Biodiesel, WVO/SVO, single/duel tank conversion in my 2005 PD Passat

There is so much contridictory information it is difficult to know what to believe. I have heard that bio or V Oil works great in this car because it runs hot anyway, and that it is too much of a high perfomance engine with too high injector pressure to experiment with, and lastly that the jury is still out. Ultimately I want whatevery one else wants, to reduce fuel costs dramatically in an eco friendly way and not damage my car. I have a 2005 Passat with a 2.0L PD engine. The latest advise I got from my German engine mechanic is that there would be no problem installing a duel tank VO conversion on that car and he knows people who have so.

Is this true? Are there any substantiated longevity issues in running Veggie oil in this engine? Would a single tank system with heated injectors better? Or would Bio be the best alternative? Or should I just give up on Bio fuels with this car? Any and all information would be appreciated, studies on this issue even more so.

thank you
John

bio would be safest for your engine, and least intrusive on your life style.
Greasing is hard work and many tdi engines have been ruined on wvo. I speak from exerience. 55000 miles on wvo myself.

Welcome aticus. The short answer you are looking for is...

you've got allot of reading to do here, and elsewhere. Kindly use the search button and have at it.

And take your time, there's allot to digest.

aticus said:

There is so much contridictory information it is difficult to know what to believe. I have heard that bio or V Oil works great in this car because it runs hot anyway, and that it is too much of a high perfomance engine with too high injector pressure to experiment with, and lastly that the jury is still out. Ultimately I want whatevery one else wants, to reduce fuel costs dramatically in an eco friendly way and not damage my car. I have a 2005 Passat with a 2.0L PD engine. The latest advise I got from my German engine mechanic is that there would be no problem installing a duel tank VO conversion on that car and he knows people who have so.

Is this true? Are there any substantiated longevity issues in running Veggie oil in this engine? Would a single tank system with heated injectors better? Or would Bio be the best alternative? Or should I just give up on Bio fuels with this car? Any and all information would be appreciated, studies on this issue even more so.

thank you
John

Click to expand...

Heh...

Let's put it this way: if WVO was easy, wouldn't everyone be doing it?

Here are a couple of simple questions to ask yourself and get you on your way to research:

Do I have $3000 to put down, up front?

Do I drive more than 20-30 miles at one time (without shut down), the vast majority of the time? (credit to member 40x40 for this one)

Do I have a good 7-10 hours/week to devote to this, at least for the first year?

Do I have the ability to follow VERY STRICT procedure for both processing my fuel and operating my vehicle, without fail?

Do I not mind dealing with stinky, nasty, rotten old french fry juice?

Do I have a large indoor space to deal with this stuff, which would not be ruined by a 55 gallon spill?


If you answer yes to all of these, ask yourself one more question, then get to studying:

Do I fully understand that even if I do everything perfectly, my engine could still explode, making this a huge financial and environmental losing proposition?

Chasee's got it bang on.

A bit of pessimism there, but some good points.

Veggie oil can definitely be done, and there are now many, many long term success stories out there, mine included (200,000 on motor, 125,000 on veggie, running almost like new, all original).

I think Chasee's experience represents the worst case scenario - if you are comfortable with his warning, you should be more than fine. But you do have to do it. If you are willing and interested to take on something between a hobby and a part time job, it can be great fun. If you will not enjoy this, you probably should not plan on converting.

Commercial bio is an alternative. But I think I have sen as many, if not more, problems from bad fuel, gelled fuel and clogged filters among folks running biodiesel that they bought at a gas station.

Ha! I've just been demoted from pro-WVO religious zealot to pessimist!

Phil, I welcome you here. Get ready for some serious bombardment. I've developed my ablative armor over the past 2 years, and also learned a thing or two. But yes, I try to be as pragmatic as possible with WVO. If I have to err at all, its towards the negative side, just so nobody can claim I somehow bamboozled them.

Thank you Chasee. I found this site a few years ago, and there are some very knowledgable folks. I'm really impresed with the TDI experts. Too bad so many were so anti VO; have any admitted they were wrong?


