Is it true you can run a car on vegetable oil?

Question

I saw something on telly, Darell Hanna (actress in Splash, Kill Bill and more) She used vegetable oil instead of petrol.

Why dosnt everyone do this? It must be so much cheaper.

Answer 1

Yes you can run any diesel engine on SVO (Straight vegetable oil). There are a number of conversion kits out there and depending on your vehicle can cost as little as 800 dollars to 3 grand. You can use the waste cooking oil at any fast food joint and its usually free. The only problem with it is that there is not enough used cooking oil for everyone to use but there is hope algae can be used to make oil and can produce over 10,000 gallons of oil per acre and there are a few company's out there looking at that, green fuel and valcent. If you want more info you can go to www.greasecar.com. hope this was helpful

Answer 2

Yes you can run vehicles off of vegatble oils.

But as to your statment about it being cheaper?  Go to the grocer and find how much vegtable oil costs.  I believe it would take about 3ish of the "normal" bottles to make a gallon.  So its not any cheaper.  Plus you would have to retrofit your engine to be able to properly use the oils as a fuel source.  In the end you wont get the same milage or power output either so its pretty much a lose lose situation.

There are alot more alternate fuel sources available that are worth exploring, instead of trying things that are only good for showing that it can be done.

Answer 3

Yes. It is called 'biofuel'. There are different types. Biodiesel is essentially vegetable oil, but it can also be made from animal fats. It is suitable for diesel vehicles. We have a fuel at our local station that has 5% biodiesel. Richard Branson has launched the first biodiesel train... which uses 20% biodiesel and 80% petrodiesel. Voltzwagon are behind biodiesel 100%... and claim there have been no issues with using 100% biodiesel. The arguments against it are most probably driven by politics and greed.

Dee xx

Answer 4

Yes.  I think you need a special car and not everyone has that kind of money.

Answer 5

You may be able to run your car on vegetable oil if you drive a diesel, just be sure to run it through a filter first to get all of the solid parts out of the oil.

The only problem really with running a car or truck on vegetable oil (biodiesel) is that, unless you use spent vegetable oil from a fast food restaurant or your household deep fryer, it really isn't cheaper.  As hard as it is to believe, petroleum based oil is surprisingly cheap when you compare it to almost everything else that we use.  It's just that we use a lot of it.

Answer 6

Yep,run mine everyday.When taking a trip I take 30 extra gals.

Answer 7

yes the vegetable oil and alcohol can be replaced by petrol. SAVE THE WORLD FOR THE NEXT GENERATION......

Answer 8

From what I know of, you can run a diesel engine off used and filtered vegetable oil with near the same efficiency.