SVO installation on 2011 vw TDI Sportwagon?

Has anybody installed a SVO kit on a 2011 vw tdi sportwagon?

Were there any problems?

I doubt anybody has. It wouldn't end well, the injectors would gum up super fast. If the hpfp didn't die first. You want an old idi or heui diesel for that.

I wouldn't recommend this. If you want a veggie oil car, use a VE pump engine or older.

They don't even recommend more than 20% biodiesel for newer TDIs. SVO would probably be a disaster in slow motion.

Have Fun!

Don

I think everybody above is probably right. I believe there were some pretty significant changes between 2006 (the last car I ran on WVO) and 2011 that make it much more difficult.

That said, way back when, everybody was just as adamant that you could not do it with a 2002, and then with a 2006, and they were pretty much wrong. So I am definitely not recommending it, and you should search hard for someone who has converted a 2011 before attempting it. But if you are able to successfully do it, I won’t be too surprised.

Please keep us informed of what you learn, what decision you make, and if you do attempt it, how it goes.

One other caveat: Are you sure you have an adequate supply of good oil, do you have the space, and are you willing to set up and run a filtering system?

cmwetzel726 said:

Has anybody installed a SVO kit on a 2011 vw tdi sportwagon?
Were there any problems?

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The Common Rail TDIs just flat out can't be run on SVO/WVO. They don't even like 100% Bio-D. The injector temp is way too high and just cooks the oil on the injectors, leading to a CEL fairly quickly, and a non-running engine not too soon after.

I had one towed in that tried. The DPF plugged up before the engine died. I put a new DPF on it, it ran again, but VERY poorly, and died not long after. It only had 50k miles on it at the time. Not sure what exactly failed on the engine, though. But it cranked like it had no compression. I pushed it in the building to take the wheels/tires off for the owner's other car, which had also suffered a WVO-induced engine failure (a PD engine).

Some people never learn.

Oilhammer is probably right about the DPF, although replacing it is not the solution. When people were first looking at these newer engines, it was assumed that the DPF would have to somehow be disabled, at least when running on WVO. It might even have to be removed. Prior to this, I had not heard of anyone going beyond the discussion stage, so that is interesting. Probably less interesting to the owner, I suspect.

But removing the DPF is illegal because it violates federal emissions laws. Yes, with Bio-D or VO, the amount of particulate is far lower. But that doesn't matter to the law. So since it has to remain in place, there's no way a CR TDI will survive running VO. Even 100% BD causes issues without a lot of mileage. And that doesn't even consider the problem with the injectors surviving.

I’m sure removing the DPF is illegal, but pretty much any WVO operation is illegal, so it is no more of an issue there.

That may very well be true about the CR, biodiesel, and the injectors. But we heard the same thing about the earlier motors, and it generally proved to be wrong. I am in no way encouraging anyone to run their newer vehicle on WVO. That said, if someone is well aware of the risks and chooses to try it, I am very curious to see if it works.

philngrayce said:

I’m sure removing the DPF is illegal, but pretty much any WVO operation is illegal, so it is no more of an issue there.

That may very well be true about the CR, biodiesel, and the injectors. But we heard the same thing about the earlier motors, and it generally proved to be wrong. I am in no way encouraging anyone to run their newer vehicle on WVO. That said, if someone is well aware of the risks and chooses to try it, I am very curious to see if it works.

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No it didn't prove to generally be wrong. The vast majority of WVO/SVO conversion attempts ended in rotted out heaps. You know the last time I saw a running WVO conversion car was around 2011.

You may have succeeded, but the other 99.998% did not.

That is simply not true. I have heard of WVO failures, but I have seen none. Not a single one. I know of at least a dozen personally, friends or acquaintances who converted their cars, and they were all successful. My friends and I are not that much smarter, or luckier, that we were able to do it where most could not.

I am aware of many, many others, through this forum and others who were also successful. I have seen a few on here who decided it wasn’t working the way they had hoped and stopped. I don’t recall any of their vehicles becoming “rotted out heaps”. They simply removed the conversion and motored on.

I have heard of a few on here (and only on here, IIRC), like the one referenced above, that ruined their engines. But I have seen none of these personally, and I have seen a lot of WVO cars.

philngrayce, your posts over the years have consistently described successful use of WVO. In the interest of balance, I'll share that I've seen many, many system failures, and many engines destroyed because of WVO use. As I've shopped for used TDIs and Mercedes over the years, any evidence of WVO use causes me to run away from the vehicle. TDIs in particular were not engineered for WVO. Will it work? Perhaps, for a while. But if all the cars I've seen are any indicator, eventually it will destroy the engine and associated components. You may have had fuel refining standards that are good enough to get longer use than others. But I suspect it would have caught up with your engine, eventually.

