Yes, I know that you legally need to declare it to Gordon Brown.

However, I've read a lot of contradictory stuff on here (and elsewhere) about buying that three litres of vegetable oil from Tesco and pouring it into the fuel tank.

Some say, 'do it! It's great! It's cheaper, the engine runs quieter, better and cleaner!'

Others say, 'don't! The glycerin in supermarket veg oil causes the fuel filter to die really fast, straight vegetable oil is a bad idea unless you get the engine components modified, you'll gum this or that up, etc'

Someone, please, what is the straight dope? If I dump a bottle of vegetable oil straight from the supermarket into the tank, is it going to knacker something in a big hurry? Is there some filtering process or something that needs doing first? Can I happily try a bottle or two without fear?

2002 Octavia 1.9TDI 110bhp, if that makes any difference.

Ive been doing it to my car on and off for a while, not had any bother

I have got an email from Skoda at home about this - I'll try and remember to dig it out tonight and post it on here.

Please post the email from Skoda mbames!

Here is a PDF copy of the email that I received from customer services....

http://www.matthewames.co.uk/briskoda/skoda_oil.pdf

That only talks about RME Biodiesel, which is vegetable oil processed to remove the glycerin and make it thinner. RME biodisel should act just like plain normal diesel. I wonder why cars after certain dates aren't approved? What did they change? It's interesting that even PD engines are approved on RME Biodiesel.

The thing about straight vegetable oil (like you buy from Tescos) is it doesn't work when cold - it's too thick. It needs to be about 70 degrees C or something before it is similar to standard diesel. Usually, people start their cars on normal diesel and run the vegetable oil through a heater. This means you can switch to straight vegetable oil once you've warmed the car up, but you have to remember to switch back to regular fuel before you stop otherwise you'll leave vegetable oil in the fuel pump and knacker the car when you next come to start it up.

Maybe you'll get away with sloshing a bit of vegetable oil in the tank. Maybe you won't. I wouldn't risk it myself - it's really not what the engine was designed to run on. Either get a heater, or stick to pre-processed RME Biodiesel.

J

i am sure I read some stuff at work about non-rme stuff. Let me check my laptop and see if I bookmarked anything....

Just the one bookmark by the looks of it:

Biodiesel Approval and that seems to be RME related too.

However, I've read a lot of contradictory stuff on here (and elsewhere) about buying that three litres of vegetable oil from Tesco and pouring it into the fuel tank.

That's because there are a lot of l337 people on here who think they know what the sketch is because they read it somewhere else, just like any other forum .

Someone, please, what is the straight dope? If I dump a bottle of vegetable oil straight from the supermarket into the tank, is it going to knacker something in a big hurry? Is there some filtering process or something that needs doing first? Can I happily try a bottle or two without fear?

No it's not and you can try VO like that any time as long as you have a fair amount of mineral in your tank. However on that scale it's not going to make any other difference, on three litres you might save 40p? Prolonged use will make your fuel filter to die quicker but it depends on usage and fuel filters are only

surely if the chain is longer the compound is thicker