Friday, May 27, 2005
Fill'er up
I drive to the DMV at 7:00 am, I’m 20th in line. The place opens at 8:00am. Everything runs very smoothly and I’m out by 8:30 a.m. By the way, diesels are exempt from ever needing a smog certificate in California.
I drive up to Ventura and fill up. Meet the friendly cowboy hat wearing Ted Brown.
Tedd filling up the car and jugs.
He tells me that if the car starts having trouble starting or is feeling sluggish it could mean two things. Either the fuel filter needs to be replaced or the return gas line needs to be replaced. B100 cleans the engine so well over time that all the deposits and junk from dino diesel get eventually caught in the fuel filter so it needs to be replaced. (This of course would not be a problem if you started using B100 on a new diesel engine.) Another problem is that Bio diesel eats thru rubber and if the return gas tube is rubber it will eventually crack and allow air to get in and the car will have trouble starting. Ted claims that a lot of engines have rubber return lines. Jr, Ted’s son, relayed to me that his truck was having problems starting and nobody could figure it out until this mechanic finally replaced the return line.
Ted filled up my car up with 9 gallons in the tank and filled my the 10 5-gallon jugs. All 10 jugs fit in my trunk. I panicked for a second because I forgot to calculate the weight of 50 gallons of B100 (approx. 370 pounds) but the Passat handled it with no problem. In fact, it looked like it could hold another couple hundred pounds in the back seat if needed.
I spent $3.15 per gallon and was more than happy to pay that because I feel I'm doing something to get off oil. Another bonus for me is that my Camry only got 22 mpg hwy and the Passat normally gets 38 mpg on the highway using dino diesel. What mpg I'm going to get is up in the air. B100 Biodiesel has about 5-10% less btu's per gallon than diesel which could cause a drop in mileage. But then there's the new passat engine design and the BioSoy Low Nox product so you have to factor that into the equation. Anyway, I'll know for sure in a couple of days or so when I fill up.
I drove all day with no problems.
I drive up to Ventura and fill up. Meet the friendly cowboy hat wearing Ted Brown.
Tedd filling up the car and jugs.
He tells me that if the car starts having trouble starting or is feeling sluggish it could mean two things. Either the fuel filter needs to be replaced or the return gas line needs to be replaced. B100 cleans the engine so well over time that all the deposits and junk from dino diesel get eventually caught in the fuel filter so it needs to be replaced. (This of course would not be a problem if you started using B100 on a new diesel engine.) Another problem is that Bio diesel eats thru rubber and if the return gas tube is rubber it will eventually crack and allow air to get in and the car will have trouble starting. Ted claims that a lot of engines have rubber return lines. Jr, Ted’s son, relayed to me that his truck was having problems starting and nobody could figure it out until this mechanic finally replaced the return line.
Ted filled up my car up with 9 gallons in the tank and filled my the 10 5-gallon jugs. All 10 jugs fit in my trunk. I panicked for a second because I forgot to calculate the weight of 50 gallons of B100 (approx. 370 pounds) but the Passat handled it with no problem. In fact, it looked like it could hold another couple hundred pounds in the back seat if needed.
I spent $3.15 per gallon and was more than happy to pay that because I feel I'm doing something to get off oil. Another bonus for me is that my Camry only got 22 mpg hwy and the Passat normally gets 38 mpg on the highway using dino diesel. What mpg I'm going to get is up in the air. B100 Biodiesel has about 5-10% less btu's per gallon than diesel which could cause a drop in mileage. But then there's the new passat engine design and the BioSoy Low Nox product so you have to factor that into the equation. Anyway, I'll know for sure in a couple of days or so when I fill up.
I drove all day with no problems.
# posted by Kevin @ 10:49 PM 
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Kevin,
I have a '03 TDI Golf and am getting about 37 MPG, are you saying your Passat is getting an additional 10-15 MPG? That's amazing...well worth it. Have you thought about going to full WVO?
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I have a '03 TDI Golf and am getting about 37 MPG, are you saying your Passat is getting an additional 10-15 MPG? That's amazing...well worth it. Have you thought about going to full WVO?
# posted by 
: 10:32 AM
: 10:32 AM 
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