You know why else I am excited to be moving to Texas? I can finally run my diesel Benz on 100% burned veggie oil!

I couldn’t do it in Michigan because of its unpredictable and mostly cold weather. However, Texas is a different story. Because of the high average temperature, I won’t worry about plugging my injectors with a gunked up mixture of canola and peanut oils.

Additionally, though I’m the last guy to bitch about the price of gas, it’s fianlly starting to get to me, too. At $3.00 per gallon, diesel fuel, though cruder and cheaper to make, is for some reason $0.25-0.30 more expensive than gas. Buying fuel for my car is turning into my own personal little money drain. Of course, I make it up in extremely cheap maintenance and good mileage, but still – numbers don’t lie:

- Max: (25 mi to work x 2) x 20 days a month = 1,000 miles of commuting per month. Add 200 miles of misc. weekend driving for a total of 1,200 miles driven per month. At $3.00 per gallon and 27 mpg, the fuel bill is $133.33.

- Max’s wife: (20 mi to work x 2) x 20 days a month = 800 miles of commuting per month. Add 200 miles of misc. weekend driving for a total of 1,000 miles driven per month. At $2.75 per gallon and 31 mpg, the fuel bill is $88.71.

The totally ridiculous estimated monthly fuel bill: $222.04.

I think it’s a little sad to live in a time when you can buy a brand new Lincoln for less than it will cost you to fill it up (based on local vehicle incentives and taken on a monthly basis).

Thus, I’m excited to switch to burning WVO, or Waste Vegetable Oil. For around a grand, I can outfit my Benz with a Greasel kit, which will pay for itself in around 6 months. I’m not taking into consideration the highly beneficial properties of veggie oil – better lubrication, less wear on the engine. I would have to still filter the oil, but I think I can muster filtering 15 gallons of anything once a week as long as I’m not spending money on diesel.