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In late February 2006, my Greasecar was ready. Daryl Beck, of Evergreen Motors spent a good day putting a second tank into my Volkswagen Beetle TDI. Flipping the switch to grease was undramatic, except for the cool but subtle "diner smell" that you could notice at stop lights with the windows down.

So, I'd like to think with two years under my belt, I'd have some reasonable suggestions for potential greasers -- maybe some pitfalls to avoid, and some tips of things that worked well for me:

First off get a good oil supply. That's "good" in several senses of the word: 1) Enough oil, but not too much; 2) Relatively clean; 3) Soy or canola, NOT hydrogenated of any sort. For a while I used oil from a nice little falefel shack down the way from my workplace. LOTS of crumbs and flour and crud in the oil made it very difficult to filter. Secondly, you really need a reasonable space for a couple of 55 gallon barrels and multiple cubies. A garage is ideal. You WILL spill, the question is really how much! I have to filter inside in the corner of our basement and I have spilled a bit. Use those floor diapers or oil absorbing pads around a bit. Third, use a filtering approach that works. I use denim filtering above a poly barrel ($10 from car wash businesses). I make these homebrew filters from pairs of jeans, but don't use worn jeans. Get next-to-new from Salvation Army or some such. If you are able to heat before you pour the oil into the filters it will filter much faster. Otherwise the denim filters will clog sooner rather than later. Settle as much as possible: two weeks is ideal.  Google these items, or check into the Veg Oil forum of Biodiesel Infopop.

Anyway, back to my story. I found the TDI Beetle was just great on fuel. I always had enough oil because the fuel economy on this vehicle was easily 45 MPG. We traveled from Boston to DC on a mere 13 gallons of grease! Sadly, the Beetle met an untimely end. A year later in 2007 on a local street I drove over a raised portion of asphalt on a dark local street. The Beetle is a VERY low car, only about 4 inches above the street. Impact with this "traffic divider" dislodged the engine from the mount, and according to the mechanic, cracked the engine block.

Enter 25 year-old Mercedes. This car is such a beast. Very heavy, a bit sluggish around town and sounds like a truck with its clatter-clatter. But you can feed it grease and have little fear about any sensitive components getting out-of-sorts. It CRUISES at 80 on the highway (not that I drive that fast!).  By contrast the TDI has a notoriously expensive injection pump that "may" fail when using veg over time. On a hot day, you can pour veg oil straight into the main tank of "Frances"! 

While I replaced a lot of plastic parts on the VW that will likely wear out sooner rather than later, over the past year, the following has been repaired or replaced on the Benz: 1) Vacuum pump; 2) Transmission; 3) Shocks; 4) Tires; 5) Steering wheel; 6) Rear axle. I know it sounds like a lot. However the car cost a mere $3200 (originally $31k in 1982) and presumably these parts will last another 100k miles or so on a car with over 200k.   The nice thing about the Benz is that it seems to "warn" when something is wearing out.  So far no ugly surprises, it hasn't left me stuck by the roadside (the TDI did more than once).  On the downside, there is already some underside RUST on this vehicle that I've been treating, but with salty roads in New England winters, this is probably the what will require the most long term attention.