Converting to LPG
Discussion
meagain said:
I am thinking about converting my car to LPG, does anyone know much about it, advantages and disadvantages etc.... Does it make any difference to car tax?
okay, here we go.i did it on my Galaxy V6 when I bought it some 3 years ago.
Conversion cost me £2065. Only do it if you are going to be doing more than 24,000 miles (this is how long it takes to pay for itself roughly). Once it pays for itself you are quids in!
Petrol was costing £70 per tank (more now) and gas was costing £25 per tank (range was similar for both, 300 miles).
There is very little difference in performance on LPG compared to petrol.
MPG is slightly less, but negated by paying less than half the price of petrol.
Filling station are becoming more common, so just pay a little forethought to filling up. I've only run out once or twice and then have been within a couple of miles of an LPG station so didn't have to drive far on petrol.
Tax wise, I get a small deduction (about £15).
Insurance doesn't appear to be affected.
You can't use the Chunnel. But then I've never needed to.
Filling up for £30 rather than £80 makes you smile!
ETA: I'm yet to find a real disadvantage.
minor things: You get a smelly hand when you release the nozzle! You have to get the system serviced independent of the car service (only a few quid), it takes very slightly longer to fill up than petrol, you can lose the spare tyre space depending where the tank goes so have to carry tyre mousse instead.
All minor niggles really.
Edited by Cara Van Man on Tuesday 16th September 11:42
Cara Van Man said:
Conversion cost me £2065. Only do it if you are going to be doing more than 24,000 miles (this is how long it takes to pay for itself roughly). Once it pays for itself you are quids in!
I guess there's no point me converting my 944 thenCara Van Man said:
You can't use the Chunnel.
What's that all about?I save about 200 quid a month, bought my car second hand too so didnt stump up for the conversion
As above little less MPG, but the price of gas seems well stable compared to petrol, But still worth checking prices, Morrisons has been 53p a litre for ages while my local shell is around 58p
As above little less MPG, but the price of gas seems well stable compared to petrol, But still worth checking prices, Morrisons has been 53p a litre for ages while my local shell is around 58p
madrob6 said:
Cara Van Man said:
Conversion cost me £2065. Only do it if you are going to be doing more than 24,000 miles (this is how long it takes to pay for itself roughly). Once it pays for itself you are quids in!
I guess there's no point me converting my 944 thenCara Van Man said:
You can't use the Chunnel.
What's that all about?The channel tunnel won't allow compressed gas. seems a bit pointless if you have a car full of petrol, but there you go.
Getting an LPG conversion is horses for courses. I do less than 10K a year but I have a 4Ltr Mustang so decided to get it done a couple of months ago.
I now fill up for 30 quid and it seems to last about a week (300 or so miles) as opposed to filling up with petrol and it costing me 70 quid a week
So currently saving about 40 quid a week, which means it should have paid for itself within a year I hope. I plan to keep the car a lot longer so I am not bothered how long it takes to repay me!
I lost my spare wheel but I dont actually travel that far from home really and I have AA membership and a can of tyre weld just incase.
Where I live there are two outlets which sell autogas which makes it quite handy to fill up, one is 24 hours and is a type of membership scheme (costs 46p/ltr) and the other is a morrisons garage (costs 53p/ltr).
Performance wise there is no difference in the mustang and as its an automatic system I dont have to manually switch from petrol to gas, it is done by the computer onboard. If I do floor the car big time then I have noticed that the system will switch over to petrol automatically but as soon as it can it will drop back to gas.
When the car is running on gas there is no unburnt petrol smell coming from the exhaust and an idling car is a lot more pleasant on gas than petrol.
One bad point is that filling is a lot longer than petrol 2-3 times longer but its a minor niggle and it means you get to oggle the totty at the garage etc...
My conversion cost under 2K and was a very neat job.
I now fill up for 30 quid and it seems to last about a week (300 or so miles) as opposed to filling up with petrol and it costing me 70 quid a week
So currently saving about 40 quid a week, which means it should have paid for itself within a year I hope. I plan to keep the car a lot longer so I am not bothered how long it takes to repay me!I lost my spare wheel but I dont actually travel that far from home really and I have AA membership and a can of tyre weld just incase.
Where I live there are two outlets which sell autogas which makes it quite handy to fill up, one is 24 hours and is a type of membership scheme (costs 46p/ltr) and the other is a morrisons garage (costs 53p/ltr).
