Sunflower oil in a Vito 108d

[finisterre]

Faster, quieter, cheaper, smells better.
It could be giving me as much as 80 bhp
Yep it is great!



Is this the sort of performance you were thinking of?


EDIt - that's 80bhp in total, say a 2 bhp increase.

[mika]

can vegetable oil only be used in diesel engines or petrol too?

[Simon_M]

Don't even think about it! Diesel only!

I used to run veg oil on my Passat - worked fine but kinda smelt of doughnuts.

[mika]

i would have tried it on my lawny first

then my wifes car haha!

[coalville126]

Tried running a couple of old diesel cars on SVO years ago before it 'caught on', but only when I could get my hands on really cheap, usually out of date stuff from the cash and carry

Firstly in a '88 Passat TD, then a '91 Audi 80 TD with success, only in the warmer months. Can't say I noticed any increase of power, but the hassle of filling the car with veg oil out weighed the benefits for me as my annual mileage wasn't that great and the old VAG turbo diesel engine were already economical in both applications over 50 mpg easily. The wife moaned about the fried food smell coming out of the exhaust and was harder to start from cold - according to her.

[Danny DeVito]

Is that straight sunflower oil ? About how much cheaper a litre is it working out ?

[coalville126]

Originally Posted by Danny DeVito

Is that straight sunflower oil ? About how much cheaper a litre is it working out ?

Yup SVO - straight vegetable oil, from the bottle or tin. I've found rapeseed oil to be best - thinnest (important in the winter).

Price-wise, it all depends how cheap you can get it at. Price of cooking oil has steadily crept up over the past 5 years, even in discount stores like Aldi / Lidl. When I started experimenting with SVO as a fuel, it was only 39p per litre, but it has steadily crept up as more and more people cottoned on to the idea. Now it's well over £1. Like I've mentioned previously, short shelf life or out of date stuff is still cheap (compared to diesel) - £5 for 15 litres or £10 for 25 litres if you can get it.

Importantly, there is no reduction in consumption.

[finisterre]

sunflower oil is supposedly the best performing,
but it was only 30p cheaper than diesel so I gave up.

[coalville126]

Originally Posted by finisterre

sunflower oil is supposedly the best performing,
but it was only 30p cheaper than diesel so I gave up.

I'm only going by experience and general consensus on the 'net that rapeseed has the lowest viscosity, closest to diesel and hence easier on the pump, etc. I'd use the cheapest oil, not just rapeseed, but never found any difference in performance.

Yup, the hassle of filling up the car with bottles of oil - I usually do it at the recycling centre, chucking the empties straight in the bin and got fed up getting strange looks and questions from people plus the closing of the price gap between SVO and diesel made it seem alot less attractive than when I started using it.