Cate’s Musings

My sister Alissa and her husband Gavin have 2 cars that they’re running on vegetable oil. Gavin first decided to get rid of his SUV and go veggie about a year ago and Alissa followed about 6 months later. While an entirely worthwhile adventure, it hasn’t been an easy one. The strongest piece of advice they have is to be patient. Chances are you’re dealing with hippie types and generally speaking their concept of time isn’t the same as most. If you’re told something will take a couple days, expect it to take week. While we might be used to the importance of customer satisfaction in traditional consumerist American situations, you are most certainly NOT going to be dealing with traditional consumerist types of people.

Here’s a blow by blow of the ups and downs of going veg.

Step one: Finding a car.
Any diesel car can be converted to run on vegetable oil. The old Mercedes, think 1979 – ‘85 era, are very simple to convert what with the complications of engine and dashboard computers not being an issue. Also they run forever because the engines were made of solid metal; apparently these engines will run for half a million miles. It’s important to remember, however, that they’re still old cars. And stuff breaks or dies on old cars. Gavin’s car, an ‘85 wagon with 250,000 miles which he bought on eBay and had shipped to LA, has had its problems. Now that the kinks have been worked out all is well. Lesson learned: don’t buy a car without seeing it in person. And find a good mechanic. Gavin loves his guy at Import Auto Works in Pasadena.

Alissa’s car was a find. It’s an ‘84 sedan and they found it on Craigslist. The guy they bought it from had picked it up at an auction as a salvage. But remember, a car this old is considered totaled even though the damage is minimal. The guy simply had to repair a smashed-in passenger door and promptly resold it. It had only one previous owner (other than the auction dude), 109,000 miles on it (you won’t find much lower), and has been completely reliable up to now.

Step two: Converting the car.
The key selling point is that at any time, once you’ve converted your car, you can always put regular diesel in your tank. And the tank doesn’t have to be empty – you can mix any amount of veggie oil with any amount of diesel. This is vital if you don’t want to worry about running out of gas and intend to use the car as more than an ‘about town’ vehicle.

As for the conversions themselves, there are apparently wars going on online about what kind is best. I don’t claim for one second to be part of this subculture or to understand the detailed ins and outs, but as far as I understand it breaks down as follows:

Essentially there are two major kinds of conversions, the single tank and the dual tank conversion.

Single tank: put a thingy in the engine (pictured above) that heats the oil as it runs into the engine and put the veggie oil right in your gas tank. The problem is that while your car is turned off the veggie oil sitting in your engine and pipes and so forth is becoming the consistency of crisco. So when you start your car back up it’s not unlike pushing butter through your fuel injectors. Over time this does damage to the car. On the flip side, it’s a rather inexpensive conversion and can be done really quickly.

Dual tank: put a second gas tank in your trunk for veggie oil. Install a system that switches between the two tanks. Start and stop the car on diesel and switch over to veggie oil once the car and veggie oil is heated up. This way you always have diesel sitting in your engine when it’s not running and never need to start the car on something less liquidy than what a car likes being started on. Drawbacks are the high cost and time it takes to do the conversion.

There’s a company that has set up shop in Silver Lake here in Los Angeles called Lovecraft Biofuels that converts cars with the single tank conversion. Early on Gavin didn’t know about the 2 kinds of conversions and thought that they would be the logical first stop what with them being down the street and all. Despite having a terrible experience with a complete lack of customer service and just a general sense of not-so-niceishness, Gavin got the wagon converted at Lovecraft for $700. It should be noted that the company is now under new management and that he’s had a MUCH better experience there recently when he went in to get an upgrade on his conversion (which is now the standard conversion). So while in the past he would have told you stay far far away from Lovecraft, things seem to be a million times better now.

For Alissa’s car they went the two tank route. They found a company in Ojai called Veg Powered Systems and drove the car out there. It took about a week and set them back $3000, but it works like a charm. Here’s some pictures of the new tank in the trunk and the new switch and fuel gauge on the dashboard.

The decision to go one or two tank is a tricky one. The cost is a huge variable and should be weighed against how long you think your car will run. With only 109,000 miles on it Alissa plans on driving her sedan for many years. Gavin is less sure how long the wagon will be on the road. And the colder the climate you live in, the more your oil is gonna solidify. Two tank conversions are a must for colder weather if you want your car to start while as here in sunny SoCal you can start right up on a single tank.

Step 3: Getting the fuel.
Everyone wants to be driving these cars on waste veggie oil, which means oil used by restaurants which has been filtered. While putting new oil in the tank works just fine, recycling the oil is half the point. Alissa and Gavin had learned that there is (yet another) war going on between veggie fanatics about who gets what oil from which restaurant and dammit you stole that restaurant out from under me. Not wanting to deal with all of that nonsense they went the ’set up a gas station in the drive way and have the waste oil delivered’ route.

Gavin built a gas pump in his driveway with almost all of the bits and pieces acquired on eBay. All told it cost about $500 with two 55 gallon drums and the fuel pump being the most expensive parts. It took them a few months to track down a reliable delivery system. The first guy bailed for no reason in particular. Then they finally located a company called Go Veggie Go and now have the oil delivered about once a month. It works quite well. And when push comes to shove they role into Costco, pick up a slew of 5 gallon jugs of the stuff and pour it right into the gas tank there in the parking lot. It gets quite a reaction from the Costco shoppers.

Over all Alissa & Gavin are quite pleased with their cars and their set up. It did take about a full year to get the two cars converted and running smoothly with oil being delivered on a regular basis. It was a learning experience for sure, but one I’m glad that they went through. I’m seriously considering getting myself a more modern car (anyone know of someone selling a Volkswagen TDI of any kind?) and going veg. I don’t have a partner to fall back on should my car break down or a place to set up a pump, but I figure a newer car and fueling visits to Casa Carlton should do me fine. It’s all about finding the right car though, and that’s tough in a state where diesels are not sold. For now at least – apparently the new diesels pass California’s tough emissions standards, so we might start seeing more of them on the road. I say convert ‘em all to run on vegetable oil!