I am ready for the bombardment - we cetainly have the experience now to prove our hunches. Glad to have your backing here.

It is not a matter of being "wrong". There have CERTAINLY been many reports of failures associated with using vegetable oil fuel. This means the pessimists are not "wrong". But the optimists are not necessarily "wrong" either.

Much depends on the suitability of the fuel system design. Much depends on how diligently the user follows proper procedures for treating the fuel and operating the engine.

Fail to follow procedure => eventual engine failure.
Fuel system has a design flaw, however subtle => eventual engine failure.
Do everything right => there is still an element of luck involved.

I would probably be labeled Anti-WVO. I'm more of a Anti-Stupid-WVO use. With Chasse's post I think we finally got someone to admit the downfalls of WVO.

It's not all rainbows and sunshine and nice smelling exhaust.

If you want to see what happens when you answer no to every single one of Chasse's questions (except do I have $1k to blow on a kit) look at this guy: http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=200803. He cut corners, poured unfiltered junk straight into his tank. Started on D2. Ran Non-synthetic oil, etc.

As 40x40 said, this is a full time job. This isn't a "Oh I have to go grab the kids quick I'll just pour the jug into the tank."

And heck, like one statement I made that started a new thread... even if your IP blows up after 50k, you may still come out ahead.

At this point in our learning (and we certainly are still learning) I would venture that it is a question of fuel quality and delivery. The engines require an adequate supply of clean, dry fuel at appropriate viscosity. That fuel can be petroleum, biodiesel or VO; I don't think the engine cares. Of course, if you are using an alternative fuel, you are totally responsible for ensuring that quality.

As far as being wrong, man folks were just plain wrong. Both here and in the outside world, people were insisting the engine would not run properly, the computer would not accept the fuel and the motor would live a very short life. It seems for the most part, people on the forum have been willing to accept the evidence. That's nice to see.

Well, that depends how you define "run properly". By "properly", I mean just as the OEM intended it, with no additional user intervention or special procedures required. No hard starting, no watching a temperature gauge, no alteration to driving patterns, no switching between fuels X time before arriving at destination, etc. Only when an alternate-fuel system gets to that level, and does so reliably and consistently and with reasonable tolerance of (for example) changing climactic conditions, can it be said that something like this is ready for "everyone".

With the number of failures that have been reported here that involve vegetable-oil fuel, compared to the relatively SMALL number of people that are running vegetable oil fuel compared to the total number of TDI cars on the road ... the critics cannot be called "just plain wrong".

Chasee said:

Heh...

Let's put it this way: if WVO was easy, wouldn't everyone be doing it?

Here are a couple of simple questions to ask yourself and get you on your way to research:

Do I have $3000 to put down, up front?

Do I have a good 7-10 hours/week to devote to this, at least for the first year?

Do I have the ability to follow VERY STRICT procedure for both processing my fuel and operating my vehicle, without fail?

Do I not mind dealing with stinky, nasty, rotten old french fry juice?

Do I have a large indoor space to deal with this stuff, which would not be ruined by a 55 gallon spill?


If you answer yes to all of these, ask yourself one more question, then get to studying:

Do I fully understand that even if I do everything perfectly, my engine could still explode, making this a huge financial and environmental losing proposition?

Click to expand...

Excellent post!

Chase,
Here is a question that I don't remember hearing from a WVO newby, but I feel you should include in your upcoming sticky.

How long must my average trip be in order to consider a WVO installation?

Nice work, and congrats on the PROMOTION.

Bill

"Would a single tank system with heated injectors better? "

Your climate is suitable for a single-tank.
Better single tank systems are available for your PD. PM me if interested.

40X40 said:

Excellent post!

Chase,
Here is a question that I don't remember hearing from a WVO newby, but I feel you should include in your upcoming sticky.

How long must my average trip be in order to consider a WVO installation?

Nice work, and congrats on the PROMOTION.

Bill

Click to expand...

That's actually a great question that I will go back and edit in, giving you credit. I've talked a couple people out of WVO because of this question alone.

