Mk7 greasecar

drewpul

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I just picked up a 2015 GSW and plan in the next year or two to try to convert it to a WVO system!

From what I can tell, nobody has attempted to do this with an EA288, right?
 

Nuje

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I think the reason no one has attempted is that it's a bad idea.
The tolerances in the fuel system in these newer cars is so tight that you're just asking for trouble (and mega-$$ repairs) when - not if - things go sour.
 

turbobrick240

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Not just a bad idea- a terrible idea. The fuel system pressures in the commonrails just won't work with grease/veggie oil. I don't think you'd get more than 500 miles, if that.
 

IndigoBlueWagon

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You could run it on biofuels if you deleted the emissions system and retuned it to eliminate the post combustion injections. But I agree it's a bad idea. If you don't want to run fossil fuels I'd explore synfuels instead.
 

JELLOWSUBMARINE

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What about turning your interest to propane or on demand Hydrogen?
 

turbobrick240

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Biodiesel would be a much better approach, but even then I wouldn't want to run much more than a B20 blend. The injectors will gum up pretty fast with B100 for sure. Renewable diesel would really be the way to go, if it's available.
 

lemoncurd

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What about turning your interest to propane or on demand Hydrogen?
i second this

the only other fuel than diesel, or HHO, i would run in a CR TDI would be waste motor oil that has been properly converted into useable fuel. And even then that is quite a task as you'll need some hardware modifications to the car to run it.
 

philngrayce

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I believe you are correct that no one has tried this yet, at least not that I’m aware of.

There is a reasonable chance you will get it to work, but as Indigobluewgon says, the emissions and postcombustion injection may be your biggest hurdles.

You should go into it understanding that you may ruin the engine (I don’t think you will, but I might be wrong). Of course you should also be sure you have an adequate supply of oil and the ability to filter it

if you do attempt it, please let us know how it works, good or bad. Best of luck.
 

turbobrick240

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The biggest hurdle would be the fuel viscosity and other properties not being compatible with the extremely high pressures generated in the commonrail fuel system. Unless you can budget for new fuel injectors (CP4 hpfp won't like it either) on a weekly basis, it's a dead end.
 

philngrayce

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I assume he plans to use a heated two tank system; this will address the viscosity. As far as incompatibility of other properties, nobody knows since nobody has tried it in this engine. If he decides to go ahead with it, we will find out.
 

turbobrick240

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I'm quite sure people have already tried. I know some truck guys have done it on commonrails with poor results. People are usually more eager to broadcast their successes than failures on the internet, surprisingly. :)

Here's what you'd have to look forward to (on a diesel much more forgiving of crap fuel):


 

philngrayce

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The only common rail diesel I have seen run on WVO is a Jeep Liberty and it ran well. I remember being told that the early Jettas would not tolerate WVO, but they did. Then the PD engines could never take WVO, but they worked fine. The truth is we just don’t know if the common rail will. I suspect it will, if he can overcome the electronic issues. But we won’t know until simeone tries it.

FWIW, it appears that in both of those videos they may have been using a single tank, probably unheated, fuel system. That is definitely not the way to run WVO in any engine, especially a modern one.
 
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turbobrick240

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Well, I think it is a tremendous disservice to the OP to encourage veg oil use on a commonrail TDI. He's the one who will have to pay for the repairs. And there will be repairs if he runs it for any appreciable number of miles. I have several friends who ran grease kits (heated two tank systems) on old idi diesels for a short time, only to remove the systems due to problems. I even bought an old idi D24 Volvo with the intent to convert to grease, but didn't after seeing all of the problems my friends were having.
 

philngrayce

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I completely agree - the OP should not be encouraged to use vegetable oil. He should be made aware of the risks and consequences. He can then decide for himself if he wants to try it.

