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Biodiesel sucks!!
tccox
Member Posts: 7,379 ✭✭
Last week my couzin and I went to NY State to pick up some of his stuff after taking a job down South.
We were in West VA and filled up at a Sunoco stn. We had not seen a Biodiesel so he decided to fill up with Bio.
About 5 miles up the road his truck crashed.
It is a 2009 F-250. He called assistance and they towed us to next town, which is where we filled up.
They had no way of draining fuel other than disconnecting fuel line and letting it drain. Only took three hours!!!
The tank of bio took us off the road for about 4 hours and cost around $6oo bucks.
I/he will NEVER use bio again. Tom
We were in West VA and filled up at a Sunoco stn. We had not seen a Biodiesel so he decided to fill up with Bio.
About 5 miles up the road his truck crashed.
It is a 2009 F-250. He called assistance and they towed us to next town, which is where we filled up.
They had no way of draining fuel other than disconnecting fuel line and letting it drain. Only took three hours!!!
The tank of bio took us off the road for about 4 hours and cost around $6oo bucks.
I/he will NEVER use bio again. Tom
Comments
I run 20% bio in my 02 Cummins, my 05 VW Golf and my wife's 07 Grand Cherokee diesel.
Never had a problem.
Read your owners manual before using it!
CP
I guess there can be water in there too.
Was it 100% biodiesel?
dont you need special stuff to run biodiesel? i see ad's all the time for biodiesel converted vehicles. i wasnt aware you could just dump b/d into a regular vehicle...
No. Biodiesel is compatible with all diesel engines. What you are thinking of is straight vegetable oil (SVO) or waste vegetable oil (WVO).
However, like other posters mentioned, it has to be good quality. Water or particulates in biodiesel can cause problems. Also, if there is a lot of gunk in your tank, biodiesel will clean it out. But not in the 5 miles mentioned in the original post. In fact, I would venture to say that unless they coasted into the station on fumes, there was very little actual biodiesel that reached the engine.
I haven't dealt with much of the biodiesel but the waste oil is horrible. I've had to replace a few injector pumps and several injectors because of it. No matter how good you filter that stuff you still get containments throughout your fuel system, and it plugs everything up. I will not even touch a vehicle that has been converted to run that stuff anymore.
I personally know somebody that has a lot of miles on two different diesel engines running on WVO. However, it needs to be done properly.
1. Get good quality WVO from the start.
2. Filter it VERY well (down to less than 5 microns).
3. Use a heated fuel tank and heated fuel lines.
4. Use a high quality fuel filter that also filters out water.
5. Use a good fuel pressure gauge to monitor the condition of your fuel filter so you can change it based on flow as opposed to mileage.
quote:Originally posted by redneckandy
I haven't dealt with much of the biodiesel but the waste oil is horrible. I've had to replace a few injector pumps and several injectors because of it. No matter how good you filter that stuff you still get containments throughout your fuel system, and it plugs everything up. I will not even touch a vehicle that has been converted to run that stuff anymore.
I personally know somebody that has a lot of miles on two different diesel engines running on WVO. However, it needs to be done properly.
1. Get good quality WVO from the start.
2. Filter it VERY well (down to less than 5 microns).
3. Use a heated fuel tank and heated fuel lines.
4. Use a high quality fuel filter that also filters out water.
5. Use a good fuel pressure gauge to monitor the condition of your fuel filter so you can change it based on flow as opposed to mileage.
I'm glad he had luck with it but everyone I have dealt with was just plain nasty. They stink and when you pull em in the shop the smell lingers for days. The fuel systems are always full of sludge. The gain you get from it just isn't worth it to me. The last one I dealt with the injector pump was just destroyed from the sludge and build up. The cost to repair was far more than what they saved by running waste oil.
quote:Originally posted by calrugerfan
quote:Originally posted by redneckandy
I haven't dealt with much of the biodiesel but the waste oil is horrible. I've had to replace a few injector pumps and several injectors because of it. No matter how good you filter that stuff you still get containments throughout your fuel system, and it plugs everything up. I will not even touch a vehicle that has been converted to run that stuff anymore.
I personally know somebody that has a lot of miles on two different diesel engines running on WVO. However, it needs to be done properly.
1. Get good quality WVO from the start.
2. Filter it VERY well (down to less than 5 microns).
3. Use a heated fuel tank and heated fuel lines.
4. Use a high quality fuel filter that also filters out water.
5. Use a good fuel pressure gauge to monitor the condition of your fuel filter so you can change it based on flow as opposed to mileage.
I'm glad he had luck with it but everyone I have dealt with was just plain nasty. They stink and when you pull em in the shop the smell lingers for days. The fuel systems are always full of sludge. The gain you get from it just isn't worth it to me. The last one I dealt with the injector pump was just destroyed from the sludge and build up. The cost to repair was far more than what they saved by running waste oil.
I know what you mean. There are lots of people out there running mediocre systems. Like I said, it CAN be done with great results. However, I would venture to say that many of the people doing it are the hippy types that often don't have the money or know how to do it right. My wife's uncle is a conservative dentist with a degree in chemistry and has been running biodiesel and WVO in his diesel engines for years (10+) long before it was "trendy."
Now we DID have a third of a tank when we filled up so 20 gals of Bio were mixed with 10 gals of regular diesel.
And the smell!! The guys at the garage remarked about how bad it smelled.
Read the owners manual??? You can't be serious!! Tom