Veggie Fuel Alternative?

I'm not sure this qualifies as a safety issue or not - at least I assume it doesn't in terms of crash testing ... but, the lease on my boyfriend's Acura MDX is about to expire & he's interesting in a Veggie Fuel Car (probably a VW Passat?) - we live in a rather progressive yet rural area & there are a few places that convert deisel engines to run on Veggie fuel ... I'm just hoping someone here can help me research the pros/cons & such a bit

I know VW diesels are really good, if the dealer here could get us a Jetta wagon diesel in less than 6 months that's what we would get. They don't have very many choices at the dealers here at all. I know dh has done lots of research on bio-diesel, he has a 73 vw bus he wants to convert to a bio-diesel. I will ask him later today about the pros and cons of bio-diesel. The other thing to consider is that (at least vw diesels) they usually get much better mileage than regular gas engines. I'll see what I can find out for you.
~Sarah~

Oh, great! THANK YOU

Okay, this is what I have so far, when you mean veggie fuel are you talking about bio-diesel or something else? All new VW diesel engines can run on bio-diesel without having to change anything and it doesn't invalidate your warranty. If you go to www.vw.com they have lots of info about their TDI engine, I had to search a little bit, most of the info I found once I clicked on owners and poked around for a few minutes. I was able to download a PDF about the diesel engine, I can e-mail it to you if you want, I'm not sure how to attach it to my message. If we didn't need a car right away and hadn't found as good a deal on the 2004 Jetta wagon (brand new, less than 1000 miles on it!) we would wait till the dealer could get us a TDI. We don't know yet if we got the car or not, had to get some info for financing and the people we needed the info from were already gone for the weekend when we found out we needed it . So, hopefully tomorrow we will be dropping off my Ford Taurus wagon that is dying and getting a new Jetta! Can't wait to find out. The Jetta drives really nice, didn't drive a Passat, that is out of our price range, so I didn't even want to sit in it (fear of falling in love with it and not being able to get it, kwim?). Is the first time you finance a car always this stressful? We've always had older cars that we were able to pay cash for, so this is a new experience for us. Sorry to ramble on your post, lol, I will see if I can find out anymore info for you about bio-diesels. I saw that the August issue of National Geographic had an article about alternative fuels, but I didn't get a chance to read it yet. Hope this helped some!
~Sarah~

Papooses- Try this one http://www.biodieselsolutions.com/home/home.asp and http://www.freedomfuelamerica.com/ .I think freedom fuel more or less just leads to the first one though.
DH and I were just talking about this and watched a show about it. If you understood how it works, you could build it yourself instead of buying the kit. It looks like a still, so maybe if you make moonshine, you could make bio diesel...lol
We have a friend who owns a restaraunt and he said he *pays* someone to haul away his used french fry oil. So this could be a super cheap way to fuel your car. Someone pays you to take your main ingredient....lol And the best part is your car always smells like a french fry.

Thank you, thank you, thank you

Yes, we've heard that we could get free used french fry oil from restaurants My boyfriend is really the one figuring this all out, but neither of us have found these links before - I don't know the difference between regular diesel or bio, but I know the engine has to be converted to run off vegetable oil - I'll pass this info all on to him This was very helpful....

• Has VW approved any biodiesel fuels for use in any of its vehicles?
  Volkswagen of America's Statement – Biodiesel Fuel
  
  Volkswagen of America, Inc. is proud to be the automobile industry’s leader in diesel technology for passenger cars and light-duty trucks. Many customers have expressed interest to us in operating their Volkswagen TDI vehicles on “biodiesel” fuel. As you may know, this is a special fuel that is made from renewable agricultural resources, mostly originating in North America from soybeans. Biodiesel is most commonly used in a blend with conventional petroleum-based diesel fuel. We are very pleased to inform you that just as Volkswagen has been a leader in passenger car diesel technology, we now also lead in the development and use of biodiesel fuel.
  
  As a result of a major joint research project between the Volkswagen Group and the prominent agricultural products firm Archer Daniels Midland Company, and improvements in the specifications for biodiesel fuel in North America, Volkswagen has determined that diesel fuel containing up to five percent biodiesel meets the technical specifications for Volkswagen vehicles equipped with TDI engines imported to the United States. Therefore, the diesel fuel commonly known as “B5 biodiesel” is acceptable for use in all our TDI vehicles.
  
  Volkswagen hopes that by approving B5 biodiesel for usage in our TDI vehicles, we will encourage biodiesel development and increase the biodiesel industry’s role in developing high quality renewable fuels for motor vehicles. This, combined with the exceptional fuel economy that Volkswagen TDI owners already experience, has the potential to be a small part of the energy independence we all seek. Volkswagen sees biodiesel as a key element of a comprehensive long-range fuel strategy that relies on efficient, clean diesel technology and the use of an increasingly broad portfolio of renewable fuels.
  
  We do want to take a moment to speak to you about fuel quality. While this historic decision by Volkswagen is a first step in a renewable fuel strategy for our cars, it is not a departure from our strong recommendation that you use only high-quality fuel, nor from our long-standing fuel requirements for warranty purposes, whether diesel, biodiesel, or gasoline. We will continue to view fuel issues in the same fair manner as we always have in the past, but we must stress that vehicle damage that results from misfueling or from the usage of substandard or unapproved fuels cannot be covered under our vehicle warranties.
  