Since I don't have a flow meter with which I can totally quantify the exact point at which I save more D2 than I use, I've found that a trip of less than 20 miles is almost always a D2 loser. The amount of D2 used for warm-up, and more importantly, for purge, is more than most people think. If its cold out and takes 8 miles to warm up, its even worse.

Some of you mech heads might have a better idea of actual usage during warm-up, and typical flow of return (D2 or WVO) so feel free to toss some numbers at me. But I do know that, at least with my purge, fuel is flowing big time back into my WVO tank. I once installed an empty WVO filter just so I could use the purge function to fill it, watching in the WVO tank for the bubbles to stop. It went super quick.

That was the long answer.

Actually, there have been some failures on some (not all) bio due to the bio breaking down under the high pressure. I don't have any more information and can't confirm this. With oil, there have been no reports as oil is more stable/less processed than bio. This was reported by an injection engineer in the UK, sadly I wasn't able to confirm it or find out the type/source of bio.

Beetler said:

bio would be safest for your engine, and least intrusive on your life style.
Greasing is hard work and many tdi engines have been ruined on wvo. I speak from exerience. 55000 miles on wvo myself.

Click to expand...

A few further thoughts,

Firstly what's with the 30 mile thing? A proper conversion has you on oil as soon as the temp is up to norm, that should unless something is up with your car be a trip around the block. In city traffic here (rush hour) a 10 mile journey can take 30 mins, for 25 of that you could be on oil as the fast purge facility of a decent kit will flush out the pump in 25 seconds and a further couple of minutes driving is all that's needed to clear the IP lines. So even urban trips can be done mostly on oil. Also you can shut down for up to an hour no problem, so long as the engine is still warm there won't be any issues.

Secondly yes you could risk your engine if something goes wrong. I'd further add to that, don't buy a CAR you can't afford to replace the engine on. There are many threads on failures round the net - who knows what might happen? I have never, in hundreds of thousands of miles of driving, had a failure in any car - most can be avoided by looking after your motor, but you never KNOW. A friend of mind had the car maintained but the cambelt tensioner failed, scrapping his engine, not his fault. Another guy I visited last week ran on diesel, not wvo, yet had two Bosch (same sort as on tdi) pumps go. Yet he ran a Lucas/CAV (totally unsuitable, they seize eventually on oil) on another car on half veg and never had a problem.

For me, there is no 'absolutes'. If I know something I do could cause a problem, I won't do it. I will do everything (maintainence to mods - I just flushed the fluid twice, changed it and did the line mod on my 1.8T auto box, even though VW say it's sealed for life) I can that could make the car better. On the basis of the above, and given I live in an environment where we run these cars on oil routinely and PD conversions are nothing new and no problems, I'm happy to run on oil (I do) WITH a proper conversion.

If you REALLY want to be safe, do what I did when I was a kid - I used to buy 2 cars the same, so I had one for spares - with a good engine/running gear. I also trained to be a mechanic as I couldn't afford for anyone else to fix it.

But I think most people can be fairly safe picking a good car after a good inspection, maintaining it well at a decent specialist and making informed choices.

This is bordering on philosophy...

Greg

Chasee said:

Heh...

Let's put it this way: if WVO was easy, wouldn't everyone be doing it?

Do I drive more than 20-30 miles at one time (without shut down), the vast majority of the time? (credit to member 40x40 for this one)

Do I fully understand that even if I do everything perfectly, my engine could still explode, making this a huge financial and environmental losing proposition?

Click to expand...

Greg,

The 20-30 miles thing is a very general statement. In the US, most driving is highway/non-urban. Yes, if I were still in Manhattan and drove around midtown all day, I may only do 10-15 miles, but burning WVO would still be a winner. Hmm... maybe I'll get a medallion and drive a WVO cab in the city.

But my personal 20-30 mile estimate is what I personally have experienced. Sure, if I'm doing multiple short trips and I know that I'll only shut down for a short time between each, I leave it in WVO for the whole day. But that's getting into advanced theory. The noobs need to know the very strict basics first, then learn how to maximize the system thereafter. Us lot here in the US tend to look for easy shortcuts and don't like to follow rules all that closely. Gotta use a little "social engineering" to get the noobs to do the right thing.

