Fuel Substitute

[smd1]

I went to buy some diesel this morning, all three of my local garages had sold out.

If the lack of fuel for sale continues, could I possibly take some fuel out of my central heating storage tank to use in my car? Is it the same as diesel sold in the garages, and would it be safe to use in my car without causing any damage or breaking the law?

smd1

[Jay]

http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/1240039/ShowPost.aspx

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=531050

[smd1]

Thanks for the links Jay.

I remember red diesel and know what it looks like, my oil for the central heating isn't red.

smd1

[cooperlola]

I don't think that heating oil and diesel are the same thing and this article seems to bear me out:

http://www.conocophillips.com/EN/about/energy/energytypes/pages/diesel.aspx

but I could be wrong!

How about vegetable oil?

http://www.sovereignty.org.uk/features/footnmouth/biofuel.html

The second article talks about somebody who had used central heating oil with some success, as you will see.

[crossy67]

Heating oil or Kerosene will run a diesel engine, a friend of mine used to pinch the stuff out of his folks oil tank for his work van, he was supposed to fuel for private mileage.  His parents had the boiler serviced every 2 months trying to sort out the heavy consumption lol. 

One big word of caution though. Modern common rail diesels run a very high pressure pump that relies on the fuel for it's lubricant, get the wrong viscosity or one with different properties under pressure or temperature and it's by by fuel pump.  Here in the UK you are looking any where between £600 and £1000 to refurbish one.  As a side note, don't let your common rail diesel run low on fuel for this reason, it ruins the pumps in seconds.

[smd1]

Thanks for your advice cross67. I don't think it is worth the risk and I shall stay at home until things have improved at the garages. Perhaps, there has been a spate of people filling up their tanks whereas they would normally buy €40 of fuel or thereabouts, and by next week they will not need to buy anymore.

Thank you for posting the links Cooperlola

smd1

[Pierre ZFP]

As cross67 says, it probably will work for a while but the potential downsides are huge. Anyway, yes it is illegal to run your car on heating fuel as the right amount of tax hasn't been paid.  That's the reason that Red diesel is red so it can easily be identified just by dipping the tanks.  Yeah you can remove the dye by passing it through charcoal but there are other chemical markers that can't be removed so easily.

In many parts of the world, vegatable oil is used but engines sometimes need modifications as the veg oil can degrade tubing.  I've also heard of people using recycled cooking oil but the dead giveaway is that the car smells like a chip van as it passes [:D]

[Will]

'Diesel' can mean a lot of things. The sort you use in your car is known, at least in Britain, as Derv (I think it stands for diesel engine road vehicle or similar) and as 'gazole' in France. This is very similar to agricultural/marine diesel, and there are different quality grades of that too, including 'red' diesel. All of these are distillate fuels - i.e. they are distilled from crude oil. 'Diesel' is sometimes also used, erroneously, to refer to the residual heavy fuel oils - i.e. what is left over after distilling diesel and gasoline (petrol in English - 'petrole' in French is totally different) fuels used in large, specially-equipped diesel engines in ships and power stations.

The major differences between the grades of diesel are, first, the amount of distillation. Lower-quality fuels will be distilled less and contain more 'crude' than Derv, resulting in a higher viscosity and a significantly lower 'cetane' (combustion quality). Also there may be additives in higher-quality fuels, used to improve combustion or stop the fuel freezing at low air temperatures. Higher-grade heating oil will contain an anti-freezing additive.

French heating oil is a diesel fuel. The stuff in our fuel tank is exactly the same that our farming neighbours use in their tractors as well as their heating systems - we often combine orders to share a tanker load. It is also known as 'fioul' or 'mazout'. Although not as obvious as UK 'red' diesel it does contain a pink colouring to enable it to be identified as a lower-tax fuel.

Car engines will run on fioul, but its use is illegal and can be detected by the douanes. Modern engines with high-pressure turbochargers, common-rail fuel systems, and exhaust gas recirculation valves may not run particularly well, and there may be a lot of visible smoke which can rather give the game away.

English heating oil is kerosene, not a diesel fuel, and much closer in nature to French 'petrole'.

Sorry to be boring and technical, but the different fuel grades are a hot topic at present in the field of marine engineering in which I work, due to tighter sulphur emissions regulations in some parts of the world, including the Channel and North Sea.

[Chancer]

Thanks for that interesting explanation Will.

Am I right in thinking that kerosene is avgas? Can one run an aircraft on UK heating oil?

Oh and is petrole close to paraffin?

Editted. In fact after reading your post again (I am notorious for not reading properly) have you not made a mistake where you say Petrol is Petrole in French? I thought that Petrole was what they used in portable heaters hence my paraffin question.

Mind you I have seen signs for Petrole at filling stations which has confused me.

[Will]

Chancer, yes, you are right.

Kerosene and aviation fuel pretty much the same thing, and 'petrole' in France is paraffin, exactly as used in portable heaters, and another relation of kerosene.

