After collecting a couple of regular customers, John and Jane T, from Bristol Airport- who were on the return journey from a week long trip to Belgium, the Taxi driver soon picked up on the fact that John seemed to be a bit under the weather. After talking with his partner for a short while the driver learned the reason for this was down to his love for Belgian beers. There are about 400 Belgian beers available and John’s mission was to sample as many as possible over there 7 night stay!

.
Brewers say that it’s the organisms in the air around Brussels give these beers their uniqueness and that they couldn’t be produced anywhere else in the world to mach the same taste. Needles to say, John slept ¾ of the way home.
Feel free to leave any comments about Belgium Beer below.

Over the last few months, many of Gloucester’s Taxi Drivers have tested Biodiesel in their cabs to see how the Reported Green and cheaper fuel of the future shapes up as part of the day to day business plan.

As Biodiesel in Gloucester is relatively new to the area, many drivers have recently filled their tanks with the fuel just to see what happens, can they reduce the monthly fuel bill as the price of oil based diesel rockets - in the last 12 months a rise of up to 30% has been seen at some forecourts in Gloucestershire.

Results seem to vary between different cars and driver preference. Back in a cold spell in February, a few drivers where put off using Biodiesel due to cold start problems in the mornings when temperatures went down to about minus four degrees centigrade. You would not expect this sort of problem at a fairly warm temperature with oil based diesel. Not knowing how low the temperature would go over the coming weeks was enough to make local drivers go back to the more expensive stuff!

Another low temperature issue with biodiesel was more vehicle specific and related to the Ford Galaxy (pre 2006), VW Sharan and Seat Alhambra. These three vehicles are equipped with a booster heater, which is controlled by the vehicles ECU. When ambient temperature is below 10 degrees centigrade and the engines water temperature is below 70 degrees centigrade the automatic booster heater is switched on. The booster heater works by spraying diesel over a red hot glow plug, which burns the fuel. Unfortunately, the flash point of biodiesel is higher (162oC) than oil based diesel (82oC), resulting in huge clouds of white smoke pouring from under the vehicle. In fact so much smoke can be emitted people can believe the car is on fire!

Have you tried Biodiesel in your car? Do you run on Biodiesel? Why not post your comments on this site now and share your experiences with others.