It may well have caught u with the engine eventually; It is hard to argue that WVO is as good for the engine as the diesel fuel it was designed for. Success is clearly a relative term.

But 200,000 miles is, in my estimation, success. I ran three vehicles on WVO (2 VWs and a Dodge) and all wore out to the point of not being useful to me while the engines were still running fine. Would the damage to the engines have caught up to me? Perhaps, had the cars lasted that long. The savings in fuel alone were more than enough to justify the experiment. The other, less quantifiable benefits, were considerable as well.

You are right that there are many unknowns, and I would be the first to agree that diesel is the fuel most likely to make the engine run the best for the longest time possible, If that is your only criteria, WVO is a poor choice.

But the statements that the car would not run on WVO, or would run poorly, or would quickly destroy the engine, were simply not true. That has now been proven many times. Are the newer cars unable to run on WVO? That is likely so, as I say above. But I also maintain that nobody really knows, they have been wrong many times in the past, and I will not be surprised if someone figures out how to do it.

And he now drives a Leaf.

"It works.... until it doesn't"

I have to say, the best ones are the ones that catch fire. Because the rat's nest of hoses, tubes, wires, pipes, and otherwise 6th grader levels of "engineering" cursed upon these things leaves all sorts of liabilities open, it has been a truly laughable series of events over the years. But that seems to have thankfully past by, and these people (like our leafy friend here) have moved on.

To the OP: it is your car, you can certainly do what you want to with it, but the odds are stacked against you for it being any level of long term success, and the core reason for most people attempting this sort of thing is to "save money", and that alone is cause for some bad math. Bad math because there are FAR less costly vehicles out there to purchase/own/operate AND even if you do want to drive a TDI (I drive one every day...still...) know that they do not use much fuel they were designed and intended to run on (good ol' #2 Diesel), that fuel is plentiful and not likely to run out anytime soon, it is relatively inexpensive [here] still, even if the current trend has it at a disadvantage that regular gasoline, and despite the Dieselgate fiasco, the car still runs pretty darn "clean" overall.

If you really want to make use of an alternative fuel source, you'd be better off to assemble a biofuel distillery of sorts and turn any non-fuel biomass into fuel that could (but not without caveats) be put into any unmodified diesel engine and be burned like #2 Diesel. That will severely limit any liabilities to the car itself, with the side effect that you can actually SEE all the black thick goo and chunks and what not removed from said biomass knowing that your fuel system and engine would have not been forced to deal with.

I’m afraid you are wrong about the Leaf too. I did trade my last VW for a Leaf when I stopped commuting long distances, but the car was only a three year lease. It was quite interesting, it worked very well and I learned a lot about electric cars. And a lot about how people deal with range anxiety, but those are probably subjects for a different thread. Anyway, the Leaf is long gone.

Wrong about the rat’s nest and the liabilities too. I always saw the system as a net advantage, providing a redundancy of certain systems. Clog a fuel filter? Drive home on veggie.

Saving money is not a good only reason to run a car on WVO, but it is a good reason. I once calculated that my WVO hobby saved me around 20,000 gallons of oil. Not all in the VWs, but that is a pretty remunerative hobby. That said if your only purpose is to save money, I would generally recommend against it.

The biodiesel recommendation is way out of line, without some qualifiers. Biodiesel is wonderful stuff, and I am all for it, but chose not to do it myself. It requires some dangerous chemicals and potentially hazardous processes. If you choose to do it, be absolutely sure you can do it safely and responsibly in a secure place. Many, many people have done it successfully. Some have been injured and some have died trying.

It also requires more equipment, more processing than straight WVO, and costs more money. And you can use WVO in any weather; biodiesel will not work in cold weather. I also liked the extraordinary range my car had with the two tanks. You do lose trunk space, or the spare tire; that was a worthwhile trade to me. There are advantages to biodiesel, but there are significant disadvantages as well and it should never be recommended without a warning. Just like WVO.

I’m sure removing the DPF is illegal, but pretty much any WVO operation is illegal, so it is no more of an issue there.

