Your Incredible Neighbors: GV man powers car with vegetable oil

I’ll take an order of fries with a gallon of grease on the side, please!

That might not be such a tall order in the near future as commuters turn to alternative methods such as bio-fuels to power their vehicles as gas prices hit the roof.

When Green Valley resident Don Palthe places a food order, he also hands the wait staff his business card inscribed with the words, “Save your oil—vegetable oil recycling” and “free pickup.”

“I get the waste vegetable oil from my favorite restaurant and use it to fuel my car,” Palthe says. “I leave the restaurant five gallon buckets to collect the oil in. The restaurant I use goes through about 100 gallons a month, so that’s pretty good for me.”

Palthe got the idea to start using vegetable oil to fuel his vehicle after petrol prices started soaring, forcing him to cruise the Internet looking for fuel solutions other than gas.

Palthe praises Rudolf Diesel, who in 1898 was granted the patent for an internal combustion engine, later known as the diesel engine. This engine stood as an example of Diesel’s vision of an engine fueled by vegetable oil, Palthe says.

In his Web research, Palthe eventually found a company called Green Benz?, and because he owns a Mercedes-Benz, he investigated the company’s Web site to see what it was all about.

What he found was a conversion kit so his car could process both diesel and vegetable oil, if the need be.

“I actually strain the used oil through an old T-shirt,” Palthe says.

Palthe drives a 1985 Mercedes-Benz 300 D Turbo diesel he purchased for $4,000.

“It has 250,000 miles on it, which is nothing for a diesel,” he says. “It’s the last model they made with a cast iron engine and in Europe, they use this model for taxi cabs. They go forever.”

Palthe signed up for a Green Benz conversion seminar in Los Angeles, Calif., so he could do his own conversion.

He learned that the process is made up of three components: a clear fuel filtration cylinder which allows the driver to view the fuel and filter condition, a booster fuel pump, and a heat exchanger.

With this conversion Palthe can run on straight diesel or any mix of diesel, straight vegetable oil like you get in the grocery store, or waste vegetable oil right from the local fast-food chain.

“The benefits of using vegetable oil are many,” Palthe explains. “When burned, it’s a lot less dirty than diesel and it’s not toxic to people or animals. Vegetable oil is good ecologically. Plus, it smells pretty good, too—even like fried chicken if that’s what the restaurant sells.”

And the cost?

Palthe says he gets about 23 miles to the gallon in his car. The cost of his Green Benz conversion kit was approximately $600.

He says he can buy vegetable oil right from the grocery store shelves for less than he’s paying for a gallon of diesel, but he prefers to get it from the local take-out eatery.

“As long as I get the vegetable oil from restaurants for free, this is a very good way too cut the cost of driving as gas costs rise,” he says.

rford@gvnews.com | 547-9740