Cooking For Engineers

youngcook · Joined: 11 Apr 2007 Posts: 97 Location: GA

You have got a nice nice car.

Gareth · Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 9:31 am Post subject:

I'm running an eight year old 2 litre diesel Peugout 406 HDILX estate (station wagon). All the modern electrically powered toys and exucutive trim. I am burning a 75% vegetable oil (from the supermarket) and 25% diesel mix and getting an average of 51 miles to the (UK) gallon when loaded with me and about 200kg of kit.

New laws recently passed here in the UK mean that I can burn up to 2500 litres of vegetable/cooking oil before attracting taxes and exicise duties. With the cooking oil at 1/3 price of pump bought diesel I am making considerable savings. I am not experiencing a loss of power, (I used to be a test driver for Caterpillar, so I really would have noticed a difference) the exhaust no longer smokes as much on initial cold start up, and the only conversion work that I undertook, was to change the sump oil, oil filter, fuel filter and air filter before I first filled up with Veggie cooking oil.

The only down side is disposing of the metal veggie oil containers, I would rather buy the oil in plastic 25 litre drums that I could wash out and re-use for wine making, beer and cider brewing, instead of the empty 20 litre water cooler containers that I am currently using. There is also the smell of a burnt frying pan for the first 10 minutes or so when I park up, but that dissapates quickly.

GaryProtein · Joined: 26 Oct 2005 Posts: 535

Gareth · Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 10:45 am Post subject:

GaryProtein · Joined: 26 Oct 2005 Posts: 535

Unless I missed it, that link talks about producers. You are a consumer, buying goods from a food store, so how do they know?

Gareth · Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2007 2:25 pm Post subject:

Here in the United Kingdom, the Excise division of Revenue and Customs has more power than the Police. If you are caught by them it is often a case of Guilty until you can prove your innocence.

They have the power to stop any vehicle in the UK and dip test the fuel you are using. If you are found to be using a fuel that has not had a duty paid on it, you are liable for prosecution. It is up to you to prove that you have been using fuel with paid excise duty.

This 2500 litre per annum vegetable oil scheme has loop holes which many are using and some are abusing. However, if you are caught the book is thrown at you and the penalties are extremely severe. Large fines, plus imprisonment, and calculated back duty, plus costs.

The simple way of overcoming any difficulty with Revenue and Customs is to keep the purchase receipts for both the duty paid diesel, and the cooking oil you are burning as fuel. Service Station receipts register the amount of fuel purchased and most supermarket receipts will show x amount of Vegetable oil @ y pence per litre. Each year every car used in the UK has to under go a Department of Transport safety inspection, and is then issued with a certificate valid for one year. The total mileage to date is also registered on this certificate.

Annual mileage/(litres duty paid fuel+ litres vegetable oil) = miles per litre.

Providing that you are in the vicinity of the listed fuel consumption figures for the vehicle that you are using there is no problem.

GaryProtein · Joined: 26 Oct 2005 Posts: 535

All I can say is whoops! I can't believe they do that over there.

The Yakima Kid · Joined: 15 Nov 2007 Posts: 27

I drive a 2000 Jeep Cherokee Classic that I bought new. We like to tour ghost towns and historic sites so the 4x4 and UpCountry suspension package are important to us. God willing we'll drive it until the wheels fall off.

Too bad California outlawed new diesel cars. More too bad that there isn't a decent small off road 4x4 made anymore other than the Jeep Wrangler which is just too uncomfortable and small. The way I see it, if they made SUVs pass an actual off road performance test 99% of them would be history. Most are just a way for people with families to find something comfortable to drive.