LPG - Worth it?

James_N

James_N

James_N

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Joined
25 Jan 2003
Posts
9,497
Hi

Debating having my volvo 740 converted to LPG. I can buy a kit for around £550 and I have a good work colleague who can fit it for me for a few quid and a few beers.

The cost of the conversion would be the same as filling up 10 times with petrol. I get 220 odd miles to a tank, and do about 12k miles a year.

Theres quite a few LPG stations in the area that sell LPG for around 55p a litre, thats less than half price of petrol.
 
I'd get it fitted properly by a garage who do conversions IMO. You can get grants to have conversions done and insurance companies often like to see the little certificate you get when its done properly.
 
Janesy B said:
I'd get it fitted properly by a garage who do conversions IMO. You can get grants to have conversions done and insurance companies often like to see the little certificate you get when its done properly.
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I'd get it fitted then just get it tested by a garage once its been fitted. This costs about £80-£90 i think.
 
It would surely be better to do it to a newer car, not a car which is a writeoff if it fails its MOT for a broken headlight glass, then you'll get more use out of it?
 
[TW]Fox;11915561 said:
It would surely be better to do it to a newer car, not a car which is a writeoff if it fails its MOT for a broken headlight glass, then you'll get more use out of it?
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I have my reasons for wanting to keep it, those being:

- Its always flown through its MOT with no problems
- parts and servicing are seriously cheap, so if something does break, it costs peanuts to repair. Ive got a garage full of spares like lights etc.
- Nothing electric in the engine bay to go wrong, not even an ECU!
- If it does terminally break, my work mate will take the LPG kit out and fit it to another car if i do buy one, but i'll be keeping this volvo for the forseeable future.

/edit - What im trying to say, is that your right fox, but for the money i paid for the car in the first place, and the fact that its been amazingly reliable, and so cheap to fix, id rather keep it. Better the devil you know and all that :)
 
Sounds like it'll take 6 months or so to pay back the conversion cost, so it may be worth it I guess.

My main problem with LPG is that you can't use the channel tunnel.
 
Sounds like a no brainer to me. Get it fitted and if your insurance compnay insist then get a certificate. Last one I fitted to an overfinch for the old man, insurance just asked for a MOT certificate after the conversion had been done.
 
Clarkey said:
half the price of petrol but is the consumption not much considerably worse?
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Depends on the quality and type of conversion, a well setup modern conversion shouldn't be too bad but you'll probably lose a couple of MPG.

[TW]Fox said:
What sort of damage does it do to your car long term?
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It doesn't do any damage, LPG burns cleaner than petrol.

thewanted said:
Why?
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No idea, you just can't. I'd have considered converting my 530i if it wasn't the case.
 
James_N said:
Hi

Debating having my volvo 740 converted to LPG. I can buy a kit for around £550 and I have a good work colleague who can fit it for me for a few quid and a few beers.

The cost of the conversion would be the same as filling up 10 times with petrol. I get 220 odd miles to a tank, and do about 12k miles a year.

Theres quite a few LPG stations in the area that sell LPG for around 55p a litre, thats less than half price of petrol.
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Where are you getting the kit for that price?

I want to get it done to my Jeep but I want the under chassis tanks (small petrol and gas tanks in place of OE petrol tank) which puts the price up. Don't mind doing it myself and I can get it tested local.

AFAIK the grants ended a few years ago - stupid idea to stop them.

Theres a chap on scoobynet whose Impreza runs gas and its been on rollers at 350hp.
 
Phil W said:
Non AFAIK. You can't atart the car on LPG though, you have to start it on petrol.
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It's actually better for the engine, burns a LOT cleaner. After changing the oil several times on my LPG V8 it quite often comes out looking quite clean. You can start the car on LPG although it's not the easiest of things on a cold day, you need some warmth in the vaporizer before it'll fire up. I know of several people running engines on pure LPG setups, mainly due to performance builds being specific to LPG but the theory is the same.

I assume for £550 the kit is a single point closed loop (no lambda sensor and only 1 entry either under the carp or on the air intake)?

You also have the added bonus of knowing you'll never fail an MOT on emissions assuming you present the car running on LPG. :)
 
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