Adding White Diesel to Red

[samwise]

Just yesterday I walked past a brand new diesel car parked at the roadside with a sticker on the fuel flap which said 'Do not use Biodiesel in this vehicle'. What's that all about? Are we all talking the about same thing when we talk about biodiesel? It seems to me that the term as currently used covers anything from mineral diesel with a 5 or 10% addition of plant derived oil to the extreme of used chip oil cut with paraffin or some such which some people do actually use in road vehicles.

John

I think this applies to "full monty" biodiesel i.e. the stuff made from rape oil, recycled chip fat etc. Morrisons were selling it from some forecourts. What we are talking about is diesel that has a percentage of biofuel in the content. Low sulphur fuel is good for the environment but, as I understand it, does not perform as well as an upper cylinder lubricant ( valves etc) as higher sulphur content fuels. This may well have a more serious effect upon modern sophisticated Hci diesels and others. Many marine diesels are pretty agricultural by comparison and may not notice the difference, but I am sure you can buy additives similar to those offered when leaded petrol was phased out.

If he hasn't appeared already, I am sure Refueller will turn up to put us all right!

 

[aquaplane]

The stuff going in cars is mineral diesel with 5% bio diesel in it, that's usually called RME5.
The RME comes from "rapeseed methyl ester". If you use 100% biodiesl it's called RME100.

If you don't bother to make biodiesel out of vege oil (esterify it on other words), that's called SVO, straight vege oil, a car will run on it especially if it's cut with mineral diesel, but emissions are worse than with RME100.

Anyway, back to bug, if biodiesel will dissolve bits of water isn't it better as the water will not sit at the bottom of the tank and A) rot it, B) promote bug growth at the water/diesel interface? Removing the water must be better than leaving it sitting in the tank if it's wet diesel that gets bug.

 

[TAIC]

if you are worried about the quality of the stored fuel, i would suggest using a something like th MR Funnel filter, it will take out any water that may be present in the fuel as well as any debris. www.dieselpartsdirect.co.uk seem to be the cheapest and have other diesel related products that could help.