Cooking Oil As A Fuel

Hey everyone,

I thought I would post some info I have been researching regards using cooking oil as a fuel in diesel cars. Here in the UK diesel is 2x the cost of cooking oil. This oil is bought straight from the supermarket and poured in to the car, with NO MODIFICATIONS.

This doesen't apply to all types of diesel engines. It works with older cars and not turbo or common rail diesels. I have seen this working on a Mercedes Sprinter van and its quite amazing. The only difference is the smell of the fumes.

One downside is cooking oil thickens up when its cold so in countries like the UK the oil has to be warmed up before use, this I suspect would not be a problem in some parts of the USA.

You can easily mix straight cooking oil with diesel and run you car on it, from what I've read people use a mixture anywhere between 70/30 oil/fuel to 95/5 oil fuel.

Here are a few links

Detailed information for using cooking oil.
journeytoforever.org...

Database of cars running on cooking oil
www.vegetableoildiesel.co.uk...

Some old news on the use of oil as a fuel
www.guardian.co.uk...

The law has changed now, in the UK, so you can use cooking oil as a fuel and NOT pay tax

These guys sell kits
www.dieselveg.com...

And finally a clip from Top Gear when they ran a Volvo on oil
www.youtube.com...

I hope the information will be of use to someone, especially considering the current fuel situation.

I moved in with some folks recently...every so often I smelled fried chicken and couldn't figure out where it was coming from, then I saw dudeman pouring in some hot black oil into his gas tank...he's been doing this for awhile.

I especially like the idea of screwing the gas companies out of 70%+ of their diesel sales. However... if everyone were to do this the increased demand for cooking oil would surely reset the math somewhat and probably bring it in line with diesel, hurting everyone in the process.

It's a nice trick, but it won't solve the energy crysis, although it will give relief to a lot of people. The solution is hydrogen and electric cars, at least with known and proven technology.

Good thread though.

reply to post by Zepherian


thanks zepherian, you are probably right in terms of a long term solution for our love of the black stuff I do like nuggets of info, like using cooking oil as a fuel, as they might be very handy in a SHTF type situation..