The Veggie Car

Bumper2BumperTv.com. Male Speaker: This is Bumper2BumperTV. Greg Morrison: What do this field, this fast food restaurant and this gas station have in common with this car. These two will tell you they're all source of diesel fuel, which is why Ben Gray invested in 1985 Mercedes that can run on vegetable oil or petroleum. Ben Gray: Part of the reason is just being cheap. Greg Morrison: Hey, he admits it. Ben Gray: And I bought it when fuel prices were getting pretty high and knew I could veggie oil for next nothing or nothing, so rather than paying $5 a gallon for diesel fuel, I thought it would be pretty cool to that be able to fill it up for free. Greg Morrison: So on a regular basis he collects used cooking oil from local restaurants, cleans it up and puts it into a special reserve tank. The veggie oil is then heated using a line from the radiator and filtered twice before it's put into the engine and burn. However there is a transition time between using regular diesel and the recycled cooking oil. Ben Gray: In the summer I probably go about a mile, mile-and-a-half and I can kick it over to veggie oil and I'm fine, winner I don't have a block heater on the engine but if it's a cold day it could be five miles or so. Greg Morrison: Not a real problem in typical stop and go traffic, but if you are looking the burn rubber coming of a red light well think again. When it was brand new the car was only rated at 125 horsepower. Ben Gray: It's old technology diesel so it doesn't have a lot of pickup to it, but once you get moving it goes pretty well. The difference between running on diesel and veggie oil is not a whole lot -- it loses may be about 10% to 15% of power just because there is not as much in the veggie oil as the diesel because the diesel is more refined. Greg Morrison: And to put things into perspective new diesels can only run on a mixture of 5% to 10% biofuels to make stringent clean air standards in this country. Meanwhile, drivers like Ben Gray will continue to scrounge up used cooking oil and their exhaust will smell like French Fries as they move down the road. This is Greg Morrison. Male Speaker: We want to know what you think, so email us. The address is bumper2bumpertv@cs.com. Bumper2BumperTV@cs.com.