I suspect your friends were doing something seriously wrong. I have never seen an idi diesel damaged by VO. And that includes some running straight oil in the main tank, no heated two tank conversion. In fact, I don't know anyone who had problems running it in direct injection systems either. I have heard some stories of problems on here, and I don’t doubt their accuracy, but nobody I know personally had problems running WVO in a decent two tank system.
 

turbobrick240

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My friends were the same way- singing the praises of WVO... until they all ran into problems with the fuel injection systems, plugged filters, and coked valves. This forum was chock full of enthusiastic fresh converts 20 years ago when grease kits were all the rage. Where did they all go? Radio silence typically within a year or two of converting to grease.
 

philngrayce

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Simply not true. And I was one of those here 20 years ago. I know lots of people who are no longer regularly using WVO; I am one of them. But I don’t know one single person who experienced engine problems because of it. I’m sure they exist, and I have always been curious about why some have such a bad experience while most do just fine. But it seems to work well in the vast majority of cases. Even I was surprised by that.

That applies to older cars, pre-2009 or so. To the OP I still recommend caution because we have no data on the VW common rails with VO.
 

turbobrick240

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Your experience is certainly different than mine. None of my buddies stuck with it for more than a couple of years because their cars didn't appreciate the substandard fuel. It also became burdensome for them to collect, store, filter, filter, filter, and filter the goop. I homebrewed biodiesel for a few months, and while it was a fun experience, I gave it up for the same reasons- too burdensome.
 

IndigoBlueWagon

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philngrayce, I have to say your experience is, or is close to, unique. I have endless stories of WVO users with all kinds of failures: IPs, injectors, fuel lines, polymer (or something) building up on valves, rings jamming...it goes on. One proud WVO user I know proudly told me he budgeted $1,000/year for WVO related failures. And this was in 2006 or so when both TDI parts and diesel was less expensive.

I used to be a fan of running a biodiesel blend in my rotary pump cars. I even had a 275 gallon tank installed at my house so I could buy and use B20. But that ship sailed with the advent of DPF equipped diesels and the disappearance of readily available biodiesel in my area. I do miss it: the older cars ran great on a blend. But WVO? No way.
 

philngrayce

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Running the car on WVO is not easy. You need to make modifications to the car and then you have to make your own fuel. Filtering (and dewatering) are probably critical to success. You also have to operate the car correctly - warming up and purging, specifically. It is not for everyone; in fact it is probably not for very many people at all. But if you enjoy the process, it is quite rewarding. I did not recommend it for most of my friends. That said, without being too dramatic, it was one of the highlights of my life. Perhaps not a major one, but not an insignificant one either. I mostly enjoyed it, learned a great deal and made a few buddies. Even my friends who had no interest in doing it themselves found it pretty fascinating.

Funny thing is my experience was not unique. As I say, it seems the failures were more unique. (Is more unique a thing?) I suspect it may he a case of a house fire being news while a house not on fire isn’t news. If your car runs fine, it’s not a big deal. If the engine blows up, that’s a big deal. It was also a factor that as WVO became scarce, people using it were less inclined to brag about it for fear of losing their supply. As much as some preached the gospel of environmental salvation, there was never enough waste oil to really make any sort of a difference.

There might actually be a book in the study of the whole movement. Besides running cars, trucks and busses on it, people were heating their houses with it, as well as the homemade biodiesel segment. There were a few briefly large companies (large is a relative term) launched and one even sponsored a racing team. I’m not going to write the book, but if someone else does I will enjoy reading it.
 

turbobrick240

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I've got the title for whoever wants to write that book, 'Zen, and the art of making an ungodly mess'. :)
 

philngrayce

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Well, the truth is I did make a few messes. And I liked Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance quite a bit back in the day.
 

turbobrick240

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The most informative lesson I learned from collecting wvo was which local restaurants I should probably avoid eating fried foods from. The closest one actually had really nice clean oil that would make you hungry, lol. Others.... not so much.
 

philngrayce

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True, there were some ones with pretty unappealing oil.