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I can't think of any reason that using WVO would be illegal. In some states you might need to pay a per gallon tax on your home made fuel, but there's nothing illegal about it. My brother bought a Jetta (I believe a 2002-03) that had a WVO kit and drove it for some time before finding a BMW 5 Series diesel. I'm not certain if he still has the Jetta.

I believe any unapproved modification to the fuel system is illegal. If you know otherwise, I’d be glad to hear about it.

Update: You made me curious, so I looked into it a bit. This suggests that it is illegal, unless prior approval has been obtained. Greasecar was once looking into getting their system approved, but I’m pretty sure they never did.


https://www.epa.gov/ve-certification/vehicle-and-engine-alternative-fuel-conversions

atc98002 said:

I can't think of any reason that using WVO would be illegal. In some states you might need to pay a per gallon tax on your home made fuel, but there's nothing illegal about it. My brother bought a Jetta (I believe a 2002-03) that had a WVO kit and drove it for some time before finding a BMW 5 Series diesel. I'm not certain if he still has the Jetta.

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That's my understanding of home made Bio-D as well. Have to pay your road tax properly.

There may be some legality in modifying fuel systems that would make the system illegal with out proper certifications or permits. But only time I see that coming into play in court is after you have already pissed in someone's Cheerios and thrown it in their face.

Jason

SilverGhost said:

But only time I see that coming into play in court is after you have already pissed in someone's Cheerios and thrown it in their face.
Jason

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Or you get in an accident and some litigious individual inspects the car. Possibly could be denied insurance coverage in that scenario, too. Hadn't thought of that, but it seems possible.

philngrayce said:

I believe any unapproved modification to the fuel system is illegal. If you know otherwise, I’d be glad to hear about it.

Update: You made me curious, so I looked into it a bit. This suggests that it is illegal, unless prior approval has been obtained. Greasecar was once looking into getting their system approved, but I’m pretty sure they never did.


https://www.epa.gov/ve-certification/vehicle-and-engine-alternative-fuel-conversions

Click to expand...

Thanks for taking the time to look this up. It's difficult to follow all the legal gobbletygoop, but I think that is solely to provide a pathway for companies such as Greasecar to certify their conversions. Perhaps I missed it in there, but couldn't find anything that specifically states that a private owner converting their car would be breaking the law. Especially when the vehicle is considered beyond their "normal" lifespan. They don't really, clearly identify when this is reached, so I'll assume it's the generally accepted range (by the general public) is between 100,000 and 120,000 miles, or in years maybe 8-10. I realize that most TDI drivers only consider that break-in mileage, but most drivers still consider their cars "old" at 100,000 miles or less.

You’re welcome. Sadly, I haven’t much else to do these days. The cars are all tuned up and cleaned, filters changed and interiors scrubbed. Maybe when it warms up I’ll start painting the house, though I’d rather things go normal again and I can resume neglecting all those chores.

I am interpreting “Any change to the manufacturer’s original vehicle or engine design is a potential violation of the Clean Air Act” to mean it is against the law. But you are right, there is a lot of gobbletygoop in, before, and after that which might alter the meaning.

Any lawyers out there with nothing to do that care to dig into this? Not that it really matters - I think the likelihood of anybody getting in trouble for this is pretty slim these days.

I have a feeling you could pull up to a gathering of state troopers and brag about your greasecar conversion without consequence. I wouldn't try bragging about your emissions delete to the same trooper gathering.

I've been running WVO in my 2006 Jetta TDI for 4 years now and I live in CA. I've been getting the car smogged every 2 years and it passed with no issues. Each time I smog my car, the service tech has to call the licensing board to ask about the WVO Kit. They told him that as long as the stock system has not been modified and intact then it's ok. Just my 2 cents.

WooK said:

I've been running WVO in my 2006 Jetta TDI for 4 years now and I live in CA. I've been getting the car smogged every 2 years and it passed with no issues. Each time I smog my car, the service tech has to call the licensing board to ask about the WVO Kit. They told him that as long as the stock system has not been modified and intact then it's ok. Just my 2 cents.

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A 2011 TDI has a very different fuel injection system than your 2006. Therefore your experience has little to do with the original poster's question.

Have Fun!

Don

But it does relate to where the thread has flowed, specifically if any WVO system is legal. It’s very interesting that the licensing board seems to interpret it as being legal. I’m not sure I would consider the stock system intact and unmodified, but I’m glad they see it that way.