Is there any hope of petrol prices going back...?
Discussion
daemon said:
Firstly, mine was a brand new X5. If i'd opted for even say the 3.0i it would have benn just £300 cheaper list price, and i probably wouldnt have got as much off as they'd have had to order it in (mine was a cancelled order sitting in the showroom)
If i'd opted for the V8, i'd have been paying £12000 more.
So it would have cost me MORE for even a 3.0i plus your conversion.
Also, i cant see BMW being very happy with the engine having been tampered with. So say the injectors went or the fuel pump, i could forsee them declining a claim. Not so much fun on a £50K car.
Also, come resale time, no matter what you say, there is still a reluctance in the trade to involve themselves with LPG converted cars. For example, when i'd went to trade the LPG 3.0i back in again, my local franchised dealer wouldnt have wanted it on his forecourt, so i'd have been offered auction price for it, not the price he could give me for a resale quality car.
However, other than that, i generally take your point.
You, too, make fair points sir, and I agree with most of them but there are a couple of things I will point out... If i'd opted for the V8, i'd have been paying £12000 more.
So it would have cost me MORE for even a 3.0i plus your conversion.
Also, i cant see BMW being very happy with the engine having been tampered with. So say the injectors went or the fuel pump, i could forsee them declining a claim. Not so much fun on a £50K car.
Also, come resale time, no matter what you say, there is still a reluctance in the trade to involve themselves with LPG converted cars. For example, when i'd went to trade the LPG 3.0i back in again, my local franchised dealer wouldnt have wanted it on his forecourt, so i'd have been offered auction price for it, not the price he could give me for a resale quality car.
However, other than that, i generally take your point.
It would have cost more to buy the 3L petrol including the cost of the LPG conversion than your model (diesel?), but then the 3L running on LPG would cost less to run than your diesel. BMW cannot these days entirely cancel a warranty because you have had a modification done, they might not like that fact, but they would have to look at the vehicle and prove that the LPG system caused a fault. The LPG system cannot possibly damage your petrol pump or petrol injectors, they would have to honour their warranty on those parts.
You spent £50k on a vehicle, since most people considering converting a vehicle to LPG do so because they want to save money, we don't see many new £50k vehicles in our workshops for conversion! But when those vehicles get a little older and have lost some of their value we get to convert a lot of them.
On your last point (resale value), what you say may apply to a vehicle that is only a couple of years old but when the vehicle is just a little older it should be worth more than the equivalent none LPG converted vehicle.
Simon
SimonYorkshire said:
You, too, make fair points sir, and I agree with most of them but there are a couple of things I will point out...
It would have cost more to buy the 3L petrol including the cost of the LPG conversion than your model (diesel?), but then the 3L running on LPG would cost less to run than your diesel. BMW cannot these days entirely cancel a warranty because you have had a modification done, they might not like that fact, but they would have to look at the vehicle and prove that the LPG system caused a fault. The LPG system cannot possibly damage your petrol pump or petrol injectors, they would have to honour their warranty on those parts.
You spent £50k on a vehicle, since most people considering converting a vehicle to LPG do so because they want to save money, we don't see many new £50k vehicles in our workshops for conversion! But when those vehicles get a little older and have lost some of their value we get to convert a lot of them.
On your last point (resale value), what you say may apply to a vehicle that is only a couple of years old but when the vehicle is just a little older it should be worth more than the equivalent none LPG converted vehicle.
Simon
If the engine did grenade itself, i would say BMW UK would first of all point the finger at the conversion. It would end up being up to me to prove otherwise. Couldnt be bothered with that.It would have cost more to buy the 3L petrol including the cost of the LPG conversion than your model (diesel?), but then the 3L running on LPG would cost less to run than your diesel. BMW cannot these days entirely cancel a warranty because you have had a modification done, they might not like that fact, but they would have to look at the vehicle and prove that the LPG system caused a fault. The LPG system cannot possibly damage your petrol pump or petrol injectors, they would have to honour their warranty on those parts.
You spent £50k on a vehicle, since most people considering converting a vehicle to LPG do so because they want to save money, we don't see many new £50k vehicles in our workshops for conversion! But when those vehicles get a little older and have lost some of their value we get to convert a lot of them.
On your last point (resale value), what you say may apply to a vehicle that is only a couple of years old but when the vehicle is just a little older it should be worth more than the equivalent none LPG converted vehicle.
Simon
A lot of people i know tend to just run a car a couple of years or maybe 3 before they get bored. Fair likelihood they might only break even on LPG before they move on to another car.
Also, you're paying for the conversion in cash, so someone whos otherwise going to buy a £3K car, is going to end up buying a £2K to allow the £1,000 conversion.
daemon said:
I know you're pitching, but realistically its not "half price". Its 70p v approx 120p, and also a car running on LPG could see a 15% drop in economy, so realistically its maybe 1/3 cheaper.
