Saturday, May 9, 2009

First drive on biodiesel

On Friday for the first time I bought larger volume of biodiesel. I bought it before twice, but only in small volumes – just couple of liters. First time during our very first camping trip, back in 2006. I found a petrol station that sold biodiesel and decided to try this fuel. Then I had no luck in finding biodiesel supply. And in may 2007 the engine broke down when all the water in cooling system was lost. The engine was not fixed until may next year.

Not so long ago on some of the gas stations named "Bliska" ("Close one" in English) they started selling biodiesel. One of the stations near place I live had this fuel – lately for 2.99 PLN per liter ($3.55 / gal), compared to 3.55 PLN per liter of petrodiesel. On Friday I drove by the station and bough almost 54 liters of biodiesel to almost empty fuel tank. Buying this cheaper petrodiesel replacement gave me over 9 liters for free.

Just after buying this fuel we had to drive some 80 km (50 miles). I didn’t notice any difference in engine’s performance. The van drove as usual. We’ll see the mileage. The odometer is broken again, but I will try to note all the trips using GPS.

I just have to do two things:

  • buy fuel filter, as the biodiesel is a good solvent and will quickly dissolve all the impurities in the fuel tank and fuel lines,
  • check if the fuel lines are in good shape, as the biodiesel also dissolves some plastics.
You can read more about biodiesel on my site about Alternative Car Fuels.

1 comment:

keywacat said...

This Bliska was selling 100% biodiesel? There is a station in Prague I go to sometimes that sells (I believe) a 10% bio, 90% diesel blend.