How come there's not more interest in LPG?
- Thread starter MarkDavis
- Start date
Soldato
- Joined
- 25 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 2,569
- Location
- Cambridge,York,Bristol
Well presumably you could downtune the engine, but why would any LPG installers do that?
Because the engine would need remapping anyway for lpg. If your fitting LPG then you are doing it to save money a reduction in power on most cars of 10% is not that noticeable.
Soldato
- Joined
- 25 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 2,569
- Location
- Cambridge,York,Bristol
Errr okay. Even if you do that, you could still do it on the petrol model. So still "LPG returns less mpg than petrol", no?
Well yeah but petrol still costs the way more.
You get same mpg just slightly lower power. Which if your trying to save money is ideal. a big engine salon. Is not going to miss 10-20bhp, unless you are wanting to rag it everywhere. In which case LPG isn't for you anyway.
Your kind of supporting the argument against LPG here too.
To convert to LPG you have to spend £2k on modding your car, live near and only drive to places near LPG filling stations, loose half your boot space to a massive new tank AND downtune your car so that its slower...
Ill stick to Petrol thanks.
Most supermarkets have lpg it isn't hard to get.
Space in boot for people trying to save money is not a problem. Who uses there boot to max capacity?
Unless you rant it a slight loss of power is not here nor there. For most drivers tehy probably use less than 70% of the rev range anyway.
But of course it's not for everyone.
But a £2k conversion to save money? Doesnt really make sense to me...
And im sure its a dam site more than 10-15%.
If it was benificial more people would do it... but they dont, so clearly there are some issues. And yu cant say people in the UK dont wanna save fuel money, just look at the surge of people buying diesels because "there oh so more cheaper to run like see".
Same as diesel, unless your doing spaceship mileage it ain't worth it.
Agreed, you need to be doing stupid miles and keeping the car for a long time before you overcome the price premium on Diesels or LPG Convertions.
And Moon miles and keeping the car for a long time are usually mutually exclusive.
Soldato
- Joined
- 25 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 2,569
- Location
- Cambridge,York,Bristol
I don't like things that black and white. Simply work it out individually for yourself.
50p LPG at 70% efficiency compared with petrol at £1.10 means your saving 38.5p per petrol litre, and need to use about 5000 litres to get your £2k back (about 25k miles for me).
Soldato
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 5,060
- Location
- The remittance desk
I have just bought a 540i running gas for the princely sum of....£1200. 154k on the clock but FULL engine rebuild under warranty at 76k. I picked the missus up 13 miles away and averaged 16.6mpg on gas. Under 2 gallon of fuel to pick her up, about £4. On diesel in a 1.9TDi I would have done 42 on that journey would have cost me £3.60 at current prices. So, a few more pennies for a lot better ride and a MUCH better car.
Also, there is a myth that gas prices are about to rocket. The duty has been fixed for the next 3 budgets. Diesel on the other hand is going to go up. It'll soon be 3 times the cost for diesel than gas, so even at 15mpg it wouldn't be bad economy! Also, my local Shell station sells gas...
Edit: It isn't as efficient on gas a s petrol if you have a heavy foot but ona cruise it's about the same
Also, there is a myth that gas prices are about to rocket. The duty has been fixed for the next 3 budgets. Diesel on the other hand is going to go up. It'll soon be 3 times the cost for diesel than gas, so even at 15mpg it wouldn't be bad economy! Also, my local Shell station sells gas...
Edit: It isn't as efficient on gas a s petrol if you have a heavy foot but ona cruise it's about the same
Last edited:
Soldato
- Joined
- 17 Aug 2003
- Posts
- 20,160
- Location
- Woburn Sand Dunes
LPG = Less calorific content but higher octane. a can tuned and mapped for LPG would actually produce more power than on petrol, albeit at the cost of MPG because of the lower calorific content. LPG octanes can be anywhere from 95 or so to 110. i dont know exaclt figures but i know in the land of Aus, BP autogas is the equivilent of RON 102. i believe its a little higher in the uk.
Last edited:
I retail domestic lpg for a living and I can tell you the price per kg is skyrocketing just like every other oil derived fuel. Up 25% since new year.
Massive hike again last week but due to the much slower turnaround compared to petrol and derv and the fact that as I'm warned of impending increases and can stockpile it'll take a few weeks to filter through to the end user.
Massive hike again last week but due to the much slower turnaround compared to petrol and derv and the fact that as I'm warned of impending increases and can stockpile it'll take a few weeks to filter through to the end user.
