well the dealer already said he would "eat" it .. (mostly likely just try to sell it to someone else and hope the replacement works better) if the motor manufacturer is unwilling to refund the cost. so either way, im covered. heck, i told them, i bargain...free replacement battery pack... that would work... down payment possibly on any other future purchases... they, like gm, also have some interesting (not quiet sure i'd say promising to Zenn OR gm) press releases on possible future developments. etc... who knows, we will see
well the problem was NOT the expensive injector pump we dreaded. it was a fuel line that was so rotted out that the system was drawing air. got new lines, found out they gave us the wrong ones at the store, went back and got new ones, got distracted by a bunch of other stupid crap that went wrong elsewhere, got back to fixing this beast, replaced the lines, bled the air, and NOW IT RUNS AGAIN. cost $150 in gas while this thing was off the road. argh. at least that's over.
6000 mile report: total cost $3076.14 including purchase price (includes all parts, oil filtering and storage supplies, diesel, etc) vs not buying the veggie burner and driving the es250 instead: $1411.76, being generous with the mpg figure current deficit remaining to make up: $1664.38- not bad considering that i included the purchase price in there! starting in august, he will be putting 6k miles on it per month. and knock on wood, i hope we've gotten the failures out of the way. demand for these is ridiculous. he went to a biofuels workshop last week, and the local co-op says they've got buyers for veggie burners lined up around the block. he's now considering making his own biodiesel from the veg oil if he's got time, which is pretty cool.
no, we haven't taken any pics. the car has never been pretty and neither is the collection and filtering process! usually he does this stuff while i'm busy with other things, so there is nobody to take the pictures. here are pics of the same model and color as ours:
he took a trip out to the family home this weekend. he calculated his mpg on wvo for the trip, and it came out to almost 28 mpg on the highway! that includes coming up the mountain. 99% of his driving starting next month will be open highway. he is on his way home, and is about to find out how many wvo gallons it takes him to get to school. we have yet to figure mpg on diesel... it's been hard to keep track with all the little issues we've had with it so far. hopefully those are all hammered out and we can figure it. though that may not even be that important cost-wise if he does go through with making his own biodiesel. we are considering a centrifugal filtration setup. though it is pricey, it will save him lots of time he could use to do homework or work part time. it will pay itself off much like the car will, and seriously increase our eventual selling price, but we have a few things to clear off the table before we get there.
i am pricing out components for a centrifugal filtration system. with 25 course credits and that substantial drive time, DH won't have time to spend filtering the high volume of oil he will be using each week, so we're going to have to spring for this earlier than anticipated. the good news is, the entire greaser setup including new filtration should pay itself off in fuel savings by october. the expenses do not do much for our present situation, but i have handled worse. we will get the money back when we sell.
By October! Fantastic. Too bad he is tight on personal time. I can see him using this experience to make money helping other to modify their cars or diagnose/repair other people's veggie burners. If the demand is that high, there is money to be made there.
oh, the time crunch is just awful lately. it's only going to get worse with his 25 credit course load this fall. he'll soak up his major classes like a sponge, but the physics won't come as naturally. yep, i anticipate break-even around 15k miles including the new filtration setup. that's not accounting for maintenance and repairs on the lexus though, that's just straight gas cost. i do, however, include every penny we've spent on the greasecar, so i am biasing my numbers against the greaser. call it rigor we hit 6k miles in early june. i don't know what it's up to now, but he will be doing about 6k miles/month starting in mid august. october is a safe bet. so we'll have several months of virtually free driving before we sell at a profit. the major components of the filtration setup are on their way. took a little sacrifice to get them here but we're no strangers to that. DH is moving out tomorrow- earlier than expected due to some bad news- and will spend his free time putting the whole thing together and testing it.
25 units! That's like double the normal load when I was in college. Too bad none of his classes are online. Then he wouldn't have to commute at all.
he does have 2 or 3 classes online. he will be at school approximately 8 hours a day, plus 3-4 hours drive time. this is the hardest semester- after this it gets better. 9 credits and internships in the spring, and 9 credits in the summer. both rear axles failed- we didn't catch the torn boots before it was too late. cost about $200. another setback in break-even time. the parts are here, he's building the bulk filtration setup and coming home for a night. then classes start thursday. sooooo much to do.
estimated 4 weeks until the car pays for itself and all associated costs (down to the AAA membership for potential towing), despite not having used it much recently. DH didn't have a lot of free time so it took him a while to build the filter rig. he also didn't have time to hand-filter oil, so he was driving the lexus. it'll pay for that cost too by the time all is said and done. he drives about 5000 mi/month. here's his rig in all its glory. he puts 40 gal of oil in it at a time, which is more or less a week's worth of driving. the barrel heats it up to remove water, the centrifuge filters out the nasty stuff and also gets rid of some water. he is doing fantastically in school. he tested out of 4 credits- got a 97% on the class final. his program director is using him to help other students and giving him special projects to see what he's capable of doing. i couldn't be more proud.
Testing out is the way to go if you can get credit for it. I took a test when I entered college and got credit for all of my math, english and some science. Ending up taking an English and science class anyway because of the delay in getting my test scores. But the cost of the test more than paid for itself in the savings for not having to take all of those courses. My nephews have done the same things, sorta. They took AP classes in public school that counted for credit toward college. The nephew going to Berkley will graduate a year or two early. At $20,000 a year, that's a good chunk of change. (Good, since my parents are paying all of the bills.) Congrats to DH. Condolences on the axles. I see why you sympathize with jelloslug. Now how are *you* doing? Any closer to "graduation"?
i managed to graduate from college in under 3 years thanks to ap credits and testing out of classes, so i'm very glad he took the initiative to test out of that class. he is going to go after one, possibly two more challenge tests. he's set to finish in may instead of august. me, i'm just working my tail off. i needed a short break from today's work so i popped in here i hope i can get it all done by may as well, but nothing is set in stone yet.
it's official. the greaser benz has paid for all of its costs (including purchase price) vs gas for the lexus. now it's just straight free riding unless it needs another repair. on the way is an extra winterizing step: injector line heaters. this is in addition to the heat exchanger coil he installed last winter. this is a cheap and hopefully effective way to spend less time running on diesel. still running 5-6k miles per month through march. with a break for thanksgiving and for winter break. then the car is going up for sale, as it's served its purpose for us.
One of my co-workers (Ubaldo) converted his MB to run on free restaurant greese he collects for free, here at work (Disney). Since converting the steem trains to run on the greese, Disney has warnd him they will cut him off from the free greese. Disney used to have to pay for having the goo disposed. Now, there are companies that PAY for it, due to the demand caused my conversions. So, with the Steam Trains now exhausting restaurant smelling exhaust, and buyers for their waste greese, times are a changing. What an irony. May your free fuel supply last much much longer than the So Cal diesel converters.
fortunately for us, we're in good shape there, hill! the restaurant we get our fuel from is owned by a larger corporation that has a standing contract for all of their restaurants- they pay to have it hauled off each month. so long as that doesn't change before this spring, we're fine. though it's getting harder to find new supply sources- DH still comes back here to pick up his oil, over there he couldn't find a place with enough waste that would let him pick up.
