Before diesel became modern slang for somebody big and robust or just hardcore, it mostly applied to vehicles that were big tough work horses. Trucks, tractor-trailers, earthmoving machinery, some German cars. But it was never that popular as fuel for conventional everyday cars, which is really a shame, because diesel could have saved the consumer lots of money.

Essentially Diesel a less refined version of gasoline, Costing the oil companies that manufacture it something like twenty five percent per gallon cheaper to manufacture desiel, although in saying that the end product itself usually costs a bit more than gasoline.

The big advantage’s of using diesel is that it gets both way better fuel economy and produces less pollution than regular gasoline, which is only a couple of many reasons why it’s very popular in the industrial work force. Being no particular reason’s that diesel was never as popular for everyday conventional vehicles, aside from the fact that diesel engines were initially designed for industrial machines and 4×4 vehicles that have always had that association with diesel.

Diesel prices have sky rocketed just like gas prices have, diesel has not become especially popular as a means to save on gas. This is compounded by the fact that most diesel vehicles that the ordinary person would use are either pick up trucks 4×4 vehicles, not very popular for city driving.

Where diesel vehicles have an advantage is that, unlike your typical everyday automobile, they can burn a variety of fuels, all of which fall under the general definition of diesel. The one we hear about most often, and the one that’s become most common, is biodiesel.

As the name biodiesel might have you thinking, biodiesel is produced from organic sources. It’s has become so commercially popular that it’s become necessary to make the distinction about what kind of diesel you’re refering to.

Unfortunately, biodiesel tends to not be any cheaper than the regular stuff, so while using it might make you feel better about using a sustainable resource, it won’t do much to help out your gas bill.

Did you know that there is another type of biodiesel out there. Suprisingly you can actually put used cooking oil in your diesel car, it will run without any kind of modification to the engine. This may be surprising most of you, this is no accidental discovery as this is exactly what diesel engines were designed to do.

When Rudolf Diesel invented the diesel engine, his objective was to create an engine that would run on vegetable oil, so that small farmers could compete with those who could afford the more expensive gasoline machinery.

Now this is an opportunity to save your hard earned cash. If you can pick up an old diesel vehicle or have a diesel vehicle, you can run it entirely on oils that your average restaurant is looking to get rid of. Most of the time, they’ll be happy to see you take it of there hands. After all it cost them money to dipose of the used cooking oils.

If you’ willing to put in the work and learn more about using vegetable oil to run your car, it’s very much possible to run your car for free. Which, you have to admit to yourself, it is a pretty big improvement over four dollars a gallon.