1 DAY LPG CONVERSIONS eg LEEDS LPG/ SAVE-CAR LPG
Discussion
TheAngryDog said:
That to me sounds like a proper job was done. In the interests of time, and also when I enquired with the company in the OP, they didn't remove the inlet manifold to drill and tap. Maybe they have changed since, but it would be one of the first things I'd ask.
I recall asking Simon for a quote when I was looking at getting a 540 bmw. His price was very very good and said that I wouldn't get the car back until it was 100%. Couldn't fault that. I didn't end up getting a 540, I moved closer to work instead.
Yup, the chap knows his onions. Off to see him this evening to get the map tweaked, had an AFR gauge installed at the same time so that helps with monitoring things and makes it easier to tweak the map more accurately. If it wasn't for my leaking downpipes the map would have been tweaked before I picked the car up. I recall asking Simon for a quote when I was looking at getting a 540 bmw. His price was very very good and said that I wouldn't get the car back until it was 100%. Couldn't fault that. I didn't end up getting a 540, I moved closer to work instead.
I can see why the cheaper places don't remove the manifold but then again you get what you pay for. Makes sense to move and keep the M5. Iconic car and worth the fuel costs.
giblet said:
Yup, the chap knows his onions. Off to see him this evening to get the map tweaked, had an AFR gauge installed at the same time so that helps with monitoring things and makes it easier to tweak the map more accurately. If it wasn't for my leaking downpipes the map would have been tweaked before I picked the car up.
I can see why the cheaper places don't remove the manifold but then again you get what you pay for. Makes sense to move and keep the M5. Iconic car and worth the fuel costs.
That's definitely something you won't get with the one day fit centres. As you say, you get what you pay for. I'd rather pay a bit more, and it isn't that much more for a proper installation and have the job done properly.I can see why the cheaper places don't remove the manifold but then again you get what you pay for. Makes sense to move and keep the M5. Iconic car and worth the fuel costs.
Ah, I now live 140 miles from work. Still take the M5 though
loskie said:
OP:How wee is the wife's Hyundai?
Where the feck are you gonna fit the gas tank? I guess that you may want to take luggage to Turkey too.
My son has a year 2000 Hyundai Accent 1.6. I am a Yorkshire based pro LPG installer and let him help me fit his own LPG system. We fitted a 71 litre tank in the spare wheel well. This tank is over-sized for the car really, and it does protrude above the boot floor level - but only an inch and a half so not enough to make a big difference to the boot luggage capacity. He is a student but has an evening job 10 miles away, on his way to work he passes a garage that sells LPG at 49.9p per litre. At 19 he doesn't drive particularly slowly and his route to work is urban / extra urban, but his car costs 6p per mile to run... it would of course be even more economical on a steady motorway cruise. The Accent is an Escort sized vehicle and he finds it more comfortable and spacious than his lat car (Corsa), can get his mates in with ease etc, it's just a bit more expensive to run that his 1.2 Corsa that we had also LPG converted... Where the feck are you gonna fit the gas tank? I guess that you may want to take luggage to Turkey too.
There seems to be a few anti-LPG people on this thread... To those people I would say you are either mis-informed or don't want to believe there are no catches to LPG... It is funny how human nature works sometimes - I remember years ago I needed a gas bottle for camping with mates and driving down a road on a dark very cold rainy night I thought I'd spotted a gas bottle in a ditch at the side of the road. I reversed back to check it out through the windscreen with headlights aimed on the object and found I was mistaken, it wasn't a gas bottle it was just a red plastic bottle. The strange thing is - I was relieved because I didn't have to get out of the nice warm car to retrieve a gas bottle from a ditch in the cold rain, even though this meant I would need to spend money on a gas bottle the next day. Seems to me that in a similar way, people would rather think everybody is in the same boat and that there is no way to avoid continued expensive fuel prices, rather than do what they really ought to do, which would be to pay upfront for an LPG conversion so they can enjoy cheap fuel thereafter. It is, of course, the paying for the conversion bit that people don't like.. so they kid themselves that there are other catches and that they wouldn't really be better off paying upfront for an LPG conversion.
