Amen. I think you stand a better chance of getting upside down. I bought
a '92 300D recently for $4000 I have a total of $10,000 in now. Now I
*am* kind of picky but the car is gorgeous and runs extremely well. I
think it's worth every dime I put into it. YMMV

JD

I agree.  Most older cars I bought do need lots of attention in the
first 6-12 months, regardless if I know the history or not.  15-20 years
is about the time rubber/seals/plastic parts start to fail.  They are
not expensive but it sure takes lots of labor.  Is it worth to trade
down to a car you are not familiar with?  It may save on the purchase
price but the maintenance cost is increased.

I also agree with that, the veg oil conversion does not do much saving
unless you drive a lot and keep the car for many years.

It seems it would be one hell of a conversion to get a 97 E320, which
has a 6 cylinder gas engine to run on WVO.

I drive my diesel about 7K miles a year, much of it on short trips
around town.   So, assuming I got the WVO for free, and I'd save about
$750 a year in fuel costs.   That's assuming I used 100% veg oil.  Now
factor in that to use WVO without processing it, I'd have to do a
conversion, putting in another fuel tank and all the plumbing, etc.
Then, I'd still hgave to buy some regular diesel and use it until the
WVO warms up, which I think negates using it on short trips of a few
miles, like to the grocery store.    I looked into the kits a couple
years ago, and for my car the conversion kit was running around $1500.

Or I could process WVO into biodiesel and avoid the conversion,  but I
think that requires setting up a chemical processing lab with vats,
lye, methanol, testing each source of WVO collected to figure out how
much lye needs to be added and the time and effort that goes with
it.     I'm not sure local authorities would approve of that activity
in my home garage or  if my insurance would pay off if the place
burned down.   And what do I do with the waste products?  I can't put
them out into the street with the trash.  I guess you have to pay some
toxic waste hauler to take them away, unless you dump the crap in the
woods at night.

And with either method, I have to go around town and somehow collect
hundreds of gallons of WVO in an 80 300SD.

Factoring all that into the equation, it just doesn't seem to make
sense to me.

Do you really think what fuel you put in your own car is going to
affect your health?   When you drive down the highway, you're
breathing exhaust generated by all the other cars, diesel trucks,
busses, etc.   Last time I checked, my own exhaust is flowing behind
me.    I'm breathing what's coming out of the dump truck ahead of me.

And burning WVO generates pretty much the same pollutants as burning
diesel, though it does generate maybe 30% less amounts of some of
them.   But that assumes that WVO is properly processed and burned as
completely as possible.    I've seen reports that cars just running
straight WVO through some old diesel actually produce MORE pollution,
because the fuel is too thick, doesn't atomize completely and hence
doesn't burn as completely as diesel or a commercial biodiesel mix
would.  We've all heard the stories of how these cars exhaust smell
like french fries haven't we?   That should tell you that the
combustion certainly isn't complete.

I'm not saying WVO doesn't have a role to play as a fuel.   But if you
think you're somehow making a big difference in your own health or
environmental impact by taking WVO and just putting it into any
diesel, I think you're kidding yourself and could actually be emitting
more pollutants.

. green to mother earth... kicking those oil guys in the a.s...

Consider that there is only so much free WVO to be had.   The other
part of the biofuels solution is far from perfect. It takes more land,
more fertilizer, more water, and with it more run off, etc to grow the
plants needed to produce the fuel.  And the fertilizer comes from?
Natural gas.  So, I wouldn't say using VO is a big step into a green
world.  And if you had to pay true market prices, without subsidies,
for any of these biofuels, they still cost more than gasoling at $3.

and using your brain and having fun