I would advise against using vegetable oil in a tdi that spent a lot of time crawling in traffic.

For starters, if your journey starts in traffic, the engine will take longer to reach full operating temperature.

A number of scientific papers I have read show that at low engine speeds / low engine loads vegetable oil combustion is not ideal. At higher speeds / loads combustion looks good.

The 'great' Elsbett specify that with their Tdi conversions rpms should be kept between 2000 - 2500 when possible and the engine should be turned off when the car is sitting in traffic (at stop signals / traffic lights). I guess their testing concurred with the studies I've read.

lol - I like the cut of your jib!

Chasee said:

Greg,

The 20-30 miles thing is a very general statement. In the US, most driving is highway/non-urban. Yes, if I were still in Manhattan and drove around midtown all day, I may only do 10-15 miles, but burning WVO would still be a winner. Hmm... maybe I'll get a medallion and drive a WVO cab in the city.

But my personal 20-30 mile estimate is what I personally have experienced. Sure, if I'm doing multiple short trips and I know that I'll only shut down for a short time between each, I leave it in WVO for the whole day. But that's getting into advanced theory. The noobs need to know the very strict basics first, then learn how to maximize the system thereafter. Us lot here in the US tend to look for easy shortcuts and don't like to follow rules all that closely. Gotta use a little "social engineering" to get the noobs to do the right thing.

Click to expand...

greg123 said:

I'd further add to that, don't buy a CAR you can't afford to replace the engine on.

Greg

Click to expand...

This one line caught my eye.

If one takes this statement literally it doesn't give much confidence, especially in a thread as this where the context is WVO use. No one should buy a car based on the replacement price of an engine regardless of what fuel is used. One should buy a car based on the engine's reputation for longevity. VW's TDI engines have a proven record of going 500,000kms or 300,000 miles and beyond easily without any significant problems on generic #2. Thus the skeptic opinions concerning WVO here.

Everyone realizes an engine can fail due to lots of things. In my years of reading the forums, the two main causes of premature catastrophic engine failures are due to improperly done timing belt replacements (#1 cause by far) and WVO (a distant 2nd). There is a very small number of cam/lifter failures but there is no definitive consensus on what is the root cause (wrong oil?, bad metallurgy?) and these failures are not catastrophic, just annoying and expensive. All other failures are too rare to rate any kind of pattern. I am not counting the engine failures where people hit something in the road and it takes out the oil pan. That's a different situation altogether.

.

I don't mean to be un-confident in the engine, it's great and I agree with what you say I was just saying, if you want a GUARANTEE, have the spare bucks or a spare engine. I bought a V12 Jag (it can do 300k too, well proven) off a guy that bought it and just after the timing chain let go. As it was a V12 Jag, that wrote the car off. As for VW's, how about the water pump plastic impella breaking up and the vehicle overheating at speed and blowing a head gasket? I do agree that running incorrectly on oil is a major problem though, just as fitting a timing belt incorrectly or not changing the water pump or old dried up tensioner/idler pulleys.

Given a properly fitted cambelt KIT (I always try to get people to have me fit a kit, not just the belt), a new water pump at the time and a well serviced motor I'm happy with the risk of owning one - as you said, it's a good bet. I'm just as happy with a well designed kit, fitted properly, filled with fuel that I prepare myself so I know it's filtered/settled/dewatered properly.

Anyhow happy greasing,
Greg.

BKmetz said:

This one line caught my eye.

If one takes this statement literally it doesn't give much confidence, especially in a thread as this where the context is WVO use. No one should buy a car based on the replacement price of an engine regardless of what fuel is used. One should buy a car based on the engine's reputation for longevity. VW's TDI engines have a proven record of going 500,000kms or 300,000 miles and beyond easily without any significant problems on generic #2. Thus the skeptic opinions concerning WVO here.

