Chip Fat Mercedes
Discussion
Got a builder doing some work in next doors house and got talking to him about his old Mercedes...'It runs on chip fat' he told me. He also told me that most of the time he runs it on Bio-Diesel that he gets for 35p per litre! It runs smoother than normal diesel too!
Ok, so, I'm not suggesting we chop our performance cars in for one but why are we paying £1:37 a litre driving round town in BMW, VW's And Audi oil burners when we could be saving a fortune in an old Merc?
Apparently the government only want you to pay duty once you've used 2000+ litres a year (I could be wrong here) but they're not policing it as they don't want to discourage cleaner burning engines.
Ok, so, I'm not suggesting we chop our performance cars in for one but why are we paying £1:37 a litre driving round town in BMW, VW's And Audi oil burners when we could be saving a fortune in an old Merc?
Apparently the government only want you to pay duty once you've used 2000+ litres a year (I could be wrong here) but they're not policing it as they don't want to discourage cleaner burning engines.
Basically, what I'm saying is...Why cant manufacturers pull their fingers out, forget electric power, shirley veggie/bio-diesel is the way to go? if a 25 year old Mercedes can run on green/non-fossil oils without any modification there must be an easy way of converting a modern engine to run efficiently on it?
Lordbenny said:
Basically, what I'm saying is...Why cant manufacturers pull their fingers out, forget electric power, shirley veggie/bio-diesel is the way to go? if a 25 year old Mercedes can run on green/non-fossil oils without any modification there must be an easy way of converting a modern engine to run efficiently on it?
It's possible, but what happens then is that all the farmers convert to oil production, veg oil sells for £1/L, but carrots go up to £10/Kg.Lordbenny said:
Basically, what I'm saying is...Why cant manufacturers pull their fingers out, forget electric power, shirley veggie/bio-diesel is the way to go? if a 25 year old Mercedes can run on green/non-fossil oils without any modification there must be an easy way of converting a modern engine to run efficiently on it?
Sadly not. Modern high pressure injection systems can't cope with the viscosity of veg oil. The old mercs will run on pretty much anything.I've just sold mine as the wife hated the smell, and the chap who bought it shipped it straight to Budapest where, apparently, there is good profit to be made.
HellDiver said:
Because old Mercs are rusty s
theaps,
theaps,
W124 diesel is one of the strongest/most reliable vehicles ever built & don't even rust that badly. Many running with over a million on the clock around the world.
Trouble is, new SVO is pretty much the same price as diesel and personally I wouldn't want to waste my evenings loading old chip oil from the back of kebab shops & filtering it out.
Edited by SuperHangOn on Thursday 6th October 19:23
Of course there's a fortune to be saved. A grand of simple old diesel doing say 40mpg on veg oil (£1/l or MUCH less if you can be bothered to filter used stuff) as opposed to many thousands of pounds of modern diesel that's depreciating rapidly but doing 70mpg @£1.40/l or whatever it is. Net cost will be much less. FWIW you could get something with the XUD9 engine (most diesel Puegeots and Citroens of the 90s) for about £500 and as long as it's got the right pump (£100 to swap if not) it'll run on straight veg oil with no problems. Some people install an extra tank so it can run on diesel at first (like LPG and petrol) but many don't.
If you have access to waste oil and the space to filter it properly you can have some seriously cheap motoring.
If you have access to waste oil and the space to filter it properly you can have some seriously cheap motoring.
SuperHangOn said:
Trouble is, new SVO is pretty much the same price as diesel and personally I wouldn't want to waste my evenings loading old chip oil from the back of kebab shops & filtering it out.
No it isn't, you can get it for a quid a litre with ease. Long gone are the days of VERY cheap stuff (so I hear) but a saving of 35ppl is not to be sniffed at.Bio-diesel is hardly the solution to the world's energy problem, in light of the increasing world food problem. Still, carbon neutral fuel is good politically so what the hell.
Although if you can get a day-to-day saving on fuel this way - all credit.
Although if you can get a day-to-day saving on fuel this way - all credit.
Edited by iamed on Thursday 6th October 19:30
iamed said:
Bio-diesel is hardly the solution to the world's energy problem, in light of the increasing world food problem.
That's caused by too many people. If the world promoted fat-soaked fried foods, there would be less people, so less energy and food required. Win/win. Government run, non-profit chip shops is the way forward.
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