Check your Polo manual and it should say that it can run on 50% RME (Rapeseed-Methyl-Esther). It’s a different engine to mine, but I suspect you’ll be able to run it on biodiesel.

Filtering oil takes a bit of time to set-up but it is worth it for the free motoring! There are lots of options for filtering the used oil (known as WVO - Waste Vegetable Oil). Have a look here:

http://www.biodieselcommunity.org/filteringoil/

A friend of mine used two oil drums - one of top of the other - and filtered the oil through old socks and rags. Very enterprising and low cost.

I initally put one litre of Rapseed oil in. Over a period of 8 months I have gone up as high as 95% oil, although both times, the air temperature was cold, the last time was when in snowed in Brighton, I think from memory that was in April.

Each time I went this high, the car broke down after a couple of miles. Sensibly, I always carry 5 litres of diesel in the car, and both times it broke down I poured the diesel in the tank, left it 5 minutes & the engine re-started.

I am currently using 90% oil with no problems. My latest venture is to now try the car with filtered only waste vegetable oil which I have sourced from my local kebab shop for free. I have filtered the oil down to 5 microns as I understand the fuel filter on the car only filters it to 10 microns. I have not used caustic soda & methanol.

I hope this information is of assistance to anyone thinking of giving it a go.

Wish me luck, as I have now got rid of the Mondeo (Too expensive).

Gary

For a short period it ran on pure veg.oil, but it was slow to start, and once I had to use an ‘easystart’ spray in the air-intake. It was also sluggish power-wise,(how much the tired engine counts,I can only guess).

Starting on 50% veg.oil with regular diesel seems to be OK, but because it is outside all the time I use pure diesel in winter because of the slow-starting.Veg.oil is available in 3700 kj and 3400 kj (see energy value on label):I’m careful to use only the 3700 stuff.

Because of the old engine, four years ago I fixed a Broquet fuel-catalyst in my fuel line.(It improves engine-performance by improving fuel quality). This may help the use of veg.oil too; I’m no technician but it seems reasonable.

Cheers,

D.Thomas

I discovered during winter that the air temperature is a critical factor. When the outside temperature in the UK fell to between 3 to 10 degrees Celsius, the fuel pump started making a quiet squeal (using a 50:50 mix). This was because the fuel was more viscous and it was harder to pump the fuel through the thin tubes. I moved back to a mixture of 80% diesel and 20% vegetable oil and the car was fine. I had successfully been using 50:50 mix without problems in warmer weather.

This suggests that during summer, I could probably run it on 75% vegetable oil and possibly even 100%.

My car has done 106,000 miles of which the last 3,000 have been using biodiesel, so my experiment is by no means conclusive. So far there have been no mechanical problems and I am comforted by the fact that VW state that you can run the car on up to 50% RME.

If I were you, I would start on a mix of 25%, see how the car runs and then increase it gradually.

Good luck,

Jake

Just have a few questions I wanted to ask regarding using vegetable oil in this car with no mods. How many miles have you now covered? Have you experienced any mechanical problems and lastly have you increased the mix to above 50:50?

thanks

Pritesh

not to mention is gonna cost you serious money to replace your fuel pump when that veggie oil builds up.

But hey, as long as you feel better about yourself by using vegetable oil, go for it.

As the average commute takes 45 minutes in the UK, you could very comfortably cycle 7.5 miles in that time (based at on 10mph average). IMHO any commute less than 10 miles should be bike. Before people moan about hills in their area, I recently cycled End-to-End with my 60 year old father and at no point did our average speed drop below 12mph - that includes going through the winding hills of Cornwall, the peak district and the Scottish highlands. I doubt many of you have to face Rannoch Moor on your daily commute. No car = one massive saving. What would be nice to see is that vegetable oil going to power public transport for those who can’t cycle.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/briefs/excise-duty/brief4307.htm

2,500 litres of vegetable oil will fuel your car for more than 22,000 miles at 40mpg. If you mix it with diesel at 50% and your car does 68mpg like mine, your annual allowance is enough for 74,889 miles.