Everyone realizes an engine can fail due to lots of things. In my years of reading the forums, the two main causes of premature catastrophic engine failures are due to improperly done timing belt replacements (#1 cause by far) and WVO (a distant 2nd). There is a very small number of cam/lifter failures but there is no definitive consensus on what is the root cause (wrong oil?, bad metallurgy?) and these failures are not catastrophic, just annoying and expensive. All other failures are too rare to rate any kind of pattern. I am not counting the engine failures where people hit something in the road and it takes out the oil pan. That's a different situation altogether.

.

Click to expand...

IMHO, Elsbett don't do amazing things with 2 tank conversions - some of the other converters are more advanced. Where Elsbett pioneered is in the single tank conversions and in the Elsbett 3 cylinder engine which sadly didn't take off. They now invest more in their fuel plants and the kits are a sideline, from what I read on the corporate websites.

Re the papers you read, I have read a lot too and I recall that being a common consensus - HOWEVER, if I recall, most of those tests were NOT carried out on converted engines, eg they were not started and stopped on diesel and they were not fed oil that was hot right to the nozzle. Another paper I read that tested a merc engine (and another with a tractor engine) showed no harm over 200,000km when started and stopped on diesel and fed oil hot.

Anyhow, if you find any tests where engines failed while being run in a correct 2 tank operation mode I'd be interested in reading the papers so please link! The more knowledge the better as far as I'm concerned, I'm happy to alter my point of view!

Cheers, Greg.

DarrenUK said:

I would advise against using vegetable oil in a tdi that spent a lot of time crawling in traffic.

For starters, if your journey starts in traffic, the engine will take longer to reach full operating temperature.

A number of scientific papers I have read show that at low engine speeds / low engine loads vegetable oil combustion is not ideal. At higher speeds / loads combustion looks good.

The 'great' Elsbett specify that with their Tdi conversions rpms should be kept between 2000 - 2500 when possible and the engine should be turned off when the car is sitting in traffic (at stop signals / traffic lights). I guess their testing concurred with the studies I've read.

Click to expand...

I don't think anyone here is suggesting WVO is for everyone; on the contrary it is quite definitely only for a very small minority. At this point, even just a stock diesel vehicle is suitable for a minority of drivers.

The ones who were just plain wrong were the ones who said your engine WILL die a very early death on WVO. In many cases they were wrong.

Or the mechanic up in Maine who ripped the Greasecar kit out of my friends car and launched into a tirade, after he charged her $750 to replace the timing belt. That was wrong.

GoFaster said:

Well, that depends how you define "run properly". By "properly", I mean just as the OEM intended it, with no additional user intervention or special procedures required. No hard starting, no watching a temperature gauge, no alteration to driving patterns, no switching between fuels X time before arriving at destination, etc. Only when an alternate-fuel system gets to that level, and does so reliably and consistently and with reasonable tolerance of (for example) changing climactic conditions, can it be said that something like this is ready for "everyone".

With the number of failures that have been reported here that involve vegetable-oil fuel, compared to the relatively SMALL number of people that are running vegetable oil fuel compared to the total number of TDI cars on the road ... the critics cannot be called "just plain wrong".

Click to expand...

"There is a very small number of cam/lifter failures but there is no definitive consensus on what is the root cause (wrong oil?, bad metallurgy?) and these failures are not catastrophic, just annoying and expensive. All other failures are too rare to rate any kind of pattern"

Nice try. But you seem to forget the most common 'catastrophic ' failure,
Injection pump failure. Very common, and very expensive for the average non-mechanic driver.

WVO failure is rare in comparison, a handfull vs. thousands.
Which cost more?


[ You of course said it 'wouldn't happen]

BioDiesel said:

"There is a very small number of cam/lifter failures but there is no definitive consensus on what is the root cause (wrong oil?, bad metallurgy?) and these failures are not catastrophic, just annoying and expensive. All other failures are too rare to rate any kind of pattern"

Nice try. But you seem to forget the most common 'catastrophic ' failure,
Injection pump failure. Very common, and very expensive for the average non-mechanic driver.

