General Food for Thought

[Highlander]

Hi Folks, after sitting reading about all the members who want larger engines in the Panda, here is something to think about.

In Edinburgh we HAD a Canadian company called Shawcor, there claim to fame was that they produced about 85% of the worlds pipe limes for oil and gas. That sadly is no more as the plant is now in the process of closure.

At a meeting between Shawcor staff and there M.D. they were told the reason for the closure was quite simple, there are no new viable oil reserves in the northerm hemisphere.

Three other little bits of info that came form him were.

1) If you intend visiting Aunt Flossie in Australia, do it sooner that later as you wont be able to afford it shorly.

2) If you intend to buy a new car, ensure its diesel, and ensure it will run on bio diesel.

3)Knowing the worlds oil reserves, and the rate we are going through it, Shawcor would expect to see petrol rationing in the U.K. withing 7 to 10 years.

Now you may be wondering what this Scottish idiot is going on about, but if the above facts are accurate then why are company's like Fiat developing high performance petrol engines???. I read a while back that Fiat had a 107 bhp version of the 1.3 Multijet, which was going to be put into the Panda Rally, so why was that not the engine for the new sport, or is it just me missing something??.

Cheers for now
Ian

 

[Schwenck]

Ian, I certainly don’t think it makes you an idiot to suggest petrol rationing (ditto any fuel rationing) is just down the road! It seems inevitable to me. I would worry thought it won’t be real rationing; a future government is certain to bottle-it (or oppose it on ideological grounds?) and do it by taxation. Then you get the classic dichotomy: Banker-in-his-BMW vs Midwife-in-her-Mini; who gets priced off the road first?

I keep telling my 12 year old son he won’t have the joy of cars when he’s older, and the more I say it the more determined I am to enjoy driving while I can. Part of me is tempted to just go out and buy an Alfa 156 V6 and be damned, but realistically I can’t square that with my commitments. My cars have always been sensible, economical, modest cars and that was why I personally was clamouring for a larger engined Panda; with its low weight, nimbleness and a 1.4 that is more economical than my 1.6 Stilo I could look forward to some better performance without costing the earth, in either sense. I do have my mid-life crisis to consider.

Buy I don’t think FIAT (or other manufacturers to be fair) are developing more ‘high performance’ petrol engines, I think they are just trying to offset the increasing bulk of modern cars by turbo-charging them. There is no way a petrol engine that is economical enough to compete with an equivalent diesel has comparable performance.

Besides, its all about markets isn’t it? FIAT covers the globe and some regions just don’t seem to use diesel anywhere near as much as Europe. Plus you’ve always got old petrol snobs like me. I won’t be driving a diesel until legislation or punitive tax forces me to. The irony being, if I am forced into a diesel, I’ll actually want to drive less anyway…

 

[Highlander]

My reasoning behind the statement of Fiat using the 1.3 multijet (107bhp) in the new Panda Sport is quite simple.
If say you buy one with the petrol engine, and say in a few years time it looke like there will be a problem acquiring future petrol supplies, what kind of trade in do you think you would get for a car that no longer has a regular fuel supply?. But if the Multijet was used and running on Bio-diesel, I would think there would be no problems.

I'm not getting at the car manufactrrers, I think it is up to the customer to sit down and think about the future, and say to themselfes, if i'm going to keep this car for say 6 years, is there going to be a fuel supply for the vehicle in 2013.

i know folks may think i'm just trying to put the wind up them, but if fuel is not going to be a problem in the future, why are a lot of the large farms in Scotland now starting to produce there own type of bio-diesel for there tractors and combines.

cheers for now..........Ian

 

[Highlander]

My reasoning behind the statement of Fiat using the 1.3 multijet (107bhp) in the new Panda Sport is quite simple.
If say you buy one with the petrol engine, and say in a few years time it looke like there will be a problem acquiring future petrol supplies, what kind of trade in do you think you would get for a car that no longer has a regular fuel supply?. But if the Multijet was used and running on Bio-diesel, I would think there would be no problems.

