Old cars??

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

I am just wondering why do most of us use old cars for WVO?
As I can see both in Australia and USA there is a lot of old Mercedes, while in Denmark and UK seems to be more newer cars.

I know that the IP at the Merc. is very reliable for WVO/SVO, but is it the only reason? Or is it money reason?

Would be intresting to know the owners point of view.




Norwegian not at home.

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

Re: Old cars??

From my point of view, older cars don't have computer systems and are basic, which makes them easier and cheaper to work on and convert.

[Vegiecars Member Find all posts View Profile Close Vegiecars]

Re: Old cars??

Hi Steinar,

I hope your having a great holiday!

At Vegiecars, we sell many conversion systems and have many more enquiries. The primary reason that most late model cars are not being converted is warranty.

I advise customers to check the details of their manufacturers warranty which often continue for 3 to 4 years. Most manufacturers will not warranty the vehicle if changes of this kind are made to the fuel system, regardless of the issues surrounding converting with an electronic injector pump.

We have done conversions on several 2000 - 2003 Landcruisers a couple of 2003 Prado's and a 2005 Ssangyong, with most of these customers running fuel blends of vegetable oil and petroleum diesel in two tank systems without issues.

Regards
Marcus

[Guest Close David]

Re: Old cars??

I bought a 300D to basically learn on. With a cheap old car, if I stuffed it up and broke it, there wasn't going to be any great loss and the Mrs. would write it off as another of my projects and not kill me if I ended up doing my money on it.

The car SHE made me buy was a lot rougher than what I would have ever bought myself but so far and to my great surprise and relief, it has proved to be perfectly reliable since I sorted out some maintence issues left over from the previous owner.
Rather than the POS run around car I envisioned it's use was going to be, it is now the family favourite despite the fact I still haven't hooked the Cd player up in it nor does it have carpet on the floor! The only complaint I get about it is when we leave it at home and take the modern petrol car.

I'd buy another old merc as these cars are sold, reliable, simple to work on and parts are reasonably priced. Ideally I'd like to get a wagon and a Turbo model but haven't seen one yet so I imagine they are very rare here.
I would also like to update to something like a Musso due to them having a Merc engine and being very good value for money.

I have looked at some of the newer vehicles and a lot of the complexity and the difficulty of working on them frightens me. I looked at a Delica which was a vehicle I was very interested in and noticing the location of the Fuel filter, asked the owner how it was changed. He told me the Batteries had to be removed to get at it. I asked how the batteries were removed and he told me you have to remove the intercooler first!
I was wondering if these cars were designed by Porche who made the famous 911 that has to have the engine removed to change the spark plugs.

I didn't bother asking about any more involved servicing like changing glow plugs or injectors, I just figured you would have to unbolt the body from the Chassis for something like that!

It seems to me that the older Diesels are very hard to go past for tolerance of veg fuels, reliability and ease of maintainence.