Filling up with LPG is clean. You don't get it on your shoes - it would evaporate first. It doesn't spill on the paintwork - likewise. It has a strange smell, but you don't get it on your hands.
Yes, it can be a faff getting the tank to talk to the pump.
And yes, you can seldom buy it from garages that ought to stock it. But messy? No.
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I ran a Jeep a few years ago which I converted and had none of the problems mentioned. Clean to fill up, every station I went to that advertised it had it and my conversion didn't use an adaptor so no pump issues either. Which proves what? Not a lot, maybe I was lucky and the OP unlucky.
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There are LPG forums on the web with details on how to turn a fridge compressor into an LPG pump and fill your car from domestic LPG tanks or gas bottles! I'd do that if I had one, not worth it if you only borrow someone elses'.
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Why do people use LPG on cars? If it was that good, it would have been popular by now.
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People don't want to stump up £1000-£2000 premium/conversion and risk the government then raising the tax to the same level as other fuels.
Edited by Hamsafar on 14/05/2008 at 15:46
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People don't want to stump up £1000-£2000 premium/conversion and risk the government then raising the tax to the same level as other fuels.
Very true, in history every time the public spots a money saving niche it gets closed of by the government, some examples being diesel cars, solar feeding tarrifs and central heating oil.
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Movilogo,
Politics_profit_oil cartels_conspiracy_volatile_Middle East_US policy_Chinese policy_economic meltdown_war
Fill in the gaps.
Edited by Sulphur Man on 14/05/2008 at 15:48
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>> Don't forget that filling up with LPG is a messy business - not for dainty >> types who hate getting dirty. A bit like diesel then?
Not if you use the gloves... and at least I'm not gassed by the fumes from the petrol! ;)
Thought they kept the petrol tank, if so then it would be easy enough to keep going to the next filling station that has LPG, surely not that far away, from what I've seen...
I looked at LPG but ruled it out for two reasons - the tank takes up too much valuable luggage space and I'm not keen on carrying a bomb around with me (I know they are supposed to be mega safe, but I sppose I'm paranoid!).
Edited by b308 on 14/05/2008 at 17:54
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"Thought they kept the petrol tank"
They do keep the tank. In fact they start on petrol don't they and then switch to LPG.
Someone at work years ago was quids in with an LPG car when claiming for business miles. Use your own car and you get a fixed amount per mile if a benefit driver based on your car allowance.
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well well there,s one good thing ,if your filling up with LPG you can f*** like a champion and nobody pays any attention !
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Yes, used to get a major discharge of gas into face when uncoupling the hose - nobody mentions this when discussing conversions ?
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I am afraid that motorprop may know less about cars than he thinks he does, and, particularly about LPG conversions and their use.I had a 10yr old Astra 1.6 auto converted and put 100k on it in 3 years.I also have a camper van with an underfloor LPG tank to run the cooker on Autogas.Filling is not a problem if you know what you are doing.Thick plastic covered workmens' gloves are useful to avoid cold burns if there is a discharge when you disconnect.In winter I found that the pump nozzles may accumulate ice leading to leaks unless you sprayed with screen de-icer first.THer are websites telling you where LPG staions are-there are usually plenty of alternatives.In the UK adaptors are not necessary. Thre are 2 types of dispenser to attach to the car, needing slightly different methods to attach-the instructions are invariably on the pump.I put petrol in the car about once a year, but the petrol in the tank is always available if you run out of gas.My system ( and I think most do) would start on petrol by default-so you start the car, let it run for a few seconds for the oil to circulate, then build up revs to ca 3000, when there is an audible click as the gas system kicks in. You are then running on gas.I used a screw on adaptor to put gas in the van in France. There is a different adaptor for Italy. They just screw on over the UK fitting before you connect to the pump.Most pumps require you to hold the button pressed until it stops dispensing when you have filled the tank. They fill to max 80% as a safety measure. The tanks are safer than petrol tanks and there are regulations about them.My car was completely reliable and I know it ran for another year after I sold it locally.The oil always stayed bright and it cost me 4p/mile in fuel and 8p/mile in total, including the cost of conversion.The GM 1.6 8 valve engine seemed eminently suitable for LPG as, I think, they have hydraulically operated valves, which self-compensate for wear-some engines are prone to burning exhaust valves-You just need to choose your base vehicle carefully.Many people convert gas-guzzlers to get them back to hatchback fuel costs-I wanted an already reasonably economical car, to be even cheaper to run. My fuel cost ( 10yrs ago) was the equvalent of 90mpg.
