First tank for a VW Polo - advice please!

[reverb Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close reverb]

Very happy with the VW Polo TDi we've just acquired, but being half way through the first tank the dealer provided we have a need to work out what to do when we need to fill up.

I'd love to brew for myself but that's not an option just yet, so I'm looking for commercial nearby. In our area we have a ValuePlus and a couple of Metros, so I'm looking for advice as to the best way to go.

From my reading here so far (thanks for your input everyone - this is a great resource!), VP may have up to B100 but are acting rather evil, plus there's that horrible gunk photo which I don't really want to associate with my shiny new car.

Metro seem to have B20 labelled in some places which sounds a bit better to me, and with B20 I've read that 50% of your emissions are reduced so that's actually better in my mind than the 20 figure may suggest.

I think it's ridiculous that in Australia's largest city I can't pull in somewhere, get a tank of B100 (for less than the price of dino) and be on my way.

What happened to Marickville?

There's also the matter of what VW will warrant, but mine doesn't have the no biodiesel on the fuel cap, so perhaps it doesn't have the particulate filter? I'm not mechanically minded enough to work out the contents of the bonnet unfortunately. Surely B20 isn't going to hurt though.

Thanks for your help everyone,

Tim.

[gwalker Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close gwalker]

Re: First tank for a VW Polo - advice please!

I'm thinking of getting 20 litres of Volume Plus in a Jerry and then standing, filtering or washing it before putting it into the vehicle fuel tank.
George

[Robert Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Robert]

Re: First tank for a VW Polo - advice please!

Hi Tim,

Firstly, as you may have seen elsewhere in this forum, some of us will stay well away from Volume Plus. This is indeed sad as the users of this forum, you would think would be the first to support a retailer selling biodiesel.
My car is no longer new, but I would not put any fuel in it that was not up to standard, bio or dino.
So, what do you do? B20 could be a good bet. I've not heard anything about Metro. Could you give us some info on that? I'd like to know where they get their bio from. If they are actually labelling it as B20, that is a much better start than Volume Plus who consistently refuse to tell their consumers what blend they get (in addition to the 15% of "other oil" that a lab test found in one of their samples).
If you can get us some more info about Metro, maybe some of us in here can try and chase down some proper info on it for you.
I'm sure you've heard VW's position on biodiesel in Australia, which I personally do not agree with, so I'd hate for you to get some dodgy fuel which caused you problems and then VW could say "I told you so". I'd rather that the reputation of biodiesel was not ruined by people selling bad fuel.

[reverb Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close reverb]

Re: First tank for a VW Polo - advice please!

I mentioned Metro purely based on this post, which I admit isn't conclusive but the label of B20 on the pump sounds promising. I'll go check out my local ones and report back here on what they have.

I'm working on the theory that if one European car manufacturer had no problems at service after 4000km then mine should be ok also.

The Technical data booklet for my car has the following to say about the fuel usable in the 74kW TDi engine in these cars (no mention of particulate filter):

Diesel fuel: biodiesel(1)(RME) compliant with DIN E 51606
(1) With slight loss of power and slightly raised fuel consumption

There is also a Technical modifications - edition 05.2006 supplement at the back, which doesn't mention that you can't use biodiesel, but other than that talks about a 74kW engine with diesel particulate filter, with marginally higher fuel consumptions.

I assume the presence of the supplement means that I do have a DPF, but there is nothing in there to say that I can't use bio.

There - clear as mud

[Jacka Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Jacka]

Re: First tank for a VW Polo - advice please!

Reverb it will come down to plain and simple rules if your cars IP or something else stops working.

In general if they can shift the blame and NOT pay out for a repair they will. So if you pick up Dodgy fuel either Dinodiesel or Biodiesel or a blend they will blame the bad fuel.

You need to be selective were you buy your fuel from and becareful with its quality and such.

Biodiesel is NOT a problem when it is up to standard, you will not have a problem at all and many people around here will atest to that ANY that is not to standard well your out on your own there.

My best advice is only buy fuel ANY type of fuel from a source you trust and can be assured of the quality. Unfortunatly at the moment that limits the posibilities for Biodiesel but in the not to distant future I can hope that something will be solved in this department

[Guest Close David]

Re: First tank for a VW Polo - advice please!

From what I have read, heard and seen myself, If I were buying any type of diesel fuel be it dino or Bio, I'd be putting it into drums and checking it out before I put it in my tank. At the very least I would be making sure I got a recipt for the fuel I bought and trying to buy it as much as possible from one place so if something did go wrong, you had the best evidence possible against who sold you the fuel. Perhaps if you checked with VW and it didn't put their warranty nose out of joint, you may also like to consider fitting a good CAV type filter to hedge your bets against any contaminated fuel you may come across.

Perhaps a little thinking outside the square may work for you Reverb....
I notice you have your location listed as Penshurst. I have reccied that area for WVO and the place and nearby surrounding suburbs are drowning in it. Perhaps if you were to source a really good supply of oil, you may like to collect it and pass it on to someone who is making bio but is having troube getting it themselves to help them out. If they were getting a lot more than they could use, they may be happy for you to take the surplus bio off their hands so it didn't clutter their place up.

