1.9TD Bosch veg oil

[citroenguy]

Hi
This subject has probably been up many times.. (a link for a good thread is appreciated).
But i belive there is a lot of experience among us with this?

I have a model year 1996 Xantia 1.9TD with bosch VP20 injection system.
Since diesel prices have shot through the roof i'm thinking of runnung on fresh veg oil, 50/50 mix maby more. 1L of canola oil is 2.2€ and a litre of diesel is 2.8€.

Main questions are, is mpg/power worse? and will it affect (gum up?) the cat?

Obviusly not going to run it in the winter like this.

The injection pump is recently re-sealed.

I've even heard some people running old diesels on waste engine oil or atf, anyone tried this?
Since i work at a garage, we have a lot of left over slats of engine oil that are lookin very interesting..

[Huskyxantia]

It will muck up all fuel related parts as the weather changes and to be honest what your save on fuel your pay out on filters possibly injectors too, not to mention the smell too.

Youtube has lots of videos regarding this worth a search

[quintet]

I tried it many years ago by getting some off a guy who was featured in a magazine i used to read (called "Car Mechanics") and just happened to be based very close to where i lived, i can't speak of what exactly went into my car but it damn near ruined it. The car in question was in fact a 1989 6.2ltr chevy suburban (diesel obviously) and it just wouldn't start, in fact i think it started on compression rather than igniting the oil/fuel, had absolutely no power what so ever and each time i did try to accelerate the "water in fuel" light came on. Bearing in mind this engine was a pretty basic old v8 diesel, certainly decades behind todays vehicles some might think it would run on kind of anything suitable, not the case! not by a long long way. It took numerous "fills" of the fuel tank to eventually get the Veg oil out of the various fuel components (pipes etc) and for my car to return to normal, absolute nightmare! .

Years late i bought my current xantia and i'll always remember the lad i bought it off (ex citroen staff) saying DO NOT try running this car on veg oil, it's not worth it, you'll be changing fuel filters constantly and & you'll ruin it, because of my previous experience it took 0 convincing and i've steered well clear of it. I totally understand your thoughts on wanting to try it, Diesel is pushing £2 a litre near me & is only likely to rise but in my opinion, avoid it!

[SwissTony]

I ran a Xantia 1.9TD, 2 x ZX TDs and 2 XM 2.1TDs on clean veg oil bought in 3l tubs from Tesco, then later in 20L drums from Costco. Never mixed it with diesel, used it in the depths of winter in the snow and apart from running lumpy for the first couple of mins on a really cold morning, none of them had any issues at all with it over 80,000 or so miles.

EDIT: This was fresh, clean oil. Not recycled cooking oil filtered and treated. I'd not touch that!

[daviemck2006]

I ran a 1.9td xantia on 100% clean fresh veg oil for 15000 miles over a year. It was a bit slow to start in cold weather but otherwise was ok. Just bought 20 litre tubs from costco and tipped it in. The fuel pump developed a leak which never got investigated, so whether it was due to the veg ruining the seals or due to the car having done 260000 miles was unknown.

[citroenguy]

Ok
Thanks for the mixed experiences.

Did some more google/YT "research" and my conclusion is that i feel confident enough to run a mix of clean veg oil and diesel.
Partly i'm doing it for the enviromental benefit.

Luckily the fuel filter is really easy to change on these..
Not buried behind the battery and ECM like on a korean car..

[Huskyxantia]

Keep us updated and good luck , cant wait for your results

[Sl4yer]

I ran veg oil in my ZX for a while many years ago. If I remember correctly, Bosch injection pumps were fine with it and Lucas were not.

I noticed the lumpy running when cold that others have mentioned. I also noticed a considerable reduction in fuel economy - then the price of veg oil increased hugely at the time, to the point that I considered it was no longer worthwhile. At the prices you mention, I'm not sure you will see a huge cost benefit. But by all means have a go!

James

[aerodynamica]

I also ran 2 previous 1.9 TD Xantias on new veg oil with no apparent problems but I admit I avoided the winter running.
Only issue I had was the filter housing started to leak at the white plug where the O ring deteriorated. Thing is, I've had this on my current xantia and that's never run on veg oil so it's possible the o ring leaks eventually anyway.

You can use waste veg oil from restaurants etc but it has to be processed to remove (among other things) the water content. It's a lot of work and I wonder if it's worth it now.