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THer are websites telling you where LPG staions are
fat lot of good these are when the local stations are out of stock or have faults on their solitary pump. After a year or so I knew exactly which stations stocked LPG and which didn't . Doing a 20-30 mile round trip to fill up is not very efficient, especially as was typically the case if one place ran out the others quickly followed as all LPG clients quickly chased dwindling supplies. My fuel costs on a 4.2 petrol running on gas was 25 mpg, and 16 mpg on unleaded. The evaporator is supposed to have an annual replacement at about £120 each time parts, labour and VAT - my time was not included
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The GM 1.6 8 valve engine seemed eminently suitable for LPG as, I think, they have hydraulically operated valves, which self-compensate for wear-some engines are prone to burning exhaust valves
GM still produce that engine - in 100hp form running on LPG or CNG for use in industrial applications. Usually mounted to the back of fork trucks. Solid little engine, it's a shame they stopped making them, far better than the Ecotec tripe they're pedalling now...
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I agree with the OP on one thing. Availabilty is the key. I'm lucky I pass at least three stations selling it on my way to work. Occasionally all three will be out or have a faulty pump etc. I was told that one was out because some clot had driven off with the hose still attached.
I reckon that I have proper difficulty about once a month. Minor irritations are that the garage only has the one pump and I have to queue behind people for that one specific pump...made more lengthy by the embedded M+S supermarket and the person doing their weekly shopping while blocking a pump. Consideration for others people!
Out of my area /comfort zone...longer trips require proper logistical planning. The A1M going south appears to have none on the motorway itself (certainly on the bit I was using) going North -no problem. But some checking on smartphone apps and I found lots of stations within a couple of miles and then a Shell one on the A14 so ..happy days!
LPG isn't messy to fill up at all though you might have to put your ciggie out while your filling up...ka boom! Personally I don't smoke. I think it's a great means of running a vehicle that I am amazed never caught on. It can only be the conversion costs and cynicism about the 'taxaholic' HMG. With the prospect of shale gas on the horizon it may well be much more popular, it's a proven easy to live with technology not pie in the sky EV's or Hindenburg Hydrogen vehicles. My 2p anyway.
I have never heard about annual replacement of the evaporator. My xtrail one is going strong at nearly five years, the Note one fine at 18months. I do have the systems serviced every 12.2K miles, usually a bit of fettling and a new filter.
Edited by Ethan Edwards on 14/02/2012 at 10:02
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I do like the idea of LPG. I was looking at things like Ford Explorers and Jeep Grand Cherokee's a while ago and LPG makes these cars slightly more sensible to own. However people do over-estimate what LPG makes their car worth, ive seen Grand Cherokee 4.0litres with LPG going for 2k more than the 2.7CRD. Very ambitious, especially as diesels available everywhere and LPG isnt.
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Never had a supply problem yet but i don't pay through the nose at service stations, i buy from smaller independent gas suppliers...who don't run out.
Very clean filling too, easy to connect and disconnect, the slight whoosh of gas vapour as you disconnect could be a unsettling for the nervous i suppose.
Can't quite understand why anyone would try to sell a vehicle they've had converted?...maybe other car buyers feel like this too so assume there is trouble to be found....you'd have to very straange to sell a proper motor that gives Diesel hatchback fuel economy.
My next car is more than likely going to be another petrol engined and will be getting gassed asap...don't want too many people jumping on the bandwagon or they will put the tax up, politicians promise or not.
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Hi, As a new member i have to disagree with the original op about lpg.
1- it is not messy (who needs gloves!!!)
2-as safe as petrol (if not safer)
3-many plces to fill up, and if not use petrol (simplees)
had my car converted over 4 years ago (£1,600) do approx 10,000 miles a year, not paid anything for lpg maintenance (is overdue service/filter change!)plus only changed plugs last year on a 60,000 miles service.Car averages 24mpg on petrol probably 22mpg on gas,someone do the maths for me while i`m sitting in the pub spending my hard earned savings!