Still good but not as headline grabbing as "half price"
I'm not sure who's twerking the figures most, you or I! Let's go with your 15% more fuel used when running on LPG (although usually the I find vehicles use 10% more fuel on LPG than on petrol)... Still good but not as headline grabbing as "half price"
Petrol has recently come down a couple of pence, LPG prices usually follow the trend of petrol prices (though are around half the price) with a little delay. You say petrol is £1.20/litre, I have yet to see it at £1.20/litre but I have recently seen it as low as £1.23/litre. Meanwhile, for around 6 months, I have been filling with LPG on a garage forecourt where petrol was £1.23/litre and (until very recently) above, with LPG at 59.9p/litre.. I am expecting the price of LPG at this garage to drop below 59.9p in maybe a month following the new lower petrol prices. It is possible to buy LPG at below half price of petrol.
Let's take a V8 X5 that might do low 20's mpg on a run.. On LPG it might do 20mpg.. The diesel might do nearly 40mpg, at the fuel prices above even the V8 X5 is more economical to run than the diesel... and which would you rather own/drive?
Some people go out and buy a fairly new small hatch diesel that might claim to do 70mpg, but this will be a relatively new model diesel vehicle and might cost say £5k for one that's a couple years old. The owner thinks, well that was expensive but now I will start to save money on fuel costs at last. The owner might have sold his trusty old petrol Mondeo, that he thought was more comfortable etc, that did 40mpg on petrol, because it cost too much for fuel. What he could have done was get his Mondeo converted to LPG and immediately it would cost less to run than his little diesel, he would have had the extra cash still in his bank, he would have recouped some of the cost in the LPG install when he sold the Mondeo, which would be more desirable at resale time.
Simon
daemon said:
If the engine did grenade itself, i would say BMW UK would first of all point the finger at the conversion. It would end up being up to me to prove otherwise. Couldnt be bothered with that.
A lot of people i know tend to just run a car a couple of years or maybe 3 before they get bored. Fair likelihood they might only break even on LPG before they move on to another car.
Also, you're paying for the conversion in cash, so someone whos otherwise going to buy a £3K car, is going to end up buying a £2K to allow the £1,000 conversion.
It would just as equally be up to BMW to prove that the LPG conversion caused the engine to 'grenade itself' as up to you to prove that it didn't, maybe more so. A lot of people i know tend to just run a car a couple of years or maybe 3 before they get bored. Fair likelihood they might only break even on LPG before they move on to another car.
Also, you're paying for the conversion in cash, so someone whos otherwise going to buy a £3K car, is going to end up buying a £2K to allow the £1,000 conversion.
If someone runs an LPG car for 3 years they will have certainly made their money back. How much do you spend per year on fuel? How soon to make £1000 back with half price fuel? What car do you drive?
On your last point, let's look at the figures and how that might apply to the what cars people might buy... I would prefer to buy a petrol Jag XK8 for £1500 less than a Jag X type diesel.. Buy the time I had paid £1500 for an LPG conversion both would cost the same initial outlay. The XK8 will cost the same to run as the (perhaps slightly newer) X type diesel, will hold it's value better, some of the cost of the conversion will be recouped at resale time. Meanwhile, modern diesels are not as reliable as traditional diesels - one point being DMFs, another being common rail injectors... Petrol vehicles don't have these, which I consider expensive consumables on diesels.
Simon
lbc said:
Most don't want to drive 10-20 miles out of their way just to find a LPG filling station, as that is what I would have to do.
There will be a minority of people this will apply to, but really this applies to you? What's your postcode? Where do you work? See if I can't point you to an LPG station on your route... Or, if you work from home and don't use your car much it doesn't matter how many mpg your car does? What car do you run?Snollygoster said:
Not to depress any of you with age or anything, but fuel prices are the lowest they've ever been since I've been driving.
You haven't been driving very long then! Neither has my son... We still converted his 1.2 Vauxhall Corsa, it will be 45mpg on LPG, so that is like doing over 90mppg if it were a diesel. Not bad for a £500 old car that we converted using old bits I had laying around!Simon
shred2bits said:
5 years ago you were buying petrol in England in litres not US gallons, which aren't even the same as UK gallons so why talking in US gallons on UK Forum?
Not quite sure what the aggressive tone in your response is about, but here you go:The point I was making is that prices have fluctuated wildly based on current oil prices. I used the current prices I pay here to illustrate that and I didnt want to go through the exercise of converting $ to £ and gallons to liters for this purpose, I also wasn't trying to compare US prices to UK. I wanted to see if the UK has seen similar fluctuations. This was obviously lost on you.
