Converted F-350 'veggie' truck stolen from Aspen Gardens
'It can smell like french fries or it could smell like Chinese food,' owner says of stolen veggie truck
An Edmonton man whose truck was stolen last week is hoping police and the general public will be able to follow their nose and help him find it.
The white Ford F-350 in question has been converted to run partly on vegetable oils, and emits a distinct odour when running.
"It can smell like french fries or it could smell like Chinese food," said Greg Meinar, a mechanical engineer who spent five years "tinkering" to convert the truck, which can run on waste vegetable oils (like french fry oil), which Meinar collects from a number of restaurants around the city.
"Providing the oil is filtered properly, it'll run beautifully, seamlessly really," Meinar said of the truck's dual fuel system. "You can switch over and you wouldn't know it, except for the smell."
Meinar first noticed his truck was missing from its usual parking spot outside his Aspen Gardens home on Monday.
When he called police to report the theft, he says they told him his truck was just one of five white Ford trucks reported stolen that day.
"I don't think they stole it because it was a veggie truck," Meinar said.
In fact, the thief might not realize they are driving a veggie vehicle, he added.
The truck's fuel source must be manually switched over from diesel to veggie mode, and Meinar said he always parks it in the diesel position since the engine needs to warm up before veggie fuel can be used.
"Because (oil's) more viscous than diesel, you've got to warm it up with the engine's coolant — you have to run this whole plumbing system and fuel line to feed it," he said.
Meinar said each of the truck's fuel tanks — diesel and the veggie oil — were about a quarter full when the truck was taken. The diesel tank also has a lock on it, so would not be easy to re-fill.
He said he hopes that the thief will simply ditch the truck when it runs out of diesel fuel, as many car thieves are reluctant to refill at gas stations since there are so many security cameras.
In that vein, he's used social media to ask people to keep an eye out for his missing truck, which looks very much like the average F-350, with one exception: the veggie oil container in the truck bed.
"There's a tank that's a little bit different looking ... It's silver, it's a modified semi-truck tank and it's got some accessories on it," he said.