1 DAY LPG CONVERSIONS eg LEEDS LPG/ SAVE-CAR LPG
Discussion
Hi- I have had 3 cars converted over the past 15 years and went for the higher end systems. This time, for various reasons, I have decided to get my wife's little Hyundai 4 cylinder 1200cc car converted with a lower end system. Price quotes have ranged from £700 to £1350 - would you believe for the same system.
I have spoken to many installers and they trip out the old story that you get what you for. They also say it is impossible to get a good installation done in a day , fully calibrated etc. Firstly I dont believe in the adage you get what you pay for - my last system was a top of the range Prins vsi and I have had nothing but problems - and done by a UKLPG approved installer ( which really counts for nothing in my experience).
Given the above I would like to hear people's views and experiences of the cheaper Polish systems. Also I would like to hear from people who have the 1 day conversion installation. I mention 2 installers above - any views good/bad ?
I have spoken to many installers and they trip out the old story that you get what you for. They also say it is impossible to get a good installation done in a day , fully calibrated etc. Firstly I dont believe in the adage you get what you pay for - my last system was a top of the range Prins vsi and I have had nothing but problems - and done by a UKLPG approved installer ( which really counts for nothing in my experience).
Given the above I would like to hear people's views and experiences of the cheaper Polish systems. Also I would like to hear from people who have the 1 day conversion installation. I mention 2 installers above - any views good/bad ?
Surely it depends on the installer and his competency? I'm planning to finally get my current car converted to LPG as I've spent over £1300 in V Power in just over 6 months and only covered just over 4600 miles.
I'm planning to use a fellow member from the owners club who has experience of converting cars with the same engine as well as other cars. Quote is reasonable and his own car is running with the same level of performance on both LPG and V Power.
I'm planning to use a fellow member from the owners club who has experience of converting cars with the same engine as well as other cars. Quote is reasonable and his own car is running with the same level of performance on both LPG and V Power.
Edited by giblet on Thursday 21st August 13:30
giblet said:
Surely it depends on the installer and his competency? I'm planning to finally get my current cat converted to LPG as I've spent over £1300 in V Power in just over 6 months and only covered just over 4600 miles.
I'm planning to use a fellow member from the owners club who has experience of converting cars with the same engine as well as other cars. Quote is reasonable and his own car is running with the same level of performance on both LPG and V Power.
hI - Yes you are absolutely correct. Give me a good installer and a lower price system anytime over an expensive system poorly installed. My reason for asking specifically about LEEDS LPG and SAVE-CAR LPG is simply because they are both 1 day installers and I was wanting to hear any feedback - good or bad I'm planning to use a fellow member from the owners club who has experience of converting cars with the same engine as well as other cars. Quote is reasonable and his own car is running with the same level of performance on both LPG and V Power.
davieboy1956 said:
T400BLE-Are you having a laugh? I travel to Turkey twice per year and I will recoup half of the conversion cost during that time alone. LPG in Belgium at present works out at 41pence per litre - just work it out and see whether your comment makes any sense.
The price isn't as simple as you're making out though, is it. You have missed out the bit where your equivalent of mpg running on LPG is something silly like 15-20mpg if you're lucky vs maybe 40-45mpg in a petrol on a long run. So back-of-a-fag-packet calculation means your LPG cost per mile is more like 80-90p/l which when you factor in the conversion costs as well doesn't make it a particularly attractive proposition to someone already running a reasonably economical petrol car, particularly the smaller engined cars.All that jazz said:
The price isn't as simple as you're making out though, is it. You have missed out the bit where your equivalent of mpg running on LPG is something silly like 15-20mpg if you're lucky vs maybe 40-45mpg in a petrol on a long run. So back-of-a-fag-packet calculation means your LPG cost per mile is more like 80-90p/l which when you factor in the conversion costs as well doesn't make it a particularly attractive proposition to someone already running a reasonably economical petrol car, particularly the smaller engined cars.