Edited by EK993 on Monday 20th October 03:21
I have an Omega v6 on lpg but it's an old-ish car (04 plate 156,000 miler) but it's supremely comfortable, has electric everything and a Bose stereo to deafen the street. very relaxing and does equivalent mileage of around 42-44 mpg
I pay 61.9p/litre, have done for the last year or so. Petrol prices have crept down to around £1.23/litre so for a good while have been more than double the price.
Rather satisfying really but I miss the engine noise of my last V6 156...
I pay 61.9p/litre, have done for the last year or so. Petrol prices have crept down to around £1.23/litre so for a good while have been more than double the price.
Rather satisfying really but I miss the engine noise of my last V6 156...
k-ink said:
The UK is not far behind France in terms of being bankrupt. If you include the £900bn us tax payers gave to the banks (not included on most calculations), on top of the huge national debt already outstanding, plus future borrowing imminent, we are screwed frankly. Tax on everything will be going through the roof. The NHS will likely be scrapped before long. Our entire GDP will be spent servicing a debt pretty soon. So I suspect petrol will be multiples of what it is today. Not just a little bit higher. If you really think the future is brighter perhaps you are unaware what is really going on.
Short of a revolution to reset the balance I am not sure there is much to change the nation becoming debt slaves to the banks.
In case the next 2 pages don't cover it, that £900bn is a wholly fictional figure, made up of fictional money and wild fantasies. It simply didn't happen.Short of a revolution to reset the balance I am not sure there is much to change the nation becoming debt slaves to the banks.
Pool car at work runs on LPG
1. That eerie click as it selects gas is like a bomb
2. When you accelerate hard on motorway say from 55 to 70 you can actually here the sound of gas sucking through the pipes below.
3. Maybe I'm a scardycat because I have driven LPG cars when they have blown the air box off when they misfire and its not nice! Its like a gun going off.
4. Local ambulance station stopped using them albeit due to union, but due to safety concerns ie filling on very cold mornings.
LPG cars are great, would I sell one yes only if correctly installed and third party inspected and on lpg register would I have one for myself, no.
1. That eerie click as it selects gas is like a bomb
2. When you accelerate hard on motorway say from 55 to 70 you can actually here the sound of gas sucking through the pipes below.
3. Maybe I'm a scardycat because I have driven LPG cars when they have blown the air box off when they misfire and its not nice! Its like a gun going off.
4. Local ambulance station stopped using them albeit due to union, but due to safety concerns ie filling on very cold mornings.
LPG cars are great, would I sell one yes only if correctly installed and third party inspected and on lpg register would I have one for myself, no.
t taxed out of you the Govt actually gives you stuff. Nice to win once in a while...SimonYorkshire said:
I'm not sure who's twerking the figures most, you or I! Let's go with your 15% more fuel used when running on LPG (although usually the I find vehicles use 10% more fuel on LPG than on petrol)...
Petrol has recently come down a couple of pence, LPG prices usually follow the trend of petrol prices (though are around half the price) with a little delay. You say petrol is £1.20/litre, I have yet to see it at £1.20/litre but I have recently seen it as low as £1.23/litre. Meanwhile, for around 6 months, I have been filling with LPG on a garage forecourt where petrol was £1.23/litre and (until very recently) above, with LPG at 59.9p/litre.. I am expecting the price of LPG at this garage to drop below 59.9p in maybe a month following the new lower petrol prices. It is possible to buy LPG at below half price of petrol.
Let's take a V8 X5 that might do low 20's mpg on a run.. On LPG it might do 20mpg.. The diesel might do nearly 40mpg, at the fuel prices above even the V8 X5 is more economical to run than the diesel... and which would you rather own/drive?
I've no doubt that if i had an urge to run an older (ie, not under manufacturers warranty) large engined car, then LPG would make a lot of sense. Petrol has recently come down a couple of pence, LPG prices usually follow the trend of petrol prices (though are around half the price) with a little delay. You say petrol is £1.20/litre, I have yet to see it at £1.20/litre but I have recently seen it as low as £1.23/litre. Meanwhile, for around 6 months, I have been filling with LPG on a garage forecourt where petrol was £1.23/litre and (until very recently) above, with LPG at 59.9p/litre.. I am expecting the price of LPG at this garage to drop below 59.9p in maybe a month following the new lower petrol prices. It is possible to buy LPG at below half price of petrol.
Let's take a V8 X5 that might do low 20's mpg on a run.. On LPG it might do 20mpg.. The diesel might do nearly 40mpg, at the fuel prices above even the V8 X5 is more economical to run than the diesel... and which would you rather own/drive?
