Isuzu Trooper Owners Club UK™

[DJ]

Hi guys and gals, hope your all very well.
Just found a flyer stating that:
"As form the 1st July 2007, if you use less than 2500lt/year the use of vegetable oil is road duty legally tax free"
www.johnsoil.co.uk  

Well I want to know, is this really true?
thoughts and facts please.
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I DIDN'T TOUCH IT, HONEST!

Dmax single cab pick up 2.5 biturbo

[Google]

[TimBanham]

you should be able to send a not to the tax people and find out?

Sounds good as if I have done my maths right that about 14K miles a year with not vat!
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3.0TD LWB Citation

[DJ]

trouble is....................
they want too much information
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I DIDN'T TOUCH IT, HONEST!

Dmax single cab pick up 2.5 biturbo

[CelticWitch]

I looked at running a Surf on veg oil some time ago, does the Trooper need any modification to do this?

[666]

As i may soon be a convert to a diesel lump, may i ask how many of you have tried veggie oil and is it any good on the 2.8's?

Cheers

Mark
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UK's First off road tested fully live axled Frontera
Now running an Isuzu 2.8TD

Mac Challenge 2009 Team 01

[mikeeboy]

I've just started running mine (3.1 1995 bighorn) on a 25% mixture and have noticed no difference so far.

[TimBanham]

Just got off the phone with Customs and Excise and it's true!!!!

And here's the proof

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/briefs/excise-duty/brief4307.htm
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3.0TD LWB Citation

[Hard1]

Hey guys, that refers to producers of bio fuels not users

As far as I am aware, the rules are simple - any fuel used in a road vehicle is liable for excise duty whether it be vegetable or mineral oil. You are supposed to take a chitty showing your veg oil purchase down to the local C&E and pay the duty...

<sits back and waits for experts to diss him completely>
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1999 Cougar with a NICE motor..

Click HERE to see under my bonnet!

[TimBanham]

Technically that notice talks about producers but the kind lady at the Customs and Excise help line informed me that it was both producers and users
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3.0TD LWB Citation

[Hard1]

It's a trap!

She knows that untreated veggie oil produces acids which eventually eats the fuel system and anything aluminum and that's their sneaky way of getting our beloved Troops off the road. Don't fall for it...

She's a witch!  
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1999 Cougar with a NICE motor..

Click HERE to see under my bonnet!

[TimBanham]

Technically you are a producer of biofuels as you are taking veg oil and using it in your car - So the producer would pay duty over 2500 ltrs.

if you are at all worried just give them a call - they are saying that all the various notices will be updated shortly
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3.0TD LWB Citation

[Hard1]

Seriously, that's good news and I have just confirmed this, but the thing that worries me is the effect of the long term use of untreated veg oil.....and the effect on injectors, pumps etc.

The good news seems to be, that those of us running indirect injection, i.e. the good old 3.1, have a much better chance of longevity on this stuff than modern direct and common rail systems, especially those heavily reliant on sensors..

Here's a link that explains a lot more about veg oil as a diesel substitute plus a few tips on how to "cook" your own.

Good luck my friends.....

http://www.veggiepower.org.uk/page208.htm
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1999 Cougar with a NICE motor..

Click HERE to see under my bonnet!

[mutlley]

i looked into running veg oil in both my trooper and renault van. i asked on another forum and this was a reply which made me decide not to bother.

Hi,

As your friendly UK representative to the Europe CEN TC19 committee - we set the standards for European motor vehicle fuels and we have oversight on lpg, petrol, diesel, and bio-fuels.

Please don't confuse vegetable oil with bio-diesel. True, bio-diesel is made from veg oil by a fairly simple chemical process that (hopefully) any chemistry student could understand and follow - and if you go down this route - just be careful - the reagent chemicals will blind you if you get one drop in an eye (wear safety glasses and have an emergency eye wash on-hand). But nothing that you can't learn.

Vegetable Oil
It is almost impossible to cold-start a modern diesel engined car on pure (cold) veg oil - kits are available to bulk pre-heat the veg oil or start on diesel and auto-switch to veg oil once the engine is hot (like a LPG powered petrol car which starts on petrol then switches over) but these are reasonably expensive.

Burning veg oil in a car will require more frequent service intervals and unscheduled engine strip downs to remove the gummy deposits caused by burning the glycerol backbone of the veg oil molecules. This is the stuff that causes gummy residues to form on the outside of household oil bottles, and will gum up the injectors and cylinder bores in your engine.

A 50:50 mix of veg oil and diesel should start without problem through Spring, Summer and Autumn (drop to 25% veg oil in Winter) but this doesn't remove the glycerol gum problem.

Not insurmountable, but you need to be aware.

Bio-diesel
Heating veg oil with sodium methoxide (mixture of pure methyl alcohol and pure sodium hydroxide) overnight creates bio-diesel (and a separate layer of glycerol - like oil and water). Bio-diesel made this way is technically known as fatty acid methyl ester (FAME).

You need to remove the unused sodium hydroxide from the fuel by neutralising with an acid (drop by drop) and separate the fuel from the glycerol layer. Easy, but don't forget these steps or you'll be footing a big bill to replace dissolved injectors and pumps.

No glycerol in the fuel means no gumming of the injectors - great - but you will need a licence from the local environmental health people for the correct disposal of glycerol.

Car engines and 100% bio-diesel
Not good news, particularly for cars and trucks built before 2002, the polymer or rubber pipes and seals in the fuel system are not resistant to 100% bio-diesel - either they will swell, leak, or *beep* will be extracted from the piping and cause reliability issues with the injectors.

5% bio-diesel
All car manufacturers in Europe have collaborated in long term reliability studies, and this is already or will be the standard "diesel" you buy on the garage forecourt throughout Europe. No problems.

10% bio-diesel
France volunteered to experiment with a 10% mixture of bio-diesel and normal diesel - no one in CEN TC9 expects any problems.

France also volunteered to trial creating bio-diesel from veg oil, sodium hydroxide and ethanol (from the wine lake) - making a fatty acid ethyl ester (FAEE) bio-diesel - this has a higher cetane number and is ideal for the new generation of high power diesel engines.

50:50 bio-diesel mixture
Europe should be able to sustainably support between a 5% and 10% bio-diesel blend from home grown resources. So TC9 is not looking at higher blend ratios - but modern cars (post 2003) should not have a problem with these high levels of bio-diesel - no guarantees.

Red diesel
Contrary to popular myth, there is no difference between red diesel and normal supermarket diesel - except for the red dye and some other hidden markers.

Red diesel is exceptionally easy to decolourize - making it visually indistinguishable from forecourt pump diesel - which is why in 2007 red diesel becomes yellow diesel - and this yellow dye can't be stripped in the same way.

Bio-fuels
Declare your usage, pay the tax, and give it a go.

Robert

[Hard1]

Not as simple as it looks, thanks for the post Rob......
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1999 Cougar with a NICE motor..

Click HERE to see under my bonnet!

[TimBanham]

I suppose if it was simple then we would all be doing it

Never mind - haven't got the space for a biodiesel plant at present so guess I will just have to stick with normal diesel
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3.0TD LWB Citation