I was collecting oil in New York City in the early days, and it was a bonanza. Lots of restaurants on every block. I think they payed quite a bit to get rid of the oil, this being New York. My first restaurant was apparently a popular, high end Indian American fusion spot, whatever that means. My wife heard something about it and what a great place it was, but so expensive and so hard to get a reservation. I said I know that joint - I go there every week for oil and the chef always gives me a plate of something to taste. She got mad.

Another time I was picking up jugs from a British fish and chips shop when the owner of the Thai place next door came running put and asked “Can you take my oil too? Please.” I said I’m sorry lady, I just can’t use any more.

The oil collecting was sometimes messy, always smelly, but a lot of fun too.
 

gearheadgrrrl

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20 years ago if you wanted biodiesel you pretty much had to make your own, unless you were near one of the early biodiesel plants. Now there are commercial scale plants producing quality biodiesel from soy and animal grease stocks, so no point in making your own.
 

dieseldonato

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Have a mate that to this day runs veg oil and used engine oil in all his diesel powered equipment, including a few different diesel pickups. He live on a farm and uses the old horse barn for filtering, water removal and whatever else he does to it. Spends a lot of time collecting the wvo and ueo. Just as much getting it fit to run. I'm pretty sure he heat his shop with it as well. Quite interesting, but nothing I'd personally want to mess with.
 

philngrayce

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I don’t know what the chemicals cost these days, but one of the advantages of making your own biodiesel was the price, way under $1 a gallon, iirc. I never did it mainly because I didn’t like the chemicals and the risks. With kids and animals around, and my own carelessness, it just didn’t seem wise. Plus WVO was pretty close to free, once the car is modified and the filtration is set up.

I never liked the idea of burning waste motor oil, but I know people do it. I’ve heard the emissions are pretty bad, though I don’t know if that is true. I know it is legal to burn it for heating in most places. WVO does work well for heating too, though waste motor oil seems to work even better, disregarding emissions.

There is a time commitment. I would not recommend anyone do it just for free fuel; I always considered it a hobby as well as an environmental issue. That said, I saved a LOT of money over the years.
 

drewpul

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Thank you all for the comments! I'm going to continue to research this, but it will probably be a year or so until i seriously attempt this.
 

IndigoBlueWagon

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20 years ago if you wanted biodiesel you pretty much had to make your own, unless you were near one of the early biodiesel plants. Now there are commercial scale plants producing quality biodiesel from soy and animal grease stocks, so no point in making your own.
Actually around here the reverse of this is the case. Twenty years ago there were multiple sources for biodiesel and several filling stations fairly near me that had 99% bio or bio blends available. Now there are none. My local fuel and heating oil distributor had access to bio, and delivered a bio blend to my house. I haven't been able to buy that for nearly 10 years.

Massachusetts had a big push for what they called "bioheat" which was supposed to be a bio blend for heating homes (a lot of homes around here, including mine, are heated with oil). It never was implemented because of oil dealers fighting the change, citing lack of inside (warm) storage for bio. I investigated heating my house with bio. B100 for home heating is ideal: Clean, quiet, and because it's in a basement, not subject to gelling. but I couldn't find anyone to deliver it, nor was anyone willing to make the minor modifications to my heating system the fuel switch would have required.

I still hold out hope for some kind of synfuel that will keep diesels going without the use of fossil fuels.
 

gearheadgrrrl

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As they're already running at capacity most of the biodiesel plants aren't too motivated to provide B100 to consumers, they prefer the mandated B5 to B20 blends. However, one of the co-ops near me has B100 at the pump for their members and another fuel jobber specializes in B100 and will deliver it to your tank. The benefits of living in soybean country...
 

philngrayce

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There was a lot of talk about algae based biodiesel some years back, but I’ve seen nothing about it in quite a while.

Gearheadgrrrl, what are they charging for B100?

Drewpul, if you do it please keep us posted.
 
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