black
05 MB E320CDI 232k White
05 MB E320CDI 209k Tectite Grey
99 Dodge 2500 Cummins 5sp 148k
62 Jeep CJ-6 120k

If the weather is above 32 f you should be fine with an 50/50 mixture

even 80 / 20 would be good.

downside....
if you never ran veggie in the system you should be prepared to change filters once or twice in the next month;

and definetly get a hold of some Startron Diesel additive at a marine supply shop or maybe NAPA......

you could also add 2 oz of powerservice cetane boost, and 1 oz of acetone per 5 gallons of veggie.

AA

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'87 924S
'81 280SEL

Sold ->

81 300SD -
93 300E w/ 3.2
85 300D-
79 300SD
82 300CD
83 300CD - CA
87 190E 5 spd
87 Porsche 924S

"..I'll take a simple "C" to "G" and feel brand new about it..."

what brand of oil is this and in what quantity does it come in, i am very interested.

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http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s...titled-1-3.jpg
1981 300d

Huh?? new VO should not be a problem with filters. It does not loosen old stuff like BioD and does not have the gunk that WVO can have. I can't argue with the Cetane boost (other than from the cost perspective), but so far, I've not seen any proof that acetone does anything. (Yeah, I ran several tanks using it just to see.....)

BTW, I always carry a couple of extra 'pre' filters with me.

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87 300SDL - 215K Miles !!
99 F-350CC Dually PSD - 190K
86 300SDL - 189K
All on B-100

It is illegal to burn on public roads, you will be evading your road taxes, you will be hurting the real law aiding and tax paying citizens and you will be harming your engine through poor combustion, oil contamination and glycerin damage to the injection system.

Leave the vegetable oil to do what it was made to do, cook food.

What "road tax"? I paid enough taxes on April 15.
I can put anything I like in my fuel tank.

I'll be happy to pay my taxes when I see my tax money spent wisely.

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DJ


84 300D Turbodiesel 190K with 4 speed manual sold in 03/2012

Saying you paid enough taxes is like a burglar saying they "only" robbed 5 houses and not 7. Its dishonest either way.

Anywho, I doubt costco is selling veg oil for $2.20 a gallon. I visited costco last year and it was like $4.90 a gallon. Sams club clear fry oil was about $3 a gallon two years ago, now its close to $7!!!!

$2.20 is an economical impossibility....with todays oil and food/corn prices.

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-diesel is not just a fuel, its a way of life-
'15 GLK250 Bluetec 118k - mine - (OC-123,800)
'17 Metris(VITO!) - 37k - wifes (OC-41k)
'09 Sprinter 3500 Winnebago View - 62k (OC - 67k)
'13 ML350 Bluetec - 95k - dad's (OC-98k)
'01 SL500 - 103k(km) - dad's (OC-110,000km)
'16 E400 4matic Sedan - 148k - Brothers (OC-155k)

There is no such thing as "enough" taxes, only ALL your due taxes.

You can, but legally you really can't.