"Harry Everhart" wrote

During the 1978 "energy crisis" - I had a friend that bought a VW diesel
- and used to run it on home heating oil which was half the price
because of no road tax. He used to pull the car into the basement and
gravity feed the fuel from the big red oil tank by the furnace. He would
have gotten away with it if he didn't brag about it everyday in the
faculty room - and some disgruntled soul turned him in. He got a big
fine - plus a lot of bad publicity in the newspapers.

#2 Heating oil and diesel are basically the same thing. A lot of people were
doing what you described and that is why they started putting the red dye in
the heating oil (and kerosene). Supposedly if the cops pull over a trucker
and they do an inspection, any dyed fuel in the tank will cost them $10,000
in fines.