Diesel additives

saxonborg said:
It would be interesting to know why “Never”. I have two Passat diesels and covered in excess of 200,000 miles predominantly on supermarket fuels without a fuel problem, have I just been lucky?
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Why those folk say Never? You'd have to ask them (as I said, my knowledge on engines is postage stamp sized compared to those guys). Register on forum.rav4driversclub.com to do so.
Why ME Never? see the line above from folk I trust to steer me right.
Have you been lucky? Quite Possibly :)
 
saxonborg said:
It would be interesting to know why “Never”. I have two Passat diesels and covered in excess of 200,000 miles predominantly on supermarket fuels without a fuel problem, have I just been lucky?
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I too have always used supermarket fuel and I do courier work and all my sprinters have done over 500k without problems.
My current Citroen berlingo is just over 300k again mostly supermarket fuel, and every time I pull into a supermarket for fuel they will be many more filling up there, so it cannot be that bad
 
Naughty naughty, but about 20 years ago when I was selling a car once, the Brummie taxi driver who was buying it, on seeing the 2 very large home heating kerosene storage tanks in one of our outbuildings, he asked if I ran my cars on it..................... No I had never thought of it!

He told me of the mix of 20ltrs. kerosene to 1ltr. of the cheapest multigrade oil you can buy.

Personally I didn't try it but my neighbour did and he continued to do so and as far as I know right up to today. By trade he is a diesel fitter, working down the pipe lines throughout Europe and Asia.
He always has said that all of his many diesels have run far better on this mix than they have ever done on pump diesel and all his vehicles have always sailed through their MOT's with the lowest of low emission readings!! Of course it is highly illegal to do so and once he was stopped by the C&E bods and had the tank dip tested but it didn't show, so on his merry way he went!!
 
saxonborg said:
It would be interesting to know why “Never”. I have two Passat diesels and covered in excess of 200,000 miles predominantly on supermarket fuels without a fuel problem, have I just been lucky?
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If so, you are not alone in your good fortune.
 
I think it is with the complex emissions kit on newer Diesels that has issues with lower quality fuel, so vehicles from around 13 years ago or older tend to be ok.
I didn't run my 2000/W plate VW T4 on 'posh' fuel. But I didn't run it on Supermarket pish either. I used top grade 100% pure Rape Seed Oil from Bookers C&C :D
Cheaper than any supermarket stuff and it ran cleaner as well. If I tried that on my VW T5 with its common rail engine and DPF it would not have been a happy outcome.

Horses for Courses ....
 
I worked in the UK oil industry for 25 years including a ship fed mainline storage facility for 3 major international oil companies. The plant stored over 60,000mt of road fuels and additives and during this whole time I filled up at Sainsburys - and I still do. I commuted 70 miles every work day plus leisure mileage and owned 6 diesel cars during this time without even a hint of problems. All road fuels must comply with the same British Standard (look on the pump) and I have full confidence that all supermarket forecourts will meet this standard.
 
There do a good one here which on lab tests beat all others,it can also be added to central heating oil to get a clean burn,but i worked out cost against the % saving and its about equel,dipthane and its £10 for a litre bottle.
Independent tests on most others found it to be snake oil,but i cannot say names because phil may end up in the pokey:eek:
 
Now for something completely different.

I did purchase for my previous MH, (a none turbo1.9d Fiat Hymer), but never fitted it, an LPG gas injection kit. It's like the HHO kits, just adds a bit of gas into the engine air intake system. Now the HHO kits use a lot of amperage to extract the gas from the electrolyte, the LPG use gas from the bottle, theoretically both improve power & MPG, both are supposed to clean out the engine and theoretically improve the emissions and particulates from the exhaust. Any thought on this by anyone?

An interesting news comment from the Ministry for Transport, once we are out of European Union we wont be tied to their rules and we can look at alternatives fuels, I assume for reducing emissions and the like. So Petrol and Diesel may go on beyond 2040, if we still have any left and they can be cleaned up more..
 
chas142 said:
Now for something completely different.

I did purchase for my previous MH, (a none turbo1.9d Fiat Hymer), but never fitted it, an LPG gas injection kit. It's like the HHO kits, just adds a bit of gas into the engine air intake system. Now the HHO kits use a lot of amperage to extract the gas from the electrolyte, the LPG use gas from the bottle, theoretically both improve power & MPG, both are supposed to clean out the engine and theoretically improve the emissions and particulates from the exhaust. Any thought on this by anyone?

An interesting news comment from the Ministry for Transport, once we are out of European Union we wont be tied to their rules and we can look at alternatives fuels, I assume for reducing emissions and the like. So Petrol and Diesel may go on beyond 2040, if we still have any left and they can be cleaned up more..
Click to expand...
You can still use a diesel beyond 2040 if you can find places to drive without restrictions in place,there will just be no new piston engines made or sold,and its our rules not eec ones.
As for adding gas the cost will be higher to meet the extra mpg so it works out the same,if you want to save use home heating oil 20ltrs mixed with 1.5 cooking oil but remember its not allowed by law as you are tax evading and could get £1000 fine or loss of wagon.
 