Simon
SimonYorkshire said:
loskie said:
OP:How wee is the wife's Hyundai?
Where the feck are you gonna fit the gas tank? I guess that you may want to take luggage to Turkey too.
My son has a year 2000 Hyundai Accent 1.6. I am a Yorkshire based pro LPG installer and let him help me fit his own LPG system. We fitted a 71 litre tank in the spare wheel well. This tank is over-sized for the car really, and it does protrude above the boot floor level - but only an inch and a half so not enough to make a big difference to the boot luggage capacity. He is a student but has an evening job 10 miles away, on his way to work he passes a garage that sells LPG at 49.9p per litre. At 19 he doesn't drive particularly slowly and his route to work is urban / extra urban, but his car costs 6p per mile to run... it would of course be even more economical on a steady motorway cruise. The Accent is an Escort sized vehicle and he finds it more comfortable and spacious than his lat car (Corsa), can get his mates in with ease etc, it's just a bit more expensive to run that his 1.2 Corsa that we had also LPG converted... Where the feck are you gonna fit the gas tank? I guess that you may want to take luggage to Turkey too.
There seems to be a few anti-LPG people on this thread... To those people I would say you are either mis-informed or don't want to believe there are no catches to LPG... It is funny how human nature works sometimes - I remember years ago I needed a gas bottle for camping with mates and driving down a road on a dark very cold rainy night I thought I'd spotted a gas bottle in a ditch at the side of the road. I reversed back to check it out through the windscreen with headlights aimed on the object and found I was mistaken, it wasn't a gas bottle it was just a red plastic bottle. The strange thing is - I was relieved because I didn't have to get out of the nice warm car to retrieve a gas bottle from a ditch in the cold rain, even though this meant I would need to spend money on a gas bottle the next day. Seems to me that in a similar way, people would rather think everybody is in the same boat and that there is no way to avoid continued expensive fuel prices, rather than do what they really ought to do, which would be to pay upfront for an LPG conversion so they can enjoy cheap fuel thereafter. It is, of course, the paying for the conversion bit that people don't like.. so they kid themselves that there are other catches and that they wouldn't really be better off paying upfront for an LPG conversion.
Simon
te! I have run a LPG jag for years, and my father has run volvos for the last 15 years on lpg, great stuff and will double mpg cost equivalent in most cars, if I did commute again I would look in to it again.Synchromesh said:
Guys, seriously, can we stop "selling" LPG conversions on here. The fewer of us running it there are, the less inclined the government will be to raise duty on it. Its low pump price depends on its low uptake so lets keep it that way.
Yeah, stop bumping the thread guys, people will only read it....Driving to Turkey in a small car must be murder, i did Frankfurt for the motorshow a couple of years ago in my Panda 100HP, NEVER AGAIN, that car is now a school run/wifes works car,i felt truly broken after that trip,it did ok on the nordschleife on the way home though, just managed to sneak in a cheeky lap with my little boy.
gtidriver said:
Driving to Turkey in a small car must be murder, i did Frankfurt for the motorshow a couple of years ago in my Panda 100HP, NEVER AGAIN, that car is now a school run/wifes works car,i felt truly broken after that trip,it did ok on the nordschleife on the way home though, just managed to sneak in a cheeky lap with my little boy.
Fully agree, I did Bulgaria (just me driving) in a 1.3 and would never again. I was a wreck when I got there, took several days to recover. This was a car that never felt uncomfortable in the UK.All that jazz said:
And how much would the kit and conversion usually cost if you hadn't purchased and fitted it for him at no cost? 
Ahhh another anti LPG guy? Would have cost under £1000 to supply and fit a new LPG system on this car. When he sells the car we will be removing the full system and will be fitting it to his next car. I offer the same service to customers, usually charging £500 to move systems between vehicles.How much of a premium would a small diesel car cost over the price of a small petrol?
