Veggie oil W123

Just saw this on CL last week. I've seen it parked in my town in a public parking lot with a for sale sign on it for a while, so they're probably motivated to sell. My wife actually knows the owners and she said they have a few veggie converted cars.

http://allentown.craigslist.org/cto/3265015442.html

Interesting! I'm out in the Allentown area on business for the rest of the week... I can only imagine how much trouble I'd be in from the GF if I came home in that (no idea how I'd transport the home system though) instead of my company rental car... :-P

It's not a wagon - crisis averted!

The good news? Car is for sale at a decent price.

Bad news? It's a 240D. I've owned slow cars and actually find them fun, occasionally, and living in Fl. I guess it wouldn't be a deal-breaker, but in Pa.?

Be wary of one-tank "conversions". When most folks say that, they mean the stock diesel tank is used for the veggie oil, as opposed to one tank for veg, one for diesel. The pitfalls are: If the tank is steel (I think this on is) you'll get polymerization of the oil inside the tank. Then you gotta clean it regularly (i.e., remove the tank once a year or more!).
The bigger issue is, the vehicle runs at start-up on diesel. This is a big no-no. SVO (straight Veggie OIL, as opposed to veg cut with diesel) will NOT atomize below about 165°F. This creates, basically, carbon balls in the cylinder that scour the cylinder walls. The oil has to be at least 165°F at the injectors. Very few, if any, one tank systems are capable of doing this.
Disclaimer: This info has been gathered from guys that have more experience running WVO than I do. My car has been on a two-tank system for 80,000 miles so any one-tank stuff is second hand knowledge I'm passing along from others.

If you're interested, do a compression check. If it checks out good, buy it and to a two tank system and you're good to go.

I really would like a WVO converted DD.... these are really slow tho eh?

My god, they are slow "un-safe at slow speed".

Glacially slow.

I have driven 2 4 speed 240Ds and they are fine as long as you dont have to go over about 70 mph ever. I didnt think they were really that slow, the places i drove them I was able to go just as fast as i would have if I had just been driving normally in a different car. I do think an automatic one would be pretty terrible though, and I dont think id want either if i drove up hills a lot, my 300SD is bad enough at that lol.

I've driven a few 240's and yeah, they are slow. They'd be fine-ish for my commute since there's not a lot of city driving but I don't think I'd really like it. I've also driven non-turbo 300. I'd never own a non-turbo diesel benz.

I did drive an automatic 300td non turbo once, it was pretty terrible. I think it was partly because it was in poor shape, it was way slower than a 240D 4 speed though.