Hi guys,
firstly have tried a search but came up with over 6000 threads to go through!
do any of you guys run on veg oil mix for your deisels?? i know you need a bosch pump for this (any easy way to check what pump you have??) and have seen quite a few peeps comment on running veg oil on ebay adds, but just wondered what the legalities are in doing so?? a friend of ours who's an Ex politician went off on a rant about paying duty on oil bought from a supermarket etc??
i figured someone on here would know the do's and donts?? is it really as simple as buying from a supermarket and pouring in???
I can help you out on a few things here. You are allowed 2500 litres of use per year before you need to register for duty. It never used to be the case but it was costing HMRC more to administer than they received in duty so they changed the requirements. Easiest way to chck your pump is to open the bonnet and look at your pump. If it says Bosch, then there is a fair chance that you have a Bosch fitted, if it says Lucas then you are out of luck.
I tend to run quite high percentages of veg in the summer (usually recycled, but sometimes SVO) but lower to none during the winter. I don't do a hell of a lot of mileage in the winter so it isn't THAT important to me to spend the extra.
If you have an HDi, don't do it. Only use veg on the older indirect injection type of engine.
Fuels of ant description are subject to road fuel duty and vat so simply buying veg oil tax and duty free in the supermarket is a strict no no.
There are reductions provided in the duty regime for re-use of chip oil etc. but you probably need to be a lawyer or tax specialist to understand them all.
Gibbo2286 wrote:Fuels of ant description are subject to road fuel duty and vat so simply buying veg oil tax and duty free in the supermarket is a strict no no.
There are reductions provided in the duty regime for re-use of chip oil etc. but you probably need to be a lawyer or tax specialist to understand them all.
This is true for any use over 2500 litres. Under that no duty is payable. I used to have a link for the relevent regulation but can't find it at the moment, I'll have a search.
Gibbo2286 wrote:Fuels of ant description are subject to road fuel duty and vat so simply buying veg oil tax and duty free in the supermarket is a strict no no.
There are reductions provided in the duty regime for re-use of chip oil etc. but you probably need to be a lawyer or tax specialist to understand them all.
This is true for any use over 2500 litres. Under that no duty is payable. I used to have a link for the relevent regulation but can't find it at the moment, I'll have a search.
Are you sure about that Penguin? The gov HMRC site says :
Exempt Producers
Producers of less than 2,500 litres per annum are exempted from the requirement to enter their production premises, to render returns or to pay excise duty on the biofuel they produce.
Note they say 'producers' not 'users', I know a colleague of mine went deeply into this with the revenue when he was trucking and had access to large quantities of used chip oil, which he was filtering and using in his Peugeot 406, the revenue clearly informed him that duty was payable on his usage but at the reduced rate.
thanks guys, so it sounds like i can use upto 2500L of veg oil without having to pay duty then, i thik i can cope with that,
one thing, searchign a few forums lots of SVO and similar acronym's floating about, being a newb to the Deisel world ive No idea what they mean! but SVO as in Straight Veg oil?? direct from the shelf?? (found on an aussie biofuel forum!) would WVO = Waste veg oil??
see told you complete Newb!!!
will pop the bonnet when it sint raining and the littluns arnt destroying the lounge and see what it sais!!
Yes I am sure. You are classed as the producer of the fuel if you purchase it. When you buy it it is cooking oil, you have turned it into fuel by adding it to your tank. HMRC will class you as the producer. In the link I provided 4.2.1 says 'producers/users'
SVO= new veg oil fresh from the bottle
WVO= waste oil. Sometimes refers to the stuff you get from the chippy but also can be used to mean that you have already cleaned/dried it.
Bear in mind that you tend to get less mpg on veg, so you need to do your sums depending on how cheap you can get your SVO.
Penguin wrote:Yes I am sure. You are classed as the producer of the fuel if you purchase it. When you buy it it is cooking oil, you have turned it into fuel by adding it to your tank. HMRC will class you as the producer. In the link I provided 4.2.1 says 'producers/users'
Well I guess my pal must have been mis-informed by the Revenue and Customs officer, I've just asked him to clarify since my last post. he was told plainly that if he was caught using the fuel he'd recycled from chip oil as road fuel without declaring and paying the reduced duty rate he would be liable to a heavy fine and the possibility of confiscation of his vehicle.
How long ago was he informed? The 2500l exemption came in a couple of years ago (maybe 3). Presumably if he was running a truck fleet he would use over 2500 litres? The exemption was designed for private users rather than businesses hence the limit (which I actually think is quite generous). If you are using WVO and you share a 'facility' i.e. youhave a filtering operation set up somewhere and you share your spoils with someone else, the 2500litre allowance is split between you.
Also, it wouldn't be teh first time a government agency mis-informed someone
Last edited by Penguin on 17 Jul 2011, 12:26, edited 1 time in total.
Costco/Makro is your friend, KTC 20L is under £20 at the moment.
I run 100% veg in the summer, and mix it with a bit of derv when there's ice on the road.
Change your fuel filter every 6000miles unless you find you can't reach the higher revs before then.
Replace the pipe from the fuel filter to the pump with a clear pipe, and even from the primer bulb to the fuel filter with one too to help check for air leaks.
Check your leak off pipes between injectors are flexible, if not, replace them.
When you've used your first tank and it's nearly empty, popup the back seat behind the driver, gently pull off the rubber disc and carefully remove the fuel sender (if you have to pull off the fuel lines, put a long cable tie on them so you don't loose them down the side of the tank) and clean the filter on the end of the sender. If the fuel level is low enough, look inside and clean out any dirt you can see.
Now, the seals in your pump will be old and hard with a few microfractures in them.
Hot veg will get into those cracks and when it cools it expands.
The higher the % of veg you use the quicker this happens.
Cassy took about 4 years to leak
Eventually the seals will give way and the pump will start leaking.
When this happens you can either remove the pump and replace the seals, or before it happens purchase a 2nd hand pump and replace the seals ready to swap pumps over, replace the seals on your original pump and sell it to a fellow veg burner.
1.9TD+ SX Xantia Estate (Cassy) running on 100% veg
1.9TD SX Xantia Hatchback (Jenny) running on 100% veg for sale
Laguna II 2.0dCi Privilege (Monty)
Penguin wrote:Yes I am sure. You are classed as the producer of the fuel if you purchase it. When you buy it it is cooking oil, you have turned it into fuel by adding it to your tank. HMRC will class you as the producer. In the link I provided 4.2.1 says 'producers/users'
Well I guess my pal must have been mis-informed by the Revenue and Customs officer, I've just asked him to clarify since my last post. he was told plainly that if he was caught using the fuel he'd recycled from chip oil as road fuel without declaring and paying the reduced duty rate he would be liable to a heavy fine and the possibility of confiscation of his vehicle.
There is no lower rate, biodiesel and veg have the same rate of duty now as derv.
There used to be the lower rate to comply with Kyoto, but under Brown HMRC decided that it would only apply to biodiesel and reclassified veg as diesel-substitute therefore liable to the full duty rate (there was a well publicised case of a company that was slapped with a £16K tax bill as the classification was retrospective).
The main result was that the government was making it cheaper to run on fossil fuels than renewable fuels, thus breaching the Kyoto agreement.
Several evironmental groups and producers threatened to take the government to court over this, and with the costs involved in dealing with small users, they came up with the 2500L duty free limit.
1.9TD+ SX Xantia Estate (Cassy) running on 100% veg
1.9TD SX Xantia Hatchback (Jenny) running on 100% veg for sale
Laguna II 2.0dCi Privilege (Monty)
