E39 525/530i Sport - Motorway MPG/Anyone LPG'd One?
Discussion
As per the thread title, I am considering a 525 or 530 Sport in petrol form converted to LPG as an alternative to a 530d.
My father has a 530d and may be looking to change cars soon, but to be perfectly honest the cars previous debacle with BMW not accepting faults with the engine (which from reading on here are common faults with the MAF and turbo) makes me very warey of purchasing the car out of warranty.
Ecconomy wise I believe the 530d would give about 45mpg or possibly higher on my commute. I dont drive anywhere near as hard as the old man on my commute and he regularly records low 40's and although our journeys are nearly the same length and predominantly motorway, my commute is a lot more free flowing and pretty much 70-75mph constant speed.
The official figures for the 530 and 525 petrols are 38.2 and 38.7mpg respectively, how accurate is this for the car in the real world on a 75mph motorway cruise?
As far as I can see, the cost of an LPG conversion on a 525i or 530i would be about £1800, which is about the cost differential between them and a 530d. If LPG is fine on these engines then that makes it a no brainer, 530i @ 35mpg on petrol would be circa 31mpg on LPG and thats equal to 73mpg equivalent. But how do these engines fair with LPG?
Whilst I'm on a roll, what, if any, Vanos issues should I be aware of on the 525/530 engines? Are the prone to the same failures as the M3 engines?
My father has a 530d and may be looking to change cars soon, but to be perfectly honest the cars previous debacle with BMW not accepting faults with the engine (which from reading on here are common faults with the MAF and turbo) makes me very warey of purchasing the car out of warranty.
Ecconomy wise I believe the 530d would give about 45mpg or possibly higher on my commute. I dont drive anywhere near as hard as the old man on my commute and he regularly records low 40's and although our journeys are nearly the same length and predominantly motorway, my commute is a lot more free flowing and pretty much 70-75mph constant speed.
The official figures for the 530 and 525 petrols are 38.2 and 38.7mpg respectively, how accurate is this for the car in the real world on a 75mph motorway cruise?
As far as I can see, the cost of an LPG conversion on a 525i or 530i would be about £1800, which is about the cost differential between them and a 530d. If LPG is fine on these engines then that makes it a no brainer, 530i @ 35mpg on petrol would be circa 31mpg on LPG and thats equal to 73mpg equivalent. But how do these engines fair with LPG?
Whilst I'm on a roll, what, if any, Vanos issues should I be aware of on the 525/530 engines? Are the prone to the same failures as the M3 engines?
Ok, couple of questions there:
Vanos problems - nah, not really with the 525 or 530 engines. Pretty solid but depends on maintenance and care. Early 528s did have nikasil issues, but that was for a limited number of the very early ones so no real concerns there.
LPG a 6 cylinder - not heard of anyone doing this! Most people do multi-point LPG for the V8's as its more money to be saved, but the BMW injection system isnt simple so you do need to have the expensive one which, as you say, is around £1800 in total. Dont forget you loose a lot of boot space, hence the reason why most V8's converted are 7'series as its got a bigger boot. Not sure if its worthwhile though. A 525 and 530 are pretty similar in economy terms and getting a good 30MPG should not be an issue - though this utterly dependent on driving style and type of driving. Tootle around town and you will get early to mid 20's. Get out on the motorway and you will return into the early 30's without too much of a problem. I have a 535i which gets a steady 32-34 at 75-80! Get to 85 and it drops to 30 - around town its 22 but average for my driving is about 28, which is better than a friend used to get with his Mini Cooper!!!!
I would think the 6 cylinders would be fine on LPG, but best speak to a company that has done them. Some LPG convertors say they can do any car, but make sure you speak to one who has done BMW's before - its not as simple as say a Jeep or Landrover, so they need to have had the experience to comment..... why not a 530d though? They get 35MPG without too much trouble and a steady foot can see a comfortable cruise return 40MPG. Not the most economical motor in the world, but a good balance and very popular as a result.
Vanos problems - nah, not really with the 525 or 530 engines. Pretty solid but depends on maintenance and care. Early 528s did have nikasil issues, but that was for a limited number of the very early ones so no real concerns there.
LPG a 6 cylinder - not heard of anyone doing this! Most people do multi-point LPG for the V8's as its more money to be saved, but the BMW injection system isnt simple so you do need to have the expensive one which, as you say, is around £1800 in total. Dont forget you loose a lot of boot space, hence the reason why most V8's converted are 7'series as its got a bigger boot. Not sure if its worthwhile though. A 525 and 530 are pretty similar in economy terms and getting a good 30MPG should not be an issue - though this utterly dependent on driving style and type of driving. Tootle around town and you will get early to mid 20's. Get out on the motorway and you will return into the early 30's without too much of a problem. I have a 535i which gets a steady 32-34 at 75-80! Get to 85 and it drops to 30 - around town its 22 but average for my driving is about 28, which is better than a friend used to get with his Mini Cooper!!!!