Modern diesels are arguably less reliable than modern petrol vehicles - Petrol injection technology is well proven and now very reliable, granted old style diesels with the old style diesel pumps were more reliable than petrol vehicles for many years but diesels have taken a backward step in terms or reliability and are now less reliable and more expensive to fix than petrol equivalents... Misfire on your diesel sir, best case scenario that's just a broken common rail injector but we'll need to diagnose that using our dealer gear for £100 and then a common rail injector will cost £250 to supply and fit, so £350 please. Lack of power sir? Best case scenario that'll just be your EGR valve - they always go wrong on diesels due to the soot.. Or it could be your turbo, which are also prone to problems on diesels, same reason.. Slipping clutch or clanging when changing gear / vibration while driving sir? Best case scenario you'll just need a new clutch - they get a lot more abuse on diesels due to the bottom end torque and narrow power band, but we're tipping you'll need a new DMF and they ain't cheap.. Failed emissions - Might just be your DPF but could be your injectors!
My brother in law runs a Mondeo 2L Diesel Estate. It was pressurising the cooling system (head gasket symptoms) and he was getting ready for a new clutch - so the garage where he went advised it was his choice whether they fit another engine or he took a risk with them just doing the head gasket. He had another engine fitted, along with a new DMF and clutch to go with it... Price, sir, £2500. If this was a petrol, would have been a lot more confident of a successful head gasket job, could have got an engine for £200 in any case, it's unlikely there'd be any clutch problems.
Diesels are not the slightly sluggish but more reliable vehicles that they used to be - they are now more complicated than petrol engines, many components fitted are a lot more stressed than the equivalent component on petrol engines - the technology doesn't even seem to be quite there yet for some of these components (injectors running at 1000psi compared to 40psi on petrol engines?), they suffer more problems, a greater variety of problems and most problems are more expensive to fix than on petrol vehicles.
The cost of an LPG conversion for a petrol vehicle can easily be exceeded by a common repair bill for a diesel vehicle, while an LPG converted petrol vehicle will cost less to run, be cleaner and quieter than the diesel in any case.
Performance of turbo'd diesels is commonly compared to performance of none turbo'd petrol engines.. To anyone who thinks there turbo diesel is fast, would suggest they ask themselves what would be fastest - their turbo-diesel vehicle or the turbo-petrol sports model? Even without a turbo there are petrol versions of common vehicles which when converted to LPG are faster, smoother, nicer to drive, quieter, more reliable than the diesel version. E.g. Would you rather have a diesel BMW 5 series or a petrol BMW 540 V8? An LPG converted BMW 540 will be cheaper to run in terms of fuel than the diesel, is less likely to go wrong, will cost less to put right if it does go wrong. I see signs on the back of some diesels 'no smoke no poke', but think to myself 'no smoke no problems - but if any problem should occur it will be easier and far cheaper to fix'!
Synchromesh said:
Guys, seriously, can we stop "selling" LPG conversions on here. The fewer of us running it there are, the less inclined the government will be to raise duty on it. Its low pump price depends on its low uptake so lets keep it that way.
We hear this argument a lot, but there is no need to worry about the price of LPG going up! Price has been around half the price of petrol and diesel since LPG was first seen on forecourts many years ago and the government has pledged to raise duty on LPG at the max rate of only 1p per litre per year for the forseable future. Don't forget that one of the main reasons the government claim they put so much duty on petrol and diesel is for environmental reasons. Diesel costs less to produce than petrol and was cheaper than petrol until it was discovered that diesel fumes cause cancer. LPG is a far cleaner burning fuel - the arguments they use for the high duty on petrol and LPG don't make as much sense for LPG. Government need to keep LPG duty prices lower than petrol or diesel or their best excuse for high duty on petrol and diesel will ring even more hollow than it already does. Simon
Edited by SimonYorkshire on Sunday 15th February 16:42
SimonYorkshire said:
All that jazz said:
And how much would the kit and conversion usually cost if you hadn't purchased and fitted it for him at no cost?
Would have cost under £1000 to supply and fit a new LPG system on this car.All that jazz said:
Thank you. So for the 99.9% of people that wouldn't uninstall their LPG kit when changing car the claimed savings are simply not there on anything already fitted with a small to medium capacity engine.