I'm probably just as notorious for not writing clearly enough in first draft - if you read it the way it was intended, it should say that petrole in France is totally different from petrol in English. The French equivalent to petrol is of course 'essence'.

And you are right, petrole is often sold at filling stations. I'm old enough to remember when English garages usually had a paraffin pump (Esso Blue or similar), not to mention a dalek-like device on wheels with a big handle on the side for dispensing two-stroke fuel.

[powerdesal]

Kerosene and aviation fuel pretty much the same thing,

Kerosene is pretty much AVTUR, not Avgas, which is petrol.

[cooperlola]

When I saw this thread I thought of you, Steve, and wondered where you had got to.  Now I know (not quite what you thought, eh?)

[Will]

Thanks for the clarification Steve - my subject is ships and boats, not aircraft. Avgas is indeed petrol (high octane gasoline according to my sources) used to power piston-engined aircraft. And just as you say, jet aircraft use kerosene-type fuel (of which there appear to be several grades, just as with diesel).

Just to confuse the issue even further, land-based and marine/offshore gas turbines, many of which are aero-derived, run on diesel fuel rather than kerosene (and a few even run on heavy fuel oil).

[cooperlola]

It's been a surprisingly interesting thread this.  It's so often a great subject for "bar talk" especially at times like these when people will advise one that all sorts of bizarre products "work just as well" as the stuff you buy at the pumps. Good to get proper facts, not just whimsy.  Thanks guys.

[Gluestick]

Just to add to the body of knowledge, Jet Engine (Both pure jet and turbo-prop) fuels are generically known as "JP". (Jet Propulsion).

The correct product types are different, however, according to specific grades and applied purpose.

Here is a good explanation of both civilian and military product specs.

See Here:

[Chancer]

Well after being ashamed at myself for filling up my tank when I still had a gallon left I suppose I feel slightly better knowing that I would have problems filling up tomorrow although I my self have contibuted to them.

I have used about half a gallon going to dive training and the level always settles no matter how slowly I fill up with diesel, today I managed to squeeze in a gallon of 98% petrol 2% diesel mix (recovered from the tank of friend who slipped up), one gallon to a whole tank doesnt seem to affect things at all as I have an old fashioned mechanical diesel pump although I am now running slightly more advanced pump timing.

[Etoile]

There is so much rubbish spoken about petrol in diesel engines. Last winter I filled up my diesel Citroen with petrol. Did not realise, drove some two miles, then cranked it and cranked it. Next day, took along a booster battery and cranked it and cranked it again, as I thought I had just got VERY low on fuel and drawn in sludge. Called the AA who said, yes, petrol in there. Could not believe it. Drained 90% of it out and filled up with diesel, 20,000km later has not missed a beat. Modern HDI engine and every forum I read told me my pump, injectors etc. would all be shot. The guys in my local pub just looked at the floor.

The world seems to be full of people who give the wrong advice because either they have a vested interest or they are just incapable of saying 'I don't know', so that just pass on what they have heard without any qualification.

[Quillan]

Bit like the witty comments about making diesel from fish 'n' chips oil and that it leaves the smell of fish 'n' chips as you drive down the road. Always made me laugh, I often wondered if you got the oil from the local Indian restaurant if you would get a smell of curry every where you went but sadly no. [;-)] The other 'urban myth' is to add aspirin to each individual cell on a flat car battery, that doesn't work either, I tried it.

[crossy67]

Common rail fuel pumps can and are very fragile.  I know of two Vauxhall CDTi pumps that have failed through being run low on diesel.  One was low when parked up at night and would not start the next day, it had been sucking air.  I replaced the pump with a recon one (£650+vat iirc) and it was good as new.  The other had been sucking air for a short time and stopped, luckily the owner is in the motor trade and knows his local Vauxhall service manager very well so got it done under warranty, the van was only a couple of months old.

We run 3 HDi Peugeots (same as many Citroens) and have had one lad run his van out of diesel, we filled it up and it did start and run but was never the same until we had the pump refubed because of a leak.  The Pug/Cit pumps do seem a bit more robust than some but for the cost would you risk it?  I have never heard of running low on fuel damaging injectors but I do know Pug/Cit ones are coaded to the ECU so if you damage one you can't get a second hand one.

[PaulT]

I understand that if you want to run your vehicle permanently on the red stuff then you have two tanks, one concealed that holds the red stuff and one connected to the external filler filled with 'ordinary' diesel so they can dip the tank and not find anything amiss.

Wills talk of viscosity took me back 35 years.........

Worked in a boiler house that used 3500 second oil - nice an thick like bitumen. It was heated to 300 degrees F and pumped at 300psi. Each of the stokers had a boiler that it was their responsibility to keep clean and tidy. Charlies boiler was always the best. Anyway, took the gun out of the one next to his, overhauled it and put it back. Unfortunately, one of the seals dropped out of place. When I went to fire it up it sprayed this hot oil all over the part of the front of Charlies boiler.

As regards petrol in diesel vehicles is not one of the problems that the seals used are attacked by petrol hence giving rise to problems.

Paul