WVO failure is rare in comparison, a handful vs. thousands.
Which cost more?


[ You of course said it 'wouldn't happen]

Click to expand...

Injection pump leaks, or catastrophic pump failures?

Lots of annoying seal leaks due to the switch to ULSD. Pump rebuilds are less than $1000 including labor. Very few pump failures due to ULSD or generic #2 in general.

Lots of injection pump failures due to WVO use and bad bio.

.

"lots"

"rare"

"catastrophic"

"less than"

"very few"

OK, we've all been down this road before. I think we, as a group, are looking to put this endless bickering and usage of generalized/sweeping terms behind us.

There are no statistics on either side. With WVO, of course there are fewer failures than on D2, because there are so few WVO users in comparison to D2 users.

The real question is per capita failures. Since there is no actual factual data concerning this, on either side, comparing the two is illogical. I think we're all ready to move on from this.

What do you say?

Chasee said:

There are no statistics on either side. With WVO, of course there are fewer failures than on D2, because there are so few WVO users in comparison to D2 users.

The real question is per capita failures. Since there is no actual factual data concerning this, on either side, comparing the two is illogical. I think we're all ready to move on from this.

What do you say?

Click to expand...

And the circular debate continues...

I agree with with your first statement.

Compare the total numbers of bio/WVO users to #2 users and yes, bio/WVO users have fewer problems due to their smaller over-all numbers. This is an incorrect way to view the problems.

Compare the PERCENTAGE of bio/WVO users who have problems to the percentage of #2 users, and the occurrences go very high very fast for bio/WVO users.

When you use the term per capita we need some clarification: per capita as all TDI owners, or per capita as only bio/WVO owners, or per capita of bio/WVO owners Vs all owners? The context is very important.

If someone took the time to search the forums and drag up every failure of every car, draw up a spreadsheet, categorize total failures Vs bio/WVO failures, you wouldn't like the results. Bio/WVO would have a higher percentage.

.

BKmetz said:

Compare the total numbers of bio/WVO users to #2 users and yes, bio/WVO users have fewer problems due to their smaller over-all numbers. This is an incorrect way to view the problems.

Compare the PERCENTAGE of bio/WVO users who have problems to the percentage of #2 users, and the occurrences go very high very fast for bio/WVO users.

When you use the term per capita we need some clarification: per capita as all TDI owners, or per capita as only bio/WVO owners, or per capita of bio/WVO owners Vs all owners? The context is very important.

If someone took the time to search the forums and drag up every failure of every car, draw up a spreadsheet, categorize total failures Vs bio/WVO failures, you wouldn't like the results. Bio/WVO would have a higher percentage.

.

Click to expand...

yeah you are complaining about shoddy statistical analogy and then then offering just another shoddy insinuation as a statistical analogy is if it were any better.

In yours, you take specific Americans that are floundering with misinformation and lofty goals of everything being simple and easy, screwing up their high high tech engines and because of this you insinuate that they end all end up at Fred's page related shops to prove your theory. You only consider the failures and discount the possibility that there many be successes to consider.

what about the possibility that many of the TDI's that run on grease are done so by people that would not go to a mechanics shop at all, or one run by a Fred's page participant in the first place. do you see the arrogance in your analogy? your arguments never include the possibilities of successes and they seem to aim in that ambitious direction. How very unscientific is that?

Then you have the much more prolific European grease seen that you have no read on in the first place, and that you exclude the successes there in also, just out of hand, and just so you can maintain your righteous indignation on the matter.

How unscientific is that perspective man. Your arguments are just as tired out and faulty as you would accuse about whom you argue with.

All that your arguments shows is that it is easy to screw up a motor on WVO.
In no way does it show anything else but superstition.

Beetler said:

All that your arguments shows is that it is easy to screw up a motor on WVO.

Click to expand...

Um. It IS easy to screw up an engine on WVO. Just like it's easy to screw up a TB job.

As Chasee pointed out, you do have to prepare it very carefully. If you don't and say just dump it straight in. YOU CAN SCREW IT UP.