Maybe a silly question (about fuel oil)

[rmunns]

Why is home heating fuel, which I believe costs about 75p per litre, not suitable for use in our diesels?

[MikeT]

Why is home heating fuel, which I believe costs about 75p per litre, not suitable for use in our diesels?

It is, AFAIK. It will run a bosch-pumped XUD anyhow.
It's just not legal, in the UK at least.

[Clogzz]

It is suitable but taxed lower, so the regime will lose takings.
They will be frothing at the mouth and look like gargoyles if they see heating fuel in a car.
They’ve even classified it as tax fraud.
Heating fuel has a different colour to identify it as such, and the last diesel car that I saw had a sight glass in the fuel line under the bonnet.

[citronut]

the other week on one of those cop progs on a digy chanel,

they pulled a guy over and decided he was running it something other that the usual, but not red diesel either,

they ended up seizeing the car for customs and excise to investigate what he had in the fuel tank.


regards malcolm

[stedmancinques]

About ten years ago, when on holiday in the west of Ireland with my then pride and joy, a BX diesel, I called into the village garage at Rossbeigh in Kerry to fill up one Saturday morning;

'Are you going back to England today?', he cheerfully enquired.
'Yes, indeed'
'Well, why don't you fill up with tractor diesel over there. It's only 27p a litre, and it'll all be gone by the time you get there!'

The problem with 'red' diesel is that the dye leaves permanent stains in the tank and lines, although I suppose that you could always claim it must have been a previous owner- unless they actually caught you with the stuff in the tank. And no, I was too much of a coward to take him up on his offer, Bejasus!
Cheers

[Peter.N.]

There are two different types of heating oil, the most common one is 28 sec which is virtually paraffin, it isn't 'oily' enough to lubricate the pump properly but with the addition of some engine oil it should be OK, the other is 35 sec I think which is actually gas oil, near enough diesel, but, they are both illegal for use in road vehicles as the don't carry the extra duty.

I don't usually pay anything like 75p for my heating oil, it is 54p at the moment but its normally much cheaper at the end of the summer, I paid about 41p for my last lot, I have a 2500 litre tank which will last me a year or more, so I only fill it up when its cheap. There is a good website that moniters the price. http://www.boilerjuice.com/heatingOilPrices.php

Peter

[HDI]

The legality comments are correct, not legal to use in a road vehicle in the UK.
However, it depends where you are in the Uk as to the risk of being detected.
Where I am I wouldn't worry but in London, and some area's up North I know they have VOSA purges on the use of illegal fuel. I think it's area's near ports or main trunk routes that are at more risk.
Passenger cars are at much less risk than vans, trucks and taxi's.

[myglaren]

The legality comments are correct, not legal to use in a road vehicle in the UK.
However, it depends where you are in the Uk as to the risk of being detected.
Where I am I wouldn't worry but in London, and some area's up North I know they have VOSA purges on the use of illegal fuel. I think it's area's near ports or main trunk routes that are at more risk.
Passenger cars are at much less risk than vans, trucks and taxi's.

I haven't been that way for ages but HMRC always had a few vans pulled in on the north end of the Tyne Tunnel, dipping the tanks looking for red diesel.

[Peter.N.]

I had mine dipped in Exeter market well over 30 years ago - it was the right colour

Peter

[evilally]

I doubt most modern deisels would be chuffed if you poured heating oil into the tank. Something like an XUD would be fine, but then you could probably run WVO, which would be cheaper and tax free up to 2,500 litres a year. I did try some used engine oil in mine once. It was very hard to start, but once going, it had a lot more torque than normal diesel Up until recently, you could use engine oil as a road fuel tax free, but not anymore.

[citronut]

the guy i mentioned above who had his car confiscated said he was running it on waste engine oil


regards malcolm

[evilally]

the guy i mentioned above who had his car confiscated said he was running it on waste engine oil


regards malcolm

Malcolm, if this was the case, and it was before November 2008, then he shouldn't have. I went to great lengths to get accurate information from HMRC at the time, have a read here:

http://www.vegetableoildiesel.co.uk/for ... 9&tid=8661

I only burned 5L as an experiment, but due to the good supply of WVO, I never bothered following it up. Reading around, it seems to be a popular activity in the states.