Problems with biodiesel in my Mondeo 02 TDCI

[three11s]

My brother recently made some biodiesel, he had all the right gear, but being a cautions sort of chap he didnt want to risk it in his motor and knowing me to be a more reckless character plus liking owt for nowt, he said I could use it. He did tell me Id need a new fuel filter at some point.
Anyway the first 20 odd litres went alright, took a bit longer to start than usual but no issues. Then the next 20 went in and the very next day it took an age to start. The day after that I ran the battery flat trying to get it going, eventually I had to get a tow start. I thought it might be time to fit that filter and did this the next day, sucking the fuel through so there was no air but it wouldnt start. Thinking this maybe something to do with priming not working I got another tow start and took it for a long drive on the bypass when to my horror the glow plug light started flashing and I lost power. Luckily for me it started again soon after rolling to a stop.
I have had enough at this point my engine sounds like a sick dog and read about problems with the fuel 'gelling'. There is just under half a tank in there now, what I want to know is do I go to the trouble of syphoning it out or just add regular?

[ShayneJ]

Common rail diesels dont like bio AFAIK particle size to large for the injectors or
some such techno babble.

Sounds like at the least you need to replace you fuel filters and flush the system through
with dino diesel

[Fish981]

Bio should be OK. _Badly made_ Bio can quite easily destroy common rail pumps/injectors. Mondeo's of that age have fragile injectors anyway, you may need more than normal diesel.

[three11s]

More than normal diesel?

[DanielC4GP]

Local gypsies discovered the problems of bio-diesel when they moved next door to a Bus Depot. Of course they couldn't resist the temptation of pinching a little Diesel from the busses parked on the road that have no locking fuel gap.

Unfortunatly for them all the busses run on bio-diesel and it was quite funny watching all their vans refusing to start over the next few days.

[JulianHJ]

I was under the impression (as a Focus TDCI owner) that bio-diesel was not suitable for modern Ford engines - I can't recall where I may have read that, but I've definitely stayed clear of it for that reason.