Its not more popular because the government cant make their mind up. Started backing it then fairly quickly lost interested in the same way they do all the time. At one point weren't LPG cars exempt from the congestion charge but now they aren't. Equally as everyone has pointed out no one trusts the government enough to keep favoring it and not just wake the tax up when ever the please so its not worth taking the risk in fitting it.
Well lots of miles isnt the only reason for LPG. We run it on our landy but thats because it weighs 2 and a bit tones and has the rover V8 in so its the only the only possible way to afford to run it. In all honesty you get the same MPG on LPG as on petrol we find but with a slight hit on performance but at half the price for LPG as petrol, on a car that only does 8-9mpg with me at the wheel or 13-15 with my dad driving it only really takes about 20mins for it to pay for itself
Well lots of miles isnt the only reason for LPG. We run it on our landy but thats because it weighs 2 and a bit tones and has the rover V8 in so its the only the only possible way to afford to run it. In all honesty you get the same MPG on LPG as on petrol we find but with a slight hit on performance but at half the price for LPG as petrol, on a car that only does 8-9mpg with me at the wheel or 13-15 with my dad driving it only really takes about 20mins for it to pay for itself
1- buy a car with lpg already installed? Here they are no more/less than non lpg cars.
2- as said in one, they're worth the same
3- hit the button to switch to petrol when you want a traffic light sprint, back to lpg on the motorway, it switches instantly while driving
4- garages? who needs garages ?
5- 18% lower on my dads rolla 1600cc, while the price is 35-40% the price of petrol
6- True that tax is much more, but if you drive enough it pays back
7- rubbish, what service costs, coz we didn't have any...
8- you don't lose petrol, if anything all your range increases by a lot, a full lpg tank of 44 true liters will be enough for around 500 km when driving carefully, 400 if you like driving fast.
9- you mean no spare wheel, these days lpg tanks go into the space for your spare wheel ( G3)
10- yes there are, lpg is more envoirement friendly than petrol
Last edited:
Soldato
- Joined
- 25 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 2,569
- Location
- Cambridge,York,Bristol
1) & 2) Very very limited supply of lpged cars - although i'm sure possible, finding a properly certified LPG car that you actually want to buy is not easy
3) good plan! Didnt realise you could actually do it whilst driving
4) Meant for actually buying the fuel
6) Meant potential for fuel price to increase
7) You had no separate servicing costs for the LPG bits??
8) Your time between stopping for fuel becomes much shorter due to smaller tank and lower mpg.
9) Isn't that what I said?
10) By very little
Okay I can't comment on the situation in the uk, but just an example of an action site here, lets pick a lets say Citroen C5:
Of all 478 adverts, there are:
Benzine (221)
Diesel (191)
LPG (63)
Thats over 10%...
You could import one in the worst case?
1) Well I kind of can't comment on your situation, but here, there are plenty.
3) lol my dad used to switch on the motorway constantly when his car couldnt keep a nice high speed while climbing hills in the ardennes in belgium, he tryed to keep to 140-150 kph while heavily loaded ( 5 people + luggage) and lpg didn't cut it, so every time we went uphill he used petrol, every time downhill lpg
4) fair enough, but I'm sure if you plan it out a bit then there's no problem with filling up.
6) Doubt it, hasn't raised more or less than petrol and diesel here.
7) Not in the last 2-3 years, before that I don't know as I was too young to be interested in it...
8) But you have to pay less overall
, 400-500km isn't a really short range imo (but then again, you might not be considering a 1.6l workhorse ).9) No, you don't have to carry a spare wheel necessarily, but you could take it on long journey's/holidays though, we've never had to use a spare wheel anyways except once in France when one of the 2 steel threads broke on a rear tire, and once at home when we drove onto a bolt that broke the tire, but not in general national commute, eg. take it on long journeys & otherwise leave it in your shed at home.
10) Afaik lpg also makes the engine last longer, not just be a bit more envoirement friendly. ( just saying, lpg has some more advantages)
I've been looking at this for my Lexus.
£2.5k is the outlay.
I'm very concerned about the resale though. Seeing an LPG conversion on a used luxo barge just says to me "skinflint. This person hasn't serviced the car properly because he can't afford to run it".
£2.5k is the outlay.
I'm very concerned about the resale though. Seeing an LPG conversion on a used luxo barge just says to me "skinflint. This person hasn't serviced the car properly because he can't afford to run it".