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Got a diesel car? Want to save about £15 every time you fill up? How do you do it? Use cooking oil!

It's a lot cheaper than diesel - and there are lots of reports on the internet of diesel cars running on a mixture of cooking oil and diesel.  So if the reports on the internet are true, you could save yourself a packet - but should you believe all you read on the internet?

As an experiment, BBC Radio Lancashire's Paul O'Gorman poured 15 litres of vegetable cooking oil, bought in a supermarket into the tank of a 1999 VW Passat 1.9 Tdi.

But how can a car run on cooking oil?

This is for DIESEL engines only. Petrol engines are a whole other technology and cannot burn vegetable oil.

Can you save money on your diesel?

Diesels CAN run on fuel made from plants. BIODIESEL which is sold on many petrol forecourts is exactly that.

Oils sold for cooking are also made from a variety of plants - corn, soya, rape seed, olives, so they're not that different.

However, those who've tried it say an ordinary diesel engine cannot run on 100% pure vegetable oil, because its too thick and gloopy to get through the fuel pump and injectors.

One way round it is the get the engine converted so the oil is heated to thin it, but its quite complicated and expensive - so for our purposes, we'll leave that to the experts.

The other way to thin it, is to mix it with something runnier like regular diesel. Just mix your vegetable oil into your diesel.

People who are trying this say the easiest way to do this is to run your tank almost empty. Then when you pop to the supermarket, fill up with diesel, and then add the vegetable oil. The drive home mixes it all up nicely.

How much vegetable oil should you use?

These are not my calculations, cos I haven't tried it properly yet - BUT the enthusiasts writing on the internet say you should start with a light blend, and increase each time you refill. That way, if you notice your car sputtering, you know you've hit the limit and should use less next time,

They claim that a 10% vegetable oil blend will work for everyone there should be no noticeable difference in how your car drives.

At 25% vegetable oil in 75% diesel, your exhaust stops smelling like a taxi and starts smelling like a doughnut fryer.

33% one part vegetable to two parts regular diesel - is the heaviest sensible mix for the British winter (the oil gets even thicker in colder weather), but half and half -they say- is a good running blend for the rest of the year. Half-and-half is where the cost savings really show themselves.

How much could you save?

Diesel's anything from 96p to £1 a litre. You can get cooking oil for about 55p a litre. So doing it this way, you save up to 45p per litre.

If you mix it half and half in a car with a 60 litre tank, that's a saving of about £14 per tank. 

If you use waste oil, and filter it as some people are doing, the savings can be even more dramatic, especially if you can get used cooking oil for nothing!

So why isn't everyone doing it?

It used to be illegal. To use cooking oil as a car fuel, you had to declare you were using it, and pay tax - which brought it nearer to the cost of regular diesel - so it wasn't worth it.

Anyone doing it was breaking the law, which is probably why we didn't hear much about it.

But in July, all that changed as Dave Gostelow from Her Majesty's Revenue and Excise confirmed to BBC Radio Lancashire...

Isn't it going to damage your car?

There are many reports on the internet of cars running trouble-free on a vegetable oil mix. Yet there are vehicle experts warning that this is not a wise thing to do.

You have to wonder how often your average mechanics has come across this first hand - as it's been illegal, probably not that often. If you're thinking of trying it, make no mistake that its at your own risk.

So don't just take our word for it. Satisfy yourself that it's likely to work for you.

Internet talk suggests that some cars work well while others don't... its commonly reported that it doesn't work well with cars fitted with a Lucas fuel pump, but with Bosch, there are fewer problems.

If your car in under warranty though, the manufacturers probably wouldn't be very sympathetic should you have an engine or any other problem - which is probably enough to put off most people from trying it in a fairly new car.

Heed the warning that this is still untried territory -  so you might regret it - but if it does work, it could save you a packet.

So how is my car doing? So far, so good, but I'll let you know more next week!

Paul O'Gorman

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Some of the world's biggest rock bands have been criticised recently for the carbon emitting, gas-guzzling effects of their world tours, but one band promoter in North Lancashire is doing his bit to tackle the problem... albeit on a slightly smaller scale.
His bands tour in a diesel van.. powered by... cooking oil!

Music promoter Ben Ruth told Tim Padfield in Lancaster about his tour van which is powered by vegetable oil...