Does anyone know the cons of running red diesel...besides its slight illegality?.........(this question is asked for non-road use purposes...honest!)

You can't use it in your Scoob ;)

It will not damage your engine but it will show up if you get your tank dipped by the police(trust me,customs and excise will be rubbing there hands together;))

it is the same derv. Just with red dye added to enable customs and excise to regulate its use.
r

If you ran a tank now and again, would it leave traces?

[Edited by ChrisB - 10/21/2002 9:52:05 PM]

Red diesel is probably about the best quality diesel fuel you can buy. There is far less chance of anyone mesing with it, by diluting it with other substances to make more profit, which happens very often with normal diesel.
Obviously it is not supposed to be used as a road fuel. Apparently customs have some sort of litmus paper type device, whaere they simply place it over the exhaust, and they can tell by the colour the paper turns whether red is being used. Havent seen this myself, but it did come from a good source.
Though, if you got away with using it for a few years, then you would save a fortune. eg. Hypothetically of course, if I had been using the stuff in a cheap runabout for work etc. for the last 5 years or so, I would have saved over £10,000, which that money could have been spent on more worthwhile things.....like modifying my subaru. :D
Of course I didnt as I am just giving an example.
How many times have you actually seen customs dipping????????
It would be pointless using red now and again, it would take a while for the traces of it to be removed from the tank, and even if they detect any red, you will still be done.
First offence is usually approx £500 on the spot.
I recall for a while someone I knew ;) was buying the stuff for 13p/l, although it is now about 20p/l. They ;) just bought an oil tank for the house, and get 1000l at a time delivered.

How reckless of these people, robbing our poor Mr Blair and his buddy Mr Prescot of his well deserved taxes. Very inconsiderate I think, and I would never consider doing such a thing, not even a little bit.
:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

[Edited by Ivor_the_engine_ChooChoo! - 10/21/2002 10:02:17 PM]

When customs and excise inspect a vehicle they take a sample from the tank,fuel filter ,or somwhere near the engine ,and a swab from the exhaust ,red is almost identical to normal derv except, this is the sneaky bit, it has a very slightly different % of sulphur in it and it does show up in their mobile lab.

Am told the dye is permanent. So if you use it once, it will still show up 6 mths later. Or a year. Be careful buying diesel cars off farmers...;)

As for dipping, I was told it's not so random, but if they get a tip-off they'll make it look random. So don't tell your closest friends.

BJH

Ive heard that red doesnt cotain an additive that lubricates the fuel pump..is this true...and also does red make the car smoke any more....?...

I don't think that it makes the car smoke anymore. But having worked on a farm for a while I know that people DO get checked. Its usually farmers that get checked at livestock markets etc - or just anywhere they tend to be in any numbers with road going cars. I guess its because they are considered having most access to it. I also think that anyone who does any work on the car, inspetcs it for insurance purposes etc who notices you've used red diesel has an obligation to report it (not a problem if you are a mechanic - but drive carefully!)

How about using vegetable oil instead? I guess you saw Top Gear.

Problem is the average punter in London or somewhere is unlikely to get stopped and checked randomly, anymre than you would be for anything else ;) ... but the chances are they'll be on to whoever is supplying you with it and so you would get caught in the long run. And it is regarded as a very very serious crime, I mean you know it's not, I know it's not, but Customs & Excise are a bit like the Spanish Inquisition.

As to differences I was always lead to believe it is absoulutly identical but has red dye.

Apparently identical, but from what I have been told, it is better fuel. WHen you consider the type of machinery that runs on the fuel, then quality is somehting that would need to be assured.
Imagine a few hundred builders/farmers etc etc with large plant costing anywhere up to £100,000 blowing up engines because their fuel is poor quality...Such a law suit they would have.
Red diesel does in some cars produce a little more smoke, although I am not sure why. I know plenty of people using it on private roads...lol ;) for years, and have never had any smoke problems.
Strange that anything to do with tax evation is almost punishable by death, when rapists, burglars, terrorists etc usually get off with a slap on the wrist at best.
Is this one of the most F**ked up countries in the world, or what????? We pay enough in taxes, so anything we can claw back, I think we deserve. It is the working class, who the government rob the most. They say Dick Turpin wore a mask...that mask has big smiley teeth inside. We all know who the real highway robber is, and worst thing is, we can do very little about him.
VOTE HIM OUT!!