I'm not getting at the car manufactrrers, I think it is up to the customer to sit down and think about the future, and say to themselfes, if i'm going to keep this car for say 6 years, is there going to be a fuel supply for the vehicle in 2013.

i know folks may think i'm just trying to put the wind up them, but if fuel is not going to be a problem in the future, why are a lot of the large farms in Scotland now starting to produce there own type of bio-diesel for there tractors and combines.

cheers for now..........Ian

 

[arsedownoz]

Hi guy's just to note my best friend flys Helicoptors out to the Oil Rigs off Aberdeen, i mean he used to, he now fly's from Humberside to Oil Rigs off the East coast, and my niece is moving to Houston Texas with her new husband, who also lived and worked in the Oil industry around Aberdeen, so something is cooking Alan.

 

[Schwenck]

I suppose as long a mugs like me still buy petrol engined cars the manufacturers will carry on making them, even if they are being secretly advised by the fuel companies of the true outlook...

This article (spookily published today) sheds some light on FIATs philosophy.

http://www.italiaspeed.com/2006/cars/other/technology/11/investor_presentation_engines/0911.html

 

[tmmitzzie]

whats this bio-diesel stuff then, howzit different from normal diesel, and will a diesel engined car need modified to use it ?

 

[bjm38]

As I understand it the MultiJet is a common-rail design, and so unlikely to be able to run on bio-diesel.

On the long-term availability of petrol, my girlfriend lives in China where very few private cars run on diesel. I think it's more likely that the Chinese will simply end buying so much of the world's oil that there will be a global shortage rather than the wells actually running dry.

They don't sell the Panda in China.

 

[Highlander]

I am not to sure what the blend is for bio-diesel, but as far as I can gather its a blend of diesel and oil seed rape oil.
I have heard from various truck drivers who do continental runs that the stuff is only pennies per litre on the continent, and that there seems to be no probs putting the stuff into U.K. trucks.

As for putting it into the panda with the multijet engine, i reckon we will need to find out.

As for the stuff some farmers are creating for there equipment..........who knows.........a tractor will just about run on chip pan oil.

cheers for now
Ian

 

[Mix_]

Every car that can run diesel, can run biodiesel too. There are little modifications needed, though.

The fact is, that the producink-cost of boidiesel isnt much lesser (or even higher) that the price of ordinary diesel. The good final pricepoint is achieved by state dotations and significally lowered taxes.

And, yes – when you drive bio, exaust gases smells, like pancakes

 

[protreptic]

Every car that can run diesel, can run biodiesel too. There are little modifications needed, though.

I would definitely check with Fiat before filling a multijet with pure bio diesel. As I understand it, modern high pressure common rail diesels have been designed such that the fuel lubricates the pump, and I doubt they thought about the lubricating properties of bio diesel when specifying the components. This is why putting petrol in your tank by mistake is such a bad thing - knackers fuel pumps pronto.

Would be nice to know though. I will do some asking around.

 

[Shunter]

Just a small note on bio diesel.

I work for a company which runs about 100 modern Volvo 44 ton trucks and the diesel fuel we are using is a mix of ULSD diesel and 5% bio diesel and we find that filters block up regularly and we have to clean the fuel tanks out fairly regularly as we get an accumulation of a "waxy gunge" in the tank stack pipe filters which simply stops the flow of fuel and consequently kills the engine.

One of our depots uses only bio diesel and the truck manufacturer has told them that the warranty on the engines is now invalid as the engines were not designed to run on bio diesel.

Research the subject before using 100% bio in your car.

 

[milltech]

There shouldn't be a problem with bio diesel, but this isn't the same as running unmodified cooking oil or waste oil. This can be used in a system that starts on real diesel and ends on real diesel where a heater is used to raise the temperature of the oil so its viscosity matches the real stuff. There are kits you can buy to do this, and filters available so you can get the old stuff off the chippy and diy.

You can also become a self administered fuel supplier and pay Gordon his share per litre, and do it all quite legally. It's what I intend as soon as the warranty expires.

There are other people running on 50/50 and this seems to work quite well too, a friends son runs his Transit based camper like this, and is of course registered with Grasping Gordon for the purpose.

This is a good read on the subject -
http://www.dieselveg.com/
http://www.dieselveg.com/conversion_photos.htm