Performance wise there is no difference in the mustang and as its an automatic system I dont have to manually switch from petrol to gas, it is done by the computer onboard. If I do floor the car big time then I have noticed that the system will switch over to petrol automatically but as soon as it can it will drop back to gas.
When the car is running on gas there is no unburnt petrol smell coming from the exhaust and an idling car is a lot more pleasant on gas than petrol.
One bad point is that filling is a lot longer than petrol 2-3 times longer but its a minor niggle and it means you get to oggle the totty at the garage etc...
My conversion cost under 2K and was a very neat job.
I ran a V8 Discovery on LPG and found it excellent. This was about 4 years ago and i was paying around 30p a litre from a local farm. LPG is 114 octane so you really need to advance your ignition quite a bit to make the most out of it. It also helps if you have high quality plug leads such as Magnecor because lpg likes a strong spark. RPI Engineering do a little box that automatically advances ignition when you switch to lpg to whatever you set it to. Once fitted the Disco was noticeably faster on lpg than petrol and did better MPG than petrol. Best £60 I ever spent!.
I think the best thing is to find a car where somebody else has already payed for a decent quality conversion.
Out of interest, are there any particular conversions to look for?
(Saw an Alfa 166 V6 running on LPG on eBay a while back and felt my bidding finger twitch, but wasn't quite sure!)
Out of interest, are there any particular conversions to look for?
(Saw an Alfa 166 V6 running on LPG on eBay a while back and felt my bidding finger twitch, but wasn't quite sure!)
I don't understand LPG conversions at all - how much work has to be done on the actual engine to make it accept this fuel, for which it was not designed? Is LPG actually really similar to Petrol and so there's not much work involved? You can get Diesel/LPG conversions too, can't you? How come it can be compatible with both, whereas Diesel and Petrol are totally incompatible.
Me no understando.
Me no understando.
tinman0 said:
Kaelic said:
Getting an LPG conversion is horses for courses. I do less than 10K a year but I have a 4Ltr Mustang so decided to get it done a couple of months ago.
where did they put the fuel nozzle and fuel gauge? Fuel guage will go somewhere on your dashboard. Notoriously inaccurate though, and I would only use the guage as an "indication" rather than a true reading. Once you have had a conversion, you will find that you will just reset your trip counter, and go by the number of miles since fillup.
Most gauges are simply a set of LEDs (in my case four) which count down as you use gas. Once the last light begins to flash, you know you are running low.
Picture of the LPG switch/fuel gauge below - it is at the top left of the photo, next to the cruise control (motorway sign) switch.
Ignore the red lines - that was when I was trying to locate the part number of the coin tray!
Chris71 said:
I think the best thing is to find a car where somebody else has already payed for a decent quality conversion.
Just make sure that has been serviced (or budget to have it serviced) and make sure that you get the original installation certificate.The fuel tanks have a lifespan of around ten years - so factor the age of it in if buying a car that has already been converted.
tinman0 said:
Kaelic said:
Getting an LPG conversion is horses for courses. I do less than 10K a year but I have a 4Ltr Mustang so decided to get it done a couple of months ago.
where did they put the fuel nozzle and fuel gauge? 
The fuel gauge is occupying one of the switch blanks in my dash console, as its automatic I only need to use it to see the level of fuel I have. I will get a piccy later if you want.
BigLepton said:
I ran a V8 Discovery on LPG and found it excellent. This was about 4 years ago and i was paying around 30p a litre from a local farm. LPG is 114 octane so you really need to advance your ignition quite a bit to make the most out of it. It also helps if you have high quality plug leads such as Magnecor because lpg likes a strong spark. RPI Engineering do a little box that automatically advances ignition when you switch to lpg to whatever you set it to. Once fitted the Disco was noticeably faster on lpg than petrol and did better MPG than petrol. Best £60 I ever spent!.
RPI are the dogs danglies when it comes to V8 engines - and I imagine that the quality of their LPG work will be pretty damed high too.tinman0 said:
I'm a little bit fussy about holes being chopped in the Mustang, hence the bumper idea sound quite good.
Is it possible to have it mounted inside the boot so nothing is visible? Would mean opening the boot to fill up, which is no real hardship.
I don't think they will allow you to have the filler technically inside the car (ie in the boot) for safety reasons.Is it possible to have it mounted inside the boot so nothing is visible? Would mean opening the boot to fill up, which is no real hardship.
Initially, I wanted my filler on the rear bumper (Loads of Range Rovers have been done that way) but nowadays it is a no-no in case of being rear-ended.
However, I have a black car, with a black LPG filler - hardly noticeable to be honest.
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