I would think the 6 cylinders would be fine on LPG, but best speak to a company that has done them. Some LPG convertors say they can do any car, but make sure you speak to one who has done BMW's before - its not as simple as say a Jeep or Landrover, so they need to have had the experience to comment..... why not a 530d though? They get 35MPG without too much trouble and a steady foot can see a comfortable cruise return 40MPG. Not the most economical motor in the world, but a good balance and very popular as a result.
off_again said:
Ok, couple of questions there:
Vanos problems - nah, not really with the 525 or 530 engines. Pretty solid but depends on maintenance and care. Early 528s did have nikasil issues, but that was for a limited number of the very early ones so no real concerns there.
LPG a 6 cylinder - not heard of anyone doing this! Most people do multi-point LPG for the V8's as its more money to be saved, but the BMW injection system isnt simple so you do need to have the expensive one which, as you say, is around £1800 in total. Dont forget you loose a lot of boot space, hence the reason why most V8's converted are 7'series as its got a bigger boot. Not sure if its worthwhile though. A 525 and 530 are pretty similar in economy terms and getting a good 30MPG should not be an issue - though this utterly dependent on driving style and type of driving. Tootle around town and you will get early to mid 20's. Get out on the motorway and you will return into the early 30's without too much of a problem. I have a 535i which gets a steady 32-34 at 75-80! Get to 85 and it drops to 30 - around town its 22 but average for my driving is about 28, which is better than a friend used to get with his Mini Cooper!!!!
I would think the 6 cylinders would be fine on LPG, but best speak to a company that has done them. Some LPG convertors say they can do any car, but make sure you speak to one who has done BMW's before - its not as simple as say a Jeep or Landrover, so they need to have had the experience to comment..... why not a 530d though? They get 35MPG without too much trouble and a steady foot can see a comfortable cruise return 40MPG. Not the most economical motor in the world, but a good balance and very popular as a result.
Vanos problems - nah, not really with the 525 or 530 engines. Pretty solid but depends on maintenance and care. Early 528s did have nikasil issues, but that was for a limited number of the very early ones so no real concerns there.
LPG a 6 cylinder - not heard of anyone doing this! Most people do multi-point LPG for the V8's as its more money to be saved, but the BMW injection system isnt simple so you do need to have the expensive one which, as you say, is around £1800 in total. Dont forget you loose a lot of boot space, hence the reason why most V8's converted are 7'series as its got a bigger boot. Not sure if its worthwhile though. A 525 and 530 are pretty similar in economy terms and getting a good 30MPG should not be an issue - though this utterly dependent on driving style and type of driving. Tootle around town and you will get early to mid 20's. Get out on the motorway and you will return into the early 30's without too much of a problem. I have a 535i which gets a steady 32-34 at 75-80! Get to 85 and it drops to 30 - around town its 22 but average for my driving is about 28, which is better than a friend used to get with his Mini Cooper!!!!
I would think the 6 cylinders would be fine on LPG, but best speak to a company that has done them. Some LPG convertors say they can do any car, but make sure you speak to one who has done BMW's before - its not as simple as say a Jeep or Landrover, so they need to have had the experience to comment..... why not a 530d though? They get 35MPG without too much trouble and a steady foot can see a comfortable cruise return 40MPG. Not the most economical motor in the world, but a good balance and very popular as a result.
Cheers for the feedback off_again.
I've found a company that have done a fair few 6 and 8 cylinder BMWs and Audis but didnt want to just take their word that it could be done. They use fully sequential multipoint LPG which is inline with the injection used on the engines afaik. They have even done a conversion on the 750's V12 (but I'm trying to make my sensible side steer away from that option!).
I have various options available. I'm looking at buying another vehicle to run along side my fun car and save me some money on the commuting. I'm doing about 500 miles a week commuting mileage at the moment and the Celica with its "Optimax only 27mpg" diet is frankly horrific when you look at the monthly credit card bill.
With regards to the 530d, I could buy my fathers one as he's muttering about changing and given how he drives it to get low 40's, I'm sure I could get mid 40's without much hassle. However, 530d's are still demanding a premium over the petrol models due to the publics current media fuelled love affair of everything turbo diesel.
I dont dispute they have better fuel ecconomy, but once you consider the difference in purchase price, a 530d and 530i with gas conversion would be fairly similarly priced. Then I got to metricating their fuel performance (appologies, sad-o/stato engineer about to take over):
I created a value I called the equivalent MPG (EMPG) for the vehicles in question. It amounts to the MPG * (cost of 1 litre UL / cost of 1 litre of the vehicles fuel). Thus a normal car running on supermarket unleaded would be MPG * (92.9/92.9), the equivalent and actual being equal, but if it was a diesel, the