I think it would be illegal for them to sell it to you so I would never suggest anything that would be breaking the law, but I believe if you gave someone more oil than they could use the bio they made from it, they may be forced to give the resulting bio back to you to dispose of it, if you know what I mean

Of course if it weren't illegal, some people may be happy to exchange an amount of oil that would satisfy their needs for raw feedstock in exchange for an amount of finished product or if they had their own oil supply they may sell it to you outright.

But this is only hypothetically speaking of course! If you were to respond positively to this idea, we wouldn't want people whom have big processors but no oil to put in them to contact you privately to work some underhanded deal like this out with you...

[reverb Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close reverb]

Re: First tank for a VW Polo - advice please!

You have some fair points there - I myself had noticed the probable surplus of WVO due to the over-supply of food vendors in the area. Infact, I may just be putting some plans in motion to do something about that...

However, I'm now about 300km (perhaps - did 400km on the first half tank) away from needing to put something in it, so any good commercial suggestions would be appreciated.

At this stage I'm going to check out the nearby Metros to see whether any of them stock B20 and use that for now. Yes, I'll be keeping all my reciepts.

[Robert Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Robert]

Re: First tank for a VW Polo - advice please!

I've just sent an email to DIB Group/Metro Petroleum and hopefully they will come back with some assurances (posted in new thread here). If you can get any other details and report them back, that would be useful too (please post it in the thread discussing Metro, not in this thread).

[reverb Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close reverb]

Re: First tank for a VW Polo - advice please!

Thought I'd update this old thread with recent experiences.

I put maybe five tanks of VP through the little thing and she didn't skip a beat. Then I read that The Biodiesel Station was open again - it didn't take much convincing for me to dump VP due to the quality concerns, even though they are much closer to me than Marrickville and the fuel never troubled me personally.

Fuel consumption has hovered around 6 L/100km, and we've just done achieved our first 800km tank! (It's only a tiny tank, remember) This was the first tank of B100 from Marrickville and should mean we're closer to 5 L/100km.

And all this has been done with occasional towing, bikes on the back, and "exercising" the turbo now and then. Truly an amazing engine in a car this size, esp. with only just breaking 7000kms.

Reading elsewhere has pointed out that current VW models DON'T have a DPF, with the exception of Toureg and one other big one. Baby ones like mine, Golf, Passat, etc. WILL get them probably next year.

So, between the fact that I'm confident I don't have a DPF, the absence of the infamous "Nicht Biodiesel" sticker, the message in the back of my owner's manual, and the way the car just ticks over beautifully running on B100, I think we're all set with bio in the current model VW 1.9 TDis.

[mrnamjama Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close mrnamjama]

Re: First tank for a VW Polo - advice please!

Fuel consumption has hovered around 6 L/100km, and we've just done achieved our first 800km tank! (It's only a tiny tank, remember) This was the first tank of B100 from Marrickville and should mean we're closer to 5 L/100km.

Hi

In my polo the fuel warning light comes up when I've used about 33-34L. When on long trips, I've had to drive for quite a while before being able to fill up again - the most I've had to fill up by so far is 37.5L - how much fuel do you usually fill up by on an empty tank? First click?

[reverb Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close reverb]

Re: First tank for a VW Polo - advice please!

Hi

In my polo the fuel warning light comes up when I've used about 33-34L. When on long trips, I've had to drive for quite a while before being able to fill up again - the most I've had to fill up by so far is 37.5L - how much fuel do you usually fill up by on an empty tank? First click?

Quite the opposite, I'm pretty patient. I'll fill and fill and fill until it's absolutely brimmed, which can take several minutes of waiting for it to gurgle down the tube. Typically I fit about 43 L in when filling from the pump. Then I fill about 40 L of containers to take away with me, since the B100 station is nowhere near me. This way I only have to go there 3-4 months.
Fuel warning lights I've always pretty much ignored. For me there's probably 3-4 weeks of driving before I need to worry, due to the crazy efficiency of this thing and also the fact we don't use it much (compared to most people).

[mrnamjama Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close mrnamjama]

Re: First tank for a VW Polo - advice please!

hah, that's pretty impressive! However I vaguely recall hearing somewhere that you're not supposed to 'fill to the brim' with a diesel... not sure why that would be.

My best fuel economy (on mineral diesel) so far has been a bit better than 4.5l/100km highway driving (I couldn't believe that it was already full after only 32L and ~730km, so I kept going until it overflowed).

[Bionick Biofuels Forum Newbie Find all posts View Profile Close Bionick]

Re: First tank for a VW Polo - advice please!

I'm on my first tank of (100%) Biodiesel in my 2003 1.4 Polo TDi. How many KMs before I should change the fuel filter? Will once be enough? I'm technically incompetant so don't want to get stranded on the roadside!