Red diesel will work fine in any diesel car. A lot of farmers up north use it in "farm cars" - mostly land-rovers and peugeots etc that are legally allowed to run on red diesel and are exempt from road tax so long as they are never more than seven miles from the farm.

Red diesel will not damge your engine but may damage your wallet, as other have stated the C & E take a very dim view of this.

As for all the comments about the tax evasion robbing Blair and Prescott - they are actually robbing me and every other tax payer in the country. If the government do not make money from fuel tax they have to tax something else, iof they loose revenue from one area, or groups of people, someone else pays. [img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]

CT doin the bit for the good ol government there!!Any other comments on the issue at hand?

I've a mate who runs a garage and he has had a few motors in that have broke down because they've been running on red, new rangerovers etc.

They don't add certain additives as tractor engines are more basic
than cars

I had the RAC man out a while ago (first time in a long time!) and I asked him what he was towing more than anything else - answer? New Range Rovers! He reckoned they were by far and away the least reliable car of any age at the moment! Most reliable? Apparently up until a couple of years ago - Skodas! His company keeps a yearly tally of which manufacturers get towed and for three years in a row, they didn't tow a single Skoda!

proper RED diesel is identical to any other forecourt diesel!!

the problem occurs if you buy it off the daft lads who have a habit of adding heating oil to make it go a bit further!!!!!!
this does NOT have any lubrication additives and so siezes your fuel pump!! nice!?!

[Edited by stockcar - 10/24/2002 7:12:12 PM]

Tractor engines are more basic???? Have you any idea of the sort of machinery that use red diesel. Tractors, and diggers etc, eg Caterpillers and the like, are far from basic. These are very hi-tech machines costing a lot more than a poxy range rover.
In my experience, Ive heard of more garages diluting white diesel than I have ever heard of red diesel. There is simply more profit to be made that way by garages. There is one garage local to me, which is now shut down, that was pumping approx 3-5000 ltrs of heating oil a week into his diesel tank. Eventually he got caught, but he had been doing it for about 2 years. It was only a number of cars that got stopped and detected, that he was found out.
As for the tax bit. Prescott and Co are robbing us blind. If even a fraction of the money that was taken from us on petrol etc and road tax, and insurance tax etc etc. was put back into the transport and road system, then I would have no objections to paying. As it is, very little of the money ever sees its way back into the roads. The only way it does, is to fuel their big Jags and company cars, and of course Mr Blairs Private jet he uses, as obviously the roads arent good enough for him, and also would be to cheap. He likes to travel in style.
Double standards, and our taxes are paying for their high standard of living, and their free cars, and free fuel etc etc. If they were paying out of their own pockets, I bet it would be a different story.

So how can you tell if its been diluted with heating oil?.....and how would one ( theoretically) lubricate the fuel pump...is there any additives available?

Its very hard to tell, and almost impossible with white diesel. At least with red diesel, the colour will change from a dark red, to pink, depending on how dilute it is.
Another worry with places selling cheap diesel, is some people use acid to remove the dye from red diesel, and then sell it off as white/clear. This will also prove very harmful to your fuel system.
Im sure there are local government, or perhaps fuel retailers places about where you could possibly get a sample of the fuel tested for quality, at a reasonable cost.
It also make little sense at the minute anyway, diluting red diesel, as chances are its almost as cheap, if not in some cases cheaper than heating oil.
The only thing with red, is that depending on where you buy it from, regular fuel filter changes are a good idea, as perhaps some of the storage tanks arent as clean, but it depends on where you buy it from.