Are you certain the difference is as large as that.I'd read that LPG is marginally less economical, your figures read less that half as good as petrol!?!
I'm SURE that's not right.
ks. FeelingLucky said:
All that jazz said:
The price isn't as simple as you're making out though, is it. You have missed out the bit where your equivalent of mpg running on LPG is something silly like 15-20mpg if you're lucky vs maybe 40-45mpg in a petrol on a long run. So back-of-a-fag-packet calculation means your LPG cost per mile is more like 80-90p/l which when you factor in the conversion costs as well doesn't make it a particularly attractive proposition to someone already running a reasonably economical petrol car, particularly the smaller engined cars.
Are you certain the difference is as large as that.I'd read that LPG is marginally less economical, your figures read less that half as good as petrol!?!
I'm SURE that's not right.
All that jazz said:
15-40% reduction vs petrol is more the norm , largely depending on the size of the engine and how economical it was on petrol
Sorry, still wrong. The most critical factor in the efficiency of the engine once converted to LPG is the type of LPG kit. That said, I don't recall anybody talking about a 40% decrease in MPG on LPG, even on an old single point system. Nowadays and on modern cars, multi-point sequential kits are widely used and the MPG penalty of running one of those instead of petrol is closer to 10%.
Yep, you will lose mpg on gas if the engine is tuned for the same performance as petrol. It's just chemistry - LPG has less energy per litre when burned than petrol so you burn more of it. 10 to 20 percent is quite normal.
OP the way the one day places usually work is to have several fitters working on the car at one time. It can work quite well especially on cars they're familiar with but they rely on quick turnaround and economies of scale so if you have something which causes them problems routing pipe work, locating components or mapping you're going to get even more of a rush job than you might want.
Finding a good installer is definitely the hard part, sorry but I've no idea about the two places you mention. It's a shame IMO that the industry is so poorly regulated. The LPGA is a toothless trade body not a proper regulator. But I digress
OP the way the one day places usually work is to have several fitters working on the car at one time. It can work quite well especially on cars they're familiar with but they rely on quick turnaround and economies of scale so if you have something which causes them problems routing pipe work, locating components or mapping you're going to get even more of a rush job than you might want.
Finding a good installer is definitely the hard part, sorry but I've no idea about the two places you mention. It's a shame IMO that the industry is so poorly regulated. The LPGA is a toothless trade body not a proper regulator. But I digress
All that jazz said:
The price isn't as simple as you're making out though, is it. You have missed out the bit where your equivalent of mpg running on LPG is something silly like 15-20mpg if you're lucky vs maybe 40-45mpg in a petrol on a long run. So back-of-a-fag-packet calculation means your LPG cost per mile is more like 80-90p/l which when you factor in the conversion costs as well doesn't make it a particularly attractive proposition to someone already running a reasonably economical petrol car, particularly the smaller engined cars.
With all due respect I think you are incorrect . On our other 2 vehicles we lose very little in comparison to runniing on petrol. Did you mean 15-20% rather than 15-20mpg ? charltjr said:
Yep, you will lose mpg on gas if the engine is tuned for the same performance as petrol. It's just chemistry - LPG has less energy per litre when burned than petrol so you burn more of it. 10 to 20 percent is quite normal.
OP the way the one day places usually work is to have several fitters working on the car at one time. It can work quite well especially on cars they're familiar with but they rely on quick turnaround and economies of scale so if you have something which causes them problems routing pipe work, locating components or mapping you're going to get even more of a rush job than you might want.
Finding a good installer is definitely the hard part, sorry but I've no idea about the two places you mention. It's a shame IMO that the industry is so poorly regulated. The LPGA is a toothless trade body not a proper regulator. But I digress
Absolutely agree with everything you have said above OP the way the one day places usually work is to have several fitters working on the car at one time. It can work quite well especially on cars they're familiar with but they rely on quick turnaround and economies of scale so if you have something which causes them problems routing pipe work, locating components or mapping you're going to get even more of a rush job than you might want.