  As you know, today’s motor vehicle engines, including our very advanced TDI engines, are engineered with great precision and are sensitive to the fuel they use. Biodiesel fuel can be refined from a wide variety of raw materials, having a wide range of properties and specifications. The U.S biodiesel industry has adopted a new standard for biodiesel fuel (ASTM D6751), and most of the biodiesel already being produced in the United States and Canada, as much as 95% of current supplies in the U.S., meets this specification. Biodiesel fuel which does not meet the latest specification, however, has the potential to damage your vehicle’s fuel delivery and fuel injection system.
  
  Volkswagen recommends that you use standard diesel fuel, or biodiesel blend fuels of up to five percent (B5), purchased from a mainstream retailer through a commercial pump. Should the use of substandard fuels, or higher level blends of biodiesel, damage your engine or fuel system, such damage cannot be covered under warranty. If a fuel problem related to substandard diesel fuel or biodiesel blend fuel occurs with your vehicle, you may be asked to provide the source or sales location of the fuel.
  
  Volkswagen and Archer Daniels Midland continue to conduct research regarding the use of biodiesel blend fuels, including higher level blends such as “B20” (20 percent biodiesel, 80 percent petrodiesel), as well as to develop appropriate specifications that will assure the suitability of such fuels for use in our vehicles. Should this result in Volkswagen recommending the use of such fuels and deciding to cover their use under warranty, we will notify you at a later date.
  
  In summary:
  
  Volkswagen recommends the use of standard diesel fuel or commercially supplied biodiesel blends of no more than five percent (“B5”) biodiesel.
  Never use any fuel, whether diesel, B5 biodiesel, or otherwise, that fails to meet the latest petroleum industry specifications or that is not purchased from a commercial retail diesel pump. If you are unable to determine whether a particular fuel blend is B5 biodiesel that meets the latest biodiesel industry specifications (ASTM D6751), ask your service station for more information.
  Never use any fuel for which the contents cannot be identified.
  This latest step by Volkswagen is a major advancement in our effort to advance diesel engine technology and to contribute to the development of clean, renewable energy. If you have any questions or comments, we would love to hear them. Please direct them to Volkswagen Customer Care, 3499 W. Hamlin Road, Rochester Hills, Michigan 48309, or at 1-800-822-8987. You can also learn a great deal about biodiesel, and identify biodiesel retailers, at http://www.biodiesel.org, the official website of the U.S. National Biodiesel Board.

That is exactly the info I found from VW for you! If I can get anymore info out of dh I will pass it on your way. He talked about turning his old vw bus into a fuel cell vehicle for a while, but since the bus is in storage in WA state and we are in Alaska, that's not happening for a while, lol! Good luck sifting thru all the information that's out there. We should know something in a few hours about the car, it's still pretty early here. Thanks for crossing your fingers for us!
~Sarah~

My husband had a Greasecar conversion kit on his '94 Suburban. It doesn't run biodiesel; it runs on filtered waste vegetable oil. Actually, we can switch from regular diesel to a different tank that has the veggie oil, so if you don't have any veggie it still runs fine on diesel. We've had good success with it now that we have the filtering process down.

As you can see above, using veggie is going to void your warranty for any fuel-related problems. However, there are several people on the Greasecar site (www.greasecar.com) that have converted new VW's anyway. I guess it's sort of a risk/benefit analysis you have to make for yourself. The Greasecar site has a little section on emissions also.

For saving money it is great--my husband drives 90 miles a day, 5 to 6 days a week. We use about 45 to 50 gallons of veggie oil a week, which costs less than $2 to filter. So our savings have been running about $500 a month. It takes my husband about an hour each week to collect from the restaurants and another hour to filter it. It is messy as we have a large scale operation.

Whether it would be worth it with a VW is hard to say, especially if you're going to void a warranty. You would have less time into filtering and could probably use your kitchen without too much mess. But you wouldn't save as much, either. I like the idea of recycling waste oil, but I don't know if it's really worth it if you're using a small amount of fuel.

On the other hand, if you're looking at a VW that is already out of warranty, than your risk is less and veggie oil might be a better option.

For the record, we've had no veggie related problems with our engine.

HTH,
Julie

Julie, you're making perfect sense - I believe my dad would be more than willing to change his old truck to veggie fuel if possible, but I'm not sure my BF would be willing to do so with a brand new VW ... although, he's currently commuting between upsate NY (Fingerlakes region & towards the Catskills) & NYC/Long Island every few days @@

I don't think I could do it to a new car b/c of the warranty thing. We were looking into it for our friend's mid 90's Dodge Ram (way past the warranty). If it worked well, we were going to buy a Ram just old enough to not have a warranty. We were also thinking about converting dh's Bug to a diesel, although even on regular gas I think they get close to 50 mpg!LOL I finally convinced him to sell the Bug though b/c they are tiny little tin cans and if he dies, he leaves behind 2 young children (yes, I guilted him into it LOL).
Everyone in our family has a Dodge Ram diesel so it was going to be a family project.