Bio Diesel

[zombie1000]

Can anyone tell me if Bio Diesel will wreck a diesel engine? I currently drive a Citroen C3 Hdi and I have contacted Citroen themselves who cannot give me straight answer! I have heard horror stories of it completely ruining engines, yet other people find that it is superb. I'm sooooooooo confused. Please help!

[bill preston]

if you have a common rail engine i wouldn't bother.

i run a merc sprinter and a mitsi l200 and over the past twelve months i have been running on bio diesel, when the mitsi broke down with a fuel problem every body in the garage's told me it was a problem with the bio........ it turned out to be a long standing problem on the pump, but i was very surprised how almost everybody gave up on it due to the bio?

i have decided this week we will no longer will be running on it as i am sick to death of putting new fuel filters on every fortnight.

so the choice is yours?

[bill preston]

most of the people i know around here are running their L200's on it......... but saying that, it's this vehicle that uses the most filters so i have spoken to my work colleagues and we have all agreed that the money we are saving (�.81ppl) compared to the filter price, it just isn't worth it!

[Seafarer1966]

I have a Corsa diesel. Before that I had two Peugeot diesels and before that a Renault 19 diesel. I have run them all on a mixture of cooking oil and diesel.

Types of cooking oil vary but I've had good results with sunflower or corn oil. I tend not to mix in excess of a 50/50 ratio. My old Renault 19 diesel ran better on rapeseed oil (this is your bog standard cooking oil).

At the moment I'm using corn oil which is only 49 pence a litre from Lidl. I mix the fuel in a jerry can, or after adding the cooking oil to half a tank of diesel I grab hold of my roof bars and shake the car as hard as I can to mix the fuel (laughable I know but it actually works).

WARNING: don't use cooking oil in freezing temperatures. It tends to wax up and will block your fuel system. In the spring and summer I'm regularly down Lidl buying cases full of cooking oil. It saves me a few quid anyway (and yes I know it's technically illegal as I haven't paid duty on the fuel.....I know a cop who runs his wifes car on the same by the way).

I know someone who runs an old 1970's Merc diesel on pure cooking oil and he gets good results. He took the head off the engine recently and there was no wear and tear.

My advice is to give it a go in the warmer months. Start with sunflower oil at a ratio of 1 part oil to 4 parts diesel and see how you go, increasing the ratio and giving your car a good run. I wouldn't exceed half and half oil/ diesel though.

Interesting to note that the diesel engine was invented by a German called Rudolph Diesel. He designed and ran his first engine on peanut oil!

[Seafarer1966]

Forgot to mention. If you use sunflower oil you can smell it from the exhaust. There's sometimes a pong of doughnuts cooking. I was late for work last year flying down the dual carriageway and someone said to me the next day that they knew I had just overtaken them....because all they could smell was doughnuts!

Depends on the engine or the type of oil. Give it a go.

[pug100]

According to this Citroen forum it isn't recommended you run an HDi engine on biodiesel.
The only manufacturers I know of that DO recomend Bio are the VW group ( Audis VWs Skodas)

[pug100]

Oops Forgot the link

http://www.citroen-owners-club.co.uk/citroen/i ndex.php?showtopic=1881

[david1702198]

the peugeot hdi has enough fuel problems ie the scavenger pump always goes and the high pressure injection pump always goes. sh i t problems for a sh i t manufacturer. the frenchies engines would probably run better on wine!!!

[mechanimick]

talk to service manager of supplying dealer ,if he says no then dont do it . all cars are different