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not paid anything for lpg maintenance (is overdue service/filter,
But they are safe mmm,you don´t need many people like this to cause an explosion.
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We wouldn't have these problems if the Government just halved the fuel tax.
Nobody was interested in LPG or even diesel in 1990 were they?
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Two points.
When I was working in Seoul, Korea, all of the taxis seemed to be on LPG, so it can't be that problematical.
What is the risk disconnecting the hose while talking on the mobile ?
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I am in Australia. All the taxis in Perth run on LPG. I converted my Ford Falcon station wagon to gas 5 years ago. No problems and great savings in costs. There are lots of service stations selling LPG over here. A few years ago I did a trip up the North West with no problems getting gas even in remote areas.
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question.
fI the dealer plays ball, it looks as if I will be purchasing 2 fiat doblo 1,.4 petrols.
The boot is huge and I can allow for a 50 litre LPG tank.
My only concern is the warranty, will it be invalidated if I have LPG installed?
Fiat do not offer the service.
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Fiat do not offer the service.
But Citroen (unsure about Peugeot) do or at least did.
I used to deliver new Berlingo vans to several LPG centres for conversion straight from the importers compounds.
You can only ask at Citroen, that is if you would consider a Berly, similarly have you asked (in writing) the Fiat commercial dealership about this.
Incidentally a 50 litre LPG tank is small, and will only physically take about 44 litres before the filler cuts off, a typical toroidal tank that replaces the spare wheel is about 60 litres....and i'm sure there are underslung spare wheels on the vans in question, so it could be LPG'd with external tank and leave you a complete boot for use.
If you don't need the full boot capacity then a standard 80 litre cylinder tank would take up only the volume of a decent suitcase.
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thanks for the advise Gordon, I will write to Fiat.
I will also enquire with Citroen, I didnt want the Berlingo Multispace 1.6 petrol as its appauling on the fuel (real world 21-23mpg around town); and we dont do the miles for a diesel.
If they can quote with a LPG conversion, it could be a deal clincher.
Vauxhall use to advertise the astra car and astra van with LPG conversion.
Do any manufacturers still advertise their cars with LPG conversion?
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Don't know if this is of any use to you DaveyK, but Hilton Autogas (Featherstone nr Wolverhampton) used to convert a lot of vans for Citroen, if you come to a dead end maybe they could help you with makers and contacts. Nice people there.
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Have found a manufacturer offering LPG as standard in the UK
http://www.proton.co.uk/ecologic/
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I convert vehciles to Lpg for a living.
The original poster has criticised LPG - has said it was not available at two garages that sell LPG on the particular day he visited (fact) but went on to say (guess) that LPG is not available at garages that do sell LPG 40% of the time... The first point (fact) was likely to be merely an unfortunate coincidence. . The second point (guess) s a load of rubbish! The poster does not usually run an LPG vehicle himself so is in no position to comment, given his limited experience which involved borrowing a vehicle for the day. Why would a garage make LPG available then not make sure they have it in stock? Where sold, LPG is just as likely to be available as petrol or diesel - If a garage sells LPG they are 99% likely to have it in stock.
The original poster says he arranged the LPG conversion for the vehicle's owner as the owner doesn't know much about cars. Why then did he allow the installer to fit a filling point that required an adaptor, then moan about the adaptor? Most LPG system installers by default fit a filling point that does not require an adaptor for the UK, but adaptors can be cheaply supplied to allow filling with LPG on the coninent where they use a different type of filler. Even using an adaptor shouldn't involve any faffing about!
He also says that filling with LPG is dirty and faffing about.. LPG is inherently clean, the interface between fill pump and vehicle is gas tight, nothing can leak. If anything were to leak it would evaporate into thin air anyway leaving no dirt at all. There would be no faffing if he hadn't had the fill point fitted that required an adaptor. As opposed to diesel, which is very dirty, which doesn't have a gas tight seal around the filler, which is often spilled to leave dirty oily sloppery patches on garage forecourts than end up getting trodden into car carpets.
It seems the original poster was so peeved that he had to pay to run the 4.2 on expensive petrol that he bothered to post on this forum! Why? Because since running a vehicle on LPG costs abour half as much as running a vehicle on petrol it will have cost him nearly twice as much to run the 4.2 as he thought when he borrowed the vehicle for the day! If LPG wasn't a good idea and didn't save money, why did he want to run on LPG so badly?
