MOTORISTS across Doncaster are being landed with fat bills for trying to cut their fuel costs by filling up on cooking oil.
Contaminated vegetable oil is damaging car engines and landing them with big garage bills to get their vehicles back on the road.
With drivers looking for cheaper options than conventional diesel – which is around 125p a litre – garage bosses fear the problem could get worse.
Ibrar Khan, proprietor of the Moto Technik workshops on the York Road trading estate, says his mechanics have had to repair three cases in recent weeks.
He said: "The problem seems to be with drivers who are getting vegetable oil from their local takeaway, which I believe they give away because they need to get rid of it.
"But what drivers don't seem to realise that is if it is not filtered properly the contaminants clog up the engine's fuel injection system.
"Cars using this sort of fuel need to be serviced much more frequently than with normal diesel and if not it leads to these other problems."
Customers have been landed with bills of up to £480 to have their engine systems cleaned.
Mr Khan said: "I am getting about two a month and I think it might get worse. It's going to be a nightmare because more people will be using this fuel with diesel being so expensive.
"But they will not be saving any money in the long run because of the bigger garage bills, so I advise people to be very careful about using it. It is OK to use clean vegetable oil if it is mixed with diesel but I think using it all the time could be expensive."
Manufactured from oil seed rape, waste cooking oil, or palm oil, the AA points out the viscosity of biodiesel is critical for correct pump operation and those fitted to the latest diesel engines will not run for very long on pure biodiesel.
A spokesman said: "Pure vegetable oil is much thicker than normal diesel and places considerable load on the pump. Ideally, if you are going to use this it should be mixed with normal diesel to reduce the viscosity. Vegetable oil doesn't contain any cleaning additives which keep the nozzles of the injectors clean so there is the risk of them 'coking up', becoming blocked up. Waste cooking oil from chip shops and restaurants contains food particles, lots of water and if they use palm oil it is solid at room temperature. We don't recommend the use of waste cooking oil as it is.
"Before use in a vehicle it needs to be filtered to remove all the tiny particles of food and the water should also be removed as it causes corrosion in the pump. We suspect in the cases in Doncaster the used cooking oil has not been filtered, contained high levels of water or was solid when cold."
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