CRV ( CTDI ) 2007 & Biofuel

[iceiscool]

Has anybody run their new CRV CTDI on biofuel ?
I have read that VW Skoda and several other manufacturers will incourage the use of biofuels to be used in their new vehicles.
Has anybody had experience of whats involved or permisable.

[ex-vag]

I have a 2005 2.2 ctdi and we've been running it on biodiesel for the last couple of months with no problem, recently though the coil light has appeared on the dash which cuts out the turbo and cruise control. A quick check in the manual points to a fuel problem.

I also run my Saab on bio diesel and have done for a couple of years no with no problem, although initially I did have the engine management light come on intermittently with the same affect as the CRV, no turbo and no cruise control, it went out after a few weeks and hasn't appeared since.

I've spoken to a few people about this and they reckon that the light comes on whislt the ecu remaps itself according to the new fuel, I haven't had confirmation of this from anyone in the know, but it seems to fit in with what happened on the Saab. The question is do I risk keeping the coil light appearing intermittently until the ECU sorts itself out, if indeed it does such a thing?!

[AoS]

I contacted Honda Switzerland when I bought my 2005 and they told me not to use biodiesel because the engine was not designed to run on it and less efficient.

[bernithebiker]

Personally, I would not believe anything the manufacturer tells you about fuels.

They have to be very careful regarding warranties, as if they say yes you can ,and things go wrong, then you can blame them. As they have no control over what type or quality of biofuel you are using, then they have to say 'no', right?

This does not mean that you can use biofuels 100% safely or that they will destroy your engine. Just that Honda, BMW, Audi, etc. have to play it safe and say no, to protect themselves.

As long as the biofuel meets the critical specifications for road diesel, namely, Cetane, Lubricity, Sediment, CCR, Viscosity, etc. then I see no major issues. Indeed, some biodiesels have cetane numbers way higher than that of standard diesel.

(Full road diesel specifcations can be found by searching for EN590)

[Mr E]

I bought my first CR-V (DSL 2.2i-CTDi) couple of months ago here in Finland.
I asked the salesman about biofuel usage. He had never heard about any restrictions on biofuel usage on Honda cars but was not sure.

He called me later after asking from the technical side and confirmed that I can use any biofuels which are commercially available but advised not to use any self made stuff etc.