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trevskoda said:
You can still use a diesel beyond 2040 if you can find places to drive without restrictions in place,there will just be no new piston engines made or sold,and its our rules not eec ones.
As for adding gas the cost will be higher to meet the extra mpg so it works out the same,if you want to save use home heating oil 20ltrs mixed with 1.5 cooking oil but remember its not allowed by law as you are tax evading and could get £1000 fine or loss of wagon.
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No I don't want to use heating oil, :eek:it was to save the environment, I got the kit for my older camper as it struggled up hill. Yes I know I'm not going to gain anything in savings, with the LPG Kit, might with the HHO, but I would fit that to my car rather than MH;

If it keeps the MH running longer, if they start clamping down more on diesels, or if allows me into areas where I stay out of, London LEZ for example, will look at it again.
 
I do t think it will make any difference to where you can go Chas as I think that just works off manufacturers date and info
 
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trevskoda said:
You can still use a diesel beyond 2040 if you can find places to drive without restrictions in place,there will just be no new piston engines made or sold,and its our rules not eec ones.
As for adding gas the cost will be higher to meet the extra mpg so it works out the same,if you want to save use home heating oil 20ltrs mixed with 1.5 cooking oil but remember its not allowed by law as you are tax evading and could get £1000 fine or loss of wagon.
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Out of Interest Trev, what are the regs in Northern Ireland regarding running your vehicle on Cooking Oil (aka SVO aka filtered WVO)?
In GB you can run on Cooking Oil perfectly legally without any need to pay fuel duties as long as you use less than 2,500 litres (I think that may be per household or person rather than per vehicle?
I got some good savings running on Rapeseed Oil instead of Diesel (apparently the exhaust smelt like a chippy but I never noticed :) )
 
nabsim said:
I do t think it will make any difference to where you can go Chas as I think that just works off manufacturers date and info
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Well I'm not sure that's always the case, mostly I think your correct to say that, but what about the people who have removed the engine and fitted an electric motor, the DVLA have to change the details on the log book; However, I read something about the LEZ a while ago, from that I understand that they wanted to get you to buy a new vehicle, they were saying that sometimes vehicles could be upgraded but were saying that the cost was prohibitive to most, for an old car or an old lorry, (unless classic). Old motorhome may be a different matter. Mind you if you got the vehicle up to new standards for London unless the DVLA put it on their system it could cause confusion elsewhere. If I could fit this kit and a catalytic converter and didn't have to do anything else that would be a result. I shall look into it a bit later to see if anything has changed re Brexit and what the Minister said in his News Interview.
 
nabsim said:
Another thread here and some chatting at the Henley meet last night got me thinking (yes worrying I know). Now don’t shout me down as I am only asking a question and don’t know the answer but...

Has anyone tried and/or what are the pro’s and con’s of adding different things to diesel in their van based vehicles?

In particular I was thinking about petrol, methanol and kerosine but anything else that may be beneficial in some way, I only list these three as they are available bulk fuels so cost should be less than bottled additives. Not sure if local bike shop still has methanol though, they used to run their speedway bikes on it and my mate ran his grass track outfit
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The older your engine the more you can experiment. If you are lucky enough to run an old Mercedes with mechanical injection then [even in this cold weather] you can run on 80% used vegoil and 20% petrol [which must be thoroughly blended and filtered]. A modern engine would benefit from the odd litre of vegoil [for extra pump lube] and as another contributor said petrol for cleaning the system a little. As for additives I have found Millers a superb additive as unlike many it also boosts the cetane rating and is economical in use as one 500ml bottle [about £13] will treat hundreds of litres.

Kerosene won't go down well if you get dipped by Customs but it's worth investigating an HHO unit which breaks down water and an electrolite into hydrogen and oxygen. I've found that this cuts down smoke, cleans your engine and injectors thereby improving mpg not unlike the benefits of water injection.

In the U.S. many people are adding used [but again thoroughly cleaned] old engine oil to their fuel. At a guess I wouldn't think that modern common rail engines would like it in high concentrations....

Roll on electric vehicles :)
 
chas142 said:
An interesting news comment from the Ministry for Transport, once we are out of European Union we wont be tied to their rules and we can look at alternatives fuels, I assume for reducing emissions and the like. So Petrol and Diesel may go on beyond 2040, if we still have any left and they can be cleaned up more..
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Well, that's interestingly prescient of them. The Ministry of Transport was abolished in 1970 (though its name lives on in some documentation because the legislation is old). Perhaps they were referring to the 1975 EEC referendum?
How (and if) we leave the EU will affect which rules do still apply, but it's pretty inevitable that new rules will be tighter, not looser.
 
saxonborg said:
It would be interesting to know why “Never”. I have two Passat diesels and covered in excess of 200,000 miles predominantly on supermarket fuels without a fuel problem, have I just been lucky?
Click to expand...

Yep, me too, whoever sells the cheapest and never had a problem. I wonder if a lot of engine gumming up is due to town driving and no 'Italian Tune-up' now and then...
 
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