Red diesel will dammage your car - Customs and excise will not think twice about impounding and crushing your vehicle (depending on payment of serious fine)

:rolleyes:
The red in red diesel is just a dye, nothing more, otherwise it would be exactly the same as what you buy off the forecourt.
The Forces do the same thing to Petrol (leaded at the time) you car ran perfectly well on it but the dye sticks to the inside of the engine and fuel tank, its just a cheap way of protecting against misuse of a tax free fuel.

Tony:D

any other thoughts folks?

ive been involved in plant using red diesel for a long time and there is a lot of old wives tales about it....as said before it is identical apart from the red dye,and it does not stain the tank or engine..ive put it in my van before when ive run a bit short and got checked 2 weeks later and all clear....nearly got caught another time though..run out of diesel on m23 at 3 in morning so gets 5 gallon of red out of back and started filling van up with funnel and police t5 pulls up behind me....thought that was my lot but he asked if everything was ok,so told him yes just run out of diesel ....i filled up and turned it over until it started and he said he would follow me for a few miles to make sure it was ok...he turned off motorway at next junction to my relief.....he must off known as it was a transparent 5 gallon drum shining red in his headlights

anyone know of anywhere where I can get some of this red stuff for my diesel tractor in West london...hayes/southall/greenford etc area......

Love these threads as all the old wives tales start appearing again. :)

Red diesel is identical to the stuff you get on the forecourt. Red diesel can damage your car?? I don't think so. Bear in mind that the diesel engine was originally designed to run on peanut oil and recent events have shown that a diesel will happily run on used cooking oil :)

I have heard that C&E are due to change the colour of the dye to yellow as this is apparantly easier to detect (don't ask me how or why - that's what I've heard from the local supplier).

As for getting hold of it? Simple go to any boat yard as red diesel can be used on rivercraft. However, whether they sell it to you is another matter.

Chris


[Edited by Chris L - 10/28/2002 5:57:17 PM]

could always stick in a bit of blue colouring ya'self ...for this hypothetical situation of yours

All of your answers were on a programme called 'Black Market Britain' or something similar the other night (might even have been last night come to think of it)

Getting the dye out of diesel (fuel laundering as it is termed) and using kerosine based heating oil is costing C&E a fortune. They are beginning to carry out roadside checks different places. One guy interviewed had a job getting rid of the old fuel from cars about to be scraped. He reckoned 20% of the tank he emptied were running on illegal fuel. Apparently in N.Ireland 2/3 of the garages are selling illegal fuel and the legit ones are almost all going under - according to the programme anyway.

Was worth watching. Apparently the fuel laundering industry is worth a fortune. And in N.Ireland where there is easy access to cheaper fuel from Southern Ireland (less tax) it is pouring into mainland Uk and N.Ireland big time. Big time links to the IRA apparently.

Not just links to the IRA. Pretty much everyone is at it. I know loads of people who will drive over the border, and fill up a few drums of diesel, just for themselves. Even big haulage firms pay drivers to take the trucks, unladen, over and fill them up to save them buying fuel in the north. Its totally legal and nothing the government can do about it. Smuggling etc isnt costing the government the money. It is the government who is throwing the money away, buy being so greedy. If taxes were set at sensible levels, then this so called crime would not happen. It is true that a lot of filling stations are closing due to so many selling illegal fuel, and not being able to compete. Even Shell owned filling stations have closed down, in part becasue forecourt insurance more than doubled, but also they claim becaus they cannot compete with those stations who sell illegal fuel.

The real criminals are the government. They are the ones robbing us, asking for extortionately high taxes. Is it any wonder we are buying fuel down south, or using red/laundered fuel.
They will claim they want free trade across europe etc...but then if we bring fuel up from down south, we are smuggling it??? Figure that one out. Free trade my dick. The governemnt only wants our money