SimonYorkshire said:
Some people go out and buy a fairly new small hatch diesel that might claim to do 70mpg, but this will be a relatively new model diesel vehicle and might cost say £5k for one that's a couple years old. The owner thinks, well that was expensive but now I will start to save money on fuel costs at last. The owner might have sold his trusty old petrol Mondeo, that he thought was more comfortable etc, that did 40mpg on petrol, because it cost too much for fuel. What he could have done was get his Mondeo converted to LPG and immediately it would cost less to run than his little diesel, he would have had the extra cash still in his bank, he would have recouped some of the cost in the LPG install when he sold the Mondeo, which would be more desirable at resale time.
Yes in that scenario, IF someone is buying a diesel car specifically to save money over their current car, then going to LPG would make more financial sense. If they were due an upgrade to a younger car anyway, and opted for a high MPG diesel, thats a different matter of course.SimonYorkshire said:
daemon said:
If the engine did grenade itself, i would say BMW UK would first of all point the finger at the conversion. It would end up being up to me to prove otherwise. Couldnt be bothered with that.
A lot of people i know tend to just run a car a couple of years or maybe 3 before they get bored. Fair likelihood they might only break even on LPG before they move on to another car.
Also, you're paying for the conversion in cash, so someone whos otherwise going to buy a £3K car, is going to end up buying a £2K to allow the £1,000 conversion.
It would just as equally be up to BMW to prove that the LPG conversion caused the engine to 'grenade itself' as up to you to prove that it didn't, maybe more so. A lot of people i know tend to just run a car a couple of years or maybe 3 before they get bored. Fair likelihood they might only break even on LPG before they move on to another car.
Also, you're paying for the conversion in cash, so someone whos otherwise going to buy a £3K car, is going to end up buying a £2K to allow the £1,000 conversion.
If someone runs an LPG car for 3 years they will have certainly made their money back. How much do you spend per year on fuel? How soon to make £1000 back with half price fuel? What car do you drive?
On your last point, let's look at the figures and how that might apply to the what cars people might buy... I would prefer to buy a petrol Jag XK8 for £1500 less than a Jag X type diesel.. Buy the time I had paid £1500 for an LPG conversion both would cost the same initial outlay. The XK8 will cost the same to run as the (perhaps slightly newer) X type diesel, will hold it's value better, some of the cost of the conversion will be recouped at resale time. Meanwhile, modern diesels are not as reliable as traditional diesels - one point being DMFs, another being common rail injectors... Petrol vehicles don't have these, which I consider expensive consumables on diesels.
Simon
I do 25k miles per year and opted for a 9 month old Golf diesel, speficially to get v high MPG and to have a car under manufacturers warranty, so as not to have any unexpected bills. I'll probably run it for the term of the PCP hire purchase agreement which is four years, and probably rinse and repeat.
So far, in 27000 miles (car has just turned 40K now), its had a problem with knocking itself off with driving. This was finally traced to a problem with the wiring loom and was fixed under warranty. I'd estimate there was probably a £1500 bill in there for that.
If i'd went with a petrol variant and got an LPG conversion done then yes, there would have been a saving. I'm working it out here at less than £40 a month. However the likes of that warranty claim would concern me. Realistically if the car had been cutting out i'd say the first thing that VW would have done would have been to blame the LPG system. Of course the LPG fitter would have said it wasnt his install, so i'd be stuck in the middle. Finally, when it turned out to be a fault in the wiring loom i've no doubt VW would have said it was due to the fitment of the LPG kit - a connector damaged, etc, etc. No doubt the LPG fitter would have protested to the contrary, but again, i'd have been the man in the middle looking at a big bill. Of course, the problem may not have happened in a petrol car, but i am sure you take my point.
Summarising - i wouldnt feel comfortable fitting an LPG kit to a car under manufacturers warranty as i think it would give the manufacturer "wriggle room" if there was a significant problem.
Also, i guess anyone who has a car on finance would have to ask the finance companys permission, given its the finance company that owns the car until its paid for.
Also, i take it you would have to inform your insurance company, which no doubt they will use as an excuse to put the premium up.
If i were to look at a mid life diesel, versus a mid life petrol car converted, then there is an advantage to the LPG car, and again, mid life diesels can be troublesome. So yes i can see the advantage of LPG there.
Probably my "gut" feeling remains the same -
- I wouldnt want to run an LPG converted car under manufacturers warranty
- Its really well suited to large engined petrol cars as it provides a considerable saving even over diesel.
- Its well suited to mid life petrol cars over a diesel car, providing you do big miles
- Its best suited to converting and keeping the car for a considerable time
- You might not get a price premium for the LPG car, so you might have to write off the cost of it against fuel savings
- The motor trade are still wary of LPG cars, so could impact your trade in value if you trade in.
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