Let's look at some maths comparing running a vehicle on LPG to running on petrol... That 4.2 litre vehicle is likely to do 20mpg tops on petrol. Let's suppose he borrowed it to do a 500 mile round trip. 500 miles ar 20mpg would use 25 gallons of petrol at £1.38 per litre (£6.30 per gallon) so would cost £157.60 in petrol. On LPG the same vehicle might realistically do 18mpg so would use 27.8 gallons of LPG, LPG at around 70pence per litre (prices in April 2014 are lower - I can get LPG at 65p litre!), 70p per litre is £3.19 per gallon, so the same trip on LPG would cost £88.68, a saving on LPG of £68.92 in a single trip! Unfortunate the original poster couldn't get any LPG that day, so unfortuante he felt aggrieved and wrote about it on this forum! If he could get LPG that day, if he saved £68.92 that day by running on LPG, would he then have written abuot the positives of LPG on this forum? You only hear the few bad stories, people don't bother to write unless they feel aggrieved or have a problem. I am only writing this now because he has criticised the pros of my profession.
Simon
(Edit - no free advertising, so link deleted. And bear in mind that the original post was nearly 6 years ago, so a lengthy diatribe against the poster is hardly likely to tempt people to use your services!)
Edited by Avant on 22/04/2014 at 18:22
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There has been some talk about manufacturer LPG converted vehicles being better than aftermarket LPG conversions. False!
Manufacturer fitted systems are based mostly on inferior and/or older LPG system technology, the component are not as reliable or as good in terms of performance compared to aftermarket LPG systems. Proton, Ford, Vauxhall, Citreon, Volvo all offer factory converted vehicles - mostly these are based on Nikon Koltec LPG equipment which is expenise but not very good. I am one of the few installers who can fix factory converted LPG vehicles, the main dealers certainly cannot fix them... Vauxhall UK, for instance have only one dealership in the UK (Sheffield) that can fix factory LPG Vauxhalls. Incidentally, some factory fitted vehicles (including all Vauxhalls) do not leave the factory with LPG system fitted - they are taken from the production line to the company that fits the LPG system that they designed - At Brunswick proving ground.
Some Fords use an LPG liquid injection system which is even less reliable and is very expensive to repair (they have a tank in the pump which usually breaks and costs over £1000). I have been tasked many times by warranty companies to completely remove such systems and refit an aftermarket system - this costing less than fixing the existing manufacturer fitted system.
If you want a good reliable LPG system you are better off with an aftermarket system fitted by a reputable installer.
Any petrol vehicle can be converted - These days I convert mostly high performance vehicles, my company has a good reputation with high performance a niche. Recent conversions done are BMW M5's, Merc CLC55AMG (5.5 V8 supercharged), some of the fastest prooduction saloon cars in the world. They perfrom equally well on LPG, fuel bills are halved, engines last longer, the oild doesn't even change colour for 10000 miles!
Diesels traditionally were respected for capability of covering high mileages without problems, of having great reliability. The same cannot be said of modern diesels, modern diesels have common rail fuel systems with injectors commonly breaking (arguably,the technology isn't yet here to reliably have electricaly operated injectors running the high pressures required for diesel engines), they have diesel particulate filters that need replacing (more often if you drive slow), they have dual mass flywheels that break often (more often is you drive fast), some diesels need special additivie reservoirs topping up with expensive fluid (manufacturer fitted to combat particulate filter problems). A V6 petrol engine converted to LPG will be more economical than a 4 cylinder diesel in the same model vehicle whilst giving far smoother, more powerful and more reliable performance. The petrol V6 will likely be cheaper to buy and convert to LPG than a diesel anyway. If the LPG system breaks (unlikely) then the petrol system will still work and will be as good as new since it won't have done any work since the LPG system was fitted!
Simon
(Edit - link deleted, again.)
Edited by Avant on 22/04/2014 at 23:36
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To misquote Mandy Rice-Davies:
Well, he would say that, wouldn't he?
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Not a misquote - she really did say that (about Viscount Astor). Someone said publicly that she hadn't actually said those words, so with admirable courage she wrote a letter to The Times saying that she did.
And if this LPG merchant posts again with his link, trying to get free advertising, I'll disable his account. He's tried it twice now.
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