What are you like at maths lol? A simple in head calculation should tell you that someone only has to save £20 per week in fuel to make the above discussed LPG conversion pay for itself within a year simply in terms of cheaper fuel. To ave £20 per week in fuel, a vehicle owner would only have to be spending about £43 per week on petrol! But the savings actually start sooner, because the LPG conversion also increases the value of the vehicle.
In the above example, somebody who spends £43 per week on petrol, has their little car converted to LPG and keeps the car for 2 years, would have saved the cost of the LPG conversion plus another £1000 by the end of year 2, or the cost of the conversion plus £2000 by the end of year 3. More and more car buyers are getting wised up on the savings available by running an LPG powered car - and this makes LPG powered cars more desirable and therefore sell at a premium.
How much do you reckon the average guy spends on fuel a week? Where did you get that figure of 99.9% of owners wouldn't consider removing their LPG system to fit to their next car (you're not in the vehicle LPG trade, so you must be guessing)? I have already said I charge about £500 to move an LPG system from one car to another, but let's have it your way for the moment and assume the vehicle owner decides to sell the vehicle complete with the LPG system fitted like you've suggested.... If an informed potential car buyer goes to look at 2 almost identical cars with a view to buying one of them and one car has an LPG system fitted (so will therefore cost half as much to run), which car should common sense dictate should be more desirable? An LPG conversions can increase vehicle desirability and allow owners to sell converted vehicles at a premium, so some of the money invested in converting the car to LPG will be recouped by the owner. This is a reason why some people choose NOT to remove the LPG system from their car when they sell it.
As an example of a costing analysis - why don't you tell us what car you drive and how much you spend per week on fuel, and we can compare how much you could be saving?
Jazz - If we both continue as we are (me running my vehicle on LPG and you running on petrol or diesel), then at the end of our driving careers if we both do a bit of reflecting... Who is most likely to have memories of owning the vehicles we really wanted to own (rather than a compromise vehicle for fuel economy reasons)? Who is most likely to have spend the most on fuel? Who is most likely to have spent most on repair and/or depreciation bills?
Simon
Edited by SimonYorkshire on Sunday 15th February 17:18
sparkyhx said:
my ls430 paid for itself in about 18000 miles. for the further 62,000 miles I did in it, it saved about 2.5k a year on go-juice.
On a motorway run it was doing roughly the equivalent of 50+mpg.
Smaller more economic cars take longer to pay back.
A reasonable comment. On a motorway run it was doing roughly the equivalent of 50+mpg.
Smaller more economic cars take longer to pay back.
Could work it out on the figures you provided but might as well ask - how much did you pay for the conversion?
I honestly haven't worked out how much you payed for the conversion, but at my price for conversion for your car (£1395) you would make the payback threshold (in terms of simple fuel savings, not taking into account the value added to the car) in 6 and a half months given you save £2500 per year.
We agree about the payback period being a bit longer for small economical cars, but then again small cars with 4 cylinder engines don't cost as much to convert (I mentioned £1000 for the Hyundai Accent). As we move into cars like yours, big cars with V6's, V8's, 4wds, etc. the payback period is shorter than in my Hyundai example - I didn't use a great example quoting figures based on my son's Hyundai, but my post related to a thread that was about another Hyundai. Elsewhere on this forum I have posted pics of a Vauxhall Monaro 5.7 V8 I converted last September, and have recently posted again on that thread because I have just converted another Monaro. The owner of the last Monaro converted uses it as a daily driver; He works in London but is Romanian, and he plans to drive to and from home in it a few times a year. I expect his payback period will be very short indeed!
To all the anti-LPG people I would say - The Monaro owner I mentioned above is now driving the V8 powered car he wants to own and drive, probably the car of his dreams, at a running cost that is probably cheaper than a Mr Average Commuter vehicle when all costs, including running costs and depreciation etc, are factored in!
Simon
Edited by SimonYorkshire on Sunday 15th February 20:50
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