Finding a good installer is definitely the hard part, sorry but I've no idea about the two places you mention. It's a shame IMO that the industry is so poorly regulated. The LPGA is a toothless trade body not a proper regulator. But I digress
On gas I'm about 20% down on the economy of petrol, calculated brim-to-brim on 10k miles either side of my install.
In terms of the LPG in a day brigade, my biggest worry was the quality of the setup due to the speed they have to work at. I doubt they will have converted many "little Hyundai's", so if they are rushing and on an engine they have not done a million times over, then you WILL get a bodge job. When looking at pre-converted cars i've seen some seriously awful job. Injectors tie-wrapped to the engine cover (thats only a matter of time till it breaks), filler nozzle bodged into unsafe positions on the body, tank loose and not secured properly in the boot. All of these were clearly cheap polish efforts.
There are a number of very good polish installers, I think LPG is very popular in poland as a fuel, but every one I talked to pre-conversion wanted it for at least 3-5 days, and my installer had my car for 10 days to get mine done properly.
In terms of the LPG in a day brigade, my biggest worry was the quality of the setup due to the speed they have to work at. I doubt they will have converted many "little Hyundai's", so if they are rushing and on an engine they have not done a million times over, then you WILL get a bodge job. When looking at pre-converted cars i've seen some seriously awful job. Injectors tie-wrapped to the engine cover (thats only a matter of time till it breaks), filler nozzle bodged into unsafe positions on the body, tank loose and not secured properly in the boot. All of these were clearly cheap polish efforts.
There are a number of very good polish installers, I think LPG is very popular in poland as a fuel, but every one I talked to pre-conversion wanted it for at least 3-5 days, and my installer had my car for 10 days to get mine done properly.
I run a bit smelly Omega 2.6v6 auto with lpg. It does, according to the trip computer, about 31 mpg on a long run on petrol at 70 mph with cruise ctrl on.
I pay 61.9p a litre lpg and calculated I get 23 mpg on the same run at 70 etc.
So, If I factor in the lpg is, roughly, half the price of petrol (it's slightly less) then I get the equivalent of 46 mpg.
Not bad for a big old barge...
I pay 61.9p a litre lpg and calculated I get 23 mpg on the same run at 70 etc.
So, If I factor in the lpg is, roughly, half the price of petrol (it's slightly less) then I get the equivalent of 46 mpg.
Not bad for a big old barge...
Edited by Oilchange on Thursday 21st August 11:36
Man alive there is some misinformation in this thread.
Firstly the drop is 10-15 % in mpg at worst. Drop in power roughly the same.
My question though is why convert something that's already doing good mpg.
I converted an E 39 M5 when I was using it as a daily, and then took the kit out and put it into my E39 528i when I decided to keep the M for sunny day use only.
For sure you will see a drop in oomph, which doesn't really matter with 400 bhp or 190 bhp but I wouldn't want to be driving a small engine with even less power.
As you have already had LPG conversions done you are a convert. All I can add is that the service you have gotten from your previous installers can't have been great. My 2 conversions were both done by the same guys, not cheap, but the job was done right. Never crossed my mind to go anywhere else.
Firstly the drop is 10-15 % in mpg at worst. Drop in power roughly the same.
My question though is why convert something that's already doing good mpg.
I converted an E 39 M5 when I was using it as a daily, and then took the kit out and put it into my E39 528i when I decided to keep the M for sunny day use only.
For sure you will see a drop in oomph, which doesn't really matter with 400 bhp or 190 bhp but I wouldn't want to be driving a small engine with even less power.
As you have already had LPG conversions done you are a convert. All I can add is that the service you have gotten from your previous installers can't have been great. My 2 conversions were both done by the same guys, not cheap, but the job was done right. Never crossed my mind to go anywhere else.
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