Grease Is the Word: Fill It Up With Fry Oil

Practically all our 4×4’s run on diesel fuel, which is becoming prohibitively expensive, so it’s surprising that no one in Pakistan has looked into vegetable oil yet. The New York Times reports:


bq. Now, after more than 2,000 miles on veggie oil, there seem to be few disadvantages to the transformation. My car seems to get slightly better mileage, it seems to run a little more quietly and it has just as much zip as it does on diesel. According to test results I’ve seen, vegetable oil burns somewhat cleaner in most categories than diesel fuel, and emits absolutely no sulfur. What a veggie car does emit is a smell faintly redolent of the kind of oil being burned—or, in the case of used oil, the scent of whatever it might have cooked previously.

In America, vegetable oil is slightly cheaper than diesel. A little investigation reveals that the local price is

Various reports on the internet confirm that converting over to vegetable oil doesn’t harm the engine:

A common concern about converting a car for vegetable oil is that it could harm the engine. But some people who have done conversions say they’ve seen no damage, even after many miles. Phil Gibbs, a New York City firefighter who makes a 75-mile commute twice a week from his Putnam County home, said he had driven his 2002 Jetta 75,000 miles on vegetable oil with no trouble.

While it sounds like a environmentalists dream come true, it is not all hunky dory. The amount of fertilizers and pesticides needed to grow the vegetables pouring into your tank pollute more than the diesel oil they replace.

More info

Manufacturers of vegetable oil conversion kits

they include a lot of technical details also

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.