>>15369380
>€500 a month spent on Diese
Do you drive a truck for a living?

>>15369380
10 years ago waste oil was feasible because you could just offer to take stuff for free from restaurants who were paying to have it disposed of, now companies have contracts to buy it from restaurants.

>average of €500 a month spent on Diesel
How the fuck

you could just use heating oil but the police wont like it.

>>15369405
Even if it was free, there's still quite a bit of work to wash and titrate the used veg oil before trans-esterifying it. It's waste oil for a reason.

And you've gone from buying diesel to buying methanol to convert the oil into the methyl ester. Unless you have some way of making the methanol yourself in large enough quantities at an economical price.

If you want to save money, a hybrid or an electric car is probably a better way to go. If collapse and apocalypse is your concern, an alcohol or electric powered moped would be the ideal vehicle IMHO.

>>15369603
Not to mention the injectors on modern diesels have way tighter tolerances, which aren't compatible with biodiesel.

A bit off topic, but what are some good, decently reliable diesel cars one can get used under $5k? The most common ones I see are Volkswagens and Mercedes but I've heard that cars from those brands tend to be money pits and are hard to work on yourself.

>>15370148
Probably a truck

>>15370159
Any good sedans/hatchbacks? I live in the city, so a truck wouldn't be super practical for me and it would get crappy mileage.

>>15370213
In North America? Probably not

And old diesel economy cars were slow, hot garbage

>>15369632
The injectors on shitty Fiat's can't handle regular diesel

>>15370148
VW's and *old* Mercedes, like 1970s era. You might want to wait a bit - a lot of those VW TDI's that they're buying back will probably come back on the market again, with a much lower price tag on them.

>>15370291
So they are decently reliable, then? I've just heard too many horror stories about something going wrong every 2 weeks and costing a ton of money to replace. Is that all blown out of proportion?

My aunt offered to sell me her 2004 VW Golf TDI for 3k, and I'm seeing a lot of old Merc sedans on Craigslist at that price point too. Which would you go with, and what should I look out for/know if I get one of these cars?

>>15369380
>looking into cheaper alternatives

Have you looked at LPG and methane?

These can be cheaper, but it highly depends on country.

>>15370291
>a lot of those VW TDI's that they're buying back will probably come back on the market again, with a much lower price tag on them
lol no, they're going to be crushed

>>15369396
>Do you drive a truck for a living?
Yes. I do international removals and part loads.

>>15369405
>10 years ago waste oil was feasible because you could just offer to take stuff for free from restaurants.

Kebab shops still give it away for free here so no issue there.

>>15369603
>there's still quite a bit of work to wash and titrate the used veg oil before trans-esterifying it.
I'm not sure if I'm going to make it into diesel or just wash and filter it and run it trough a fuel preheater.

>And you've gone from buying diesel to buying methanol to convert the oil into the methyl ester.
I've looked up the prices and its €180 for a 50gal drum.
Not sure how much diesel that will make.

>>15369632
>Not to mention the injectors on modern diesels have way tighter tolerances, which aren't compatible with biodiesel.
I'm running a Ford "4AB" 2.5L DI.

My only concern is it doesn't have heater plugs so starting on waste oil may be an issue.
I don't want the injectors to gum up or anything like that so I may have to set up a dual tank system to start and stop on.

>>15370354
>Have you looked at LPG and methane?
Not enough availability.

>>15370324

Mercedes are definitely better than VW.

The W124, W123 and W114, still ride better than most modern cars and the engines last forever, especially the 5 cyl and 6 cyl ones.
They're easy to work on too. You can do all the maintenance yourself.
The only thing is they are very high geared and very slow to get up to speed unless you hit redline on all the gears. The turbo models are a bit quicker.
But once there they keep up with traffic very well and will cruise all day at over a 100mph no problem.

I used to have a W124 with the OM602 engine. Half a million miles and it ran like new.
Everything worked too. Only things I ever replaced were shocks, and discs.


The thing with older Mercedes is that everything was built to a high standard and made to last. Things rarely go wrong.
The vinyl interiors still look like new in most of them.
The most common faults are the heater blower and vacuum system. Check to see of the A/C works before buying

Also, there is already a fuel pre-heater installed from the factory if you decide to run straight vegetable oil through it .

>>15370538
Thanks for the help, that sounds like exactly what I need.