[v8volvo]

No, no, no.

Please.

It's 2012 and commercial biodiesel has been around for over 10 years now. Guys, come on... the days when this was a new and confusing thing and misinformation was excusable are long over.

Biodiesel is NOT the same as vegetable oil. Biodiesel is a DIRECT DIESEL REPLACEMENT FUEL; the product of a transesterification reaction that leaves it with physical, chemical, and combustive properties absolutely unlike those of vegetable oil; a commercial fuel regulated and certified under ASTM standards, officially recognized as a road fuel for diesel vehicles without need for any modification, sold at gas stations. This is not something you are pulling out of the fryer of a restaurant or sucking out of a grease dumpster. You do NOT need to filter it or heat it -- in fact you absolutely should not, at least not any more than you would want to heat regular diesel. Biodiesel's viscosity at normal temperatures is comparable to that of diesel. In cold temperatures, biodiesel can gel, but that does not present as a viscosity problem -- rather, it presents as a filter plugging problem, the same way that crystallized diesel fuel does at slightly lower temperatures. In cold weather biodiesel is blended with winterized diesel to control the gel point, not heated. Biodiesel is not something for alternative-lifestyle folks now, it is a mainstream fuel that is used by commercial and municipal fleets, like Mike mentioned, and by private individuals who want to just put the fuel in their tank and not think too much about it. Biodiesel is *designed* so that for the most part you can do that.

Biodiesel CANNOT HURT YOUR 25-YEAR-OLD DIESEL ENGINE, it cannot explode your glowplugs and burst your headgasket, it cannot tear up your injection pump, it cannot knock your valves and pistons into each other, it cannot spray shrapnel around in your combustion chambers. It cannot, will not, and did not do any of those things. In fact it had absolutely no role in any of the damage that happened to Mike's engine.

I have used nothing but B99 biodiesel in all of my cars for the last 8 years and I don't know how many miles. That's 2 diesel VW's, and over 10 D24s and D24T's. Never a problem. I have worked in the biofuels industry and have worked on hundreds of other diesel vehicles in my line of work, everything from Mercedes-Benzes to TDI's to Sprinters to Powerstrokes to British London Taxis and more, many of which had used nothing but biodiesel their entire lives. I have seen plenty of good, bad, and ugly, but I have never seen or known of any engine failure related to biodiesel use. The reason is that it is strictly, causally impossible for it to have that kind of effect.

Many of the longevity and engine damage concerns that have been raised here are true with respect to SVO use. Biodiesel is *not* SVO and its usage is completely different. Go online and read all about it. We are living in the second decade of the 21st century and a large proportion of the diesel fuel in this country is now sold with at least 2% biodiesel in it. It's a good time for diesel drivers, even those who never use high percentage biodiesel blends, to get some understanding about what biodiesel is and isn't, and what it does and doesn't do.

So in this case, no, the biodiesel did not hurt your engine and no, it could not have even contributed to its demise. Whatever happened, it was going to happen just the same if you had had diesel in the tank instead. You don't need to worry about running it in your other diesels, and you don't need to worry about its having been part of whatever caused the problem. Let's all move out of the dark ages on this and be done with it before we embarrass ourselves.

Now.... if you had some kind of other fuel problem, such as a clogged/ruptured fuel filter, water in the fuel, etc, that could have been part of the story, especially if it caused the injection timing to run out of whack. Still doubt it, but since the circumstances of your problem are so odd and hard to understand, it is worth thinking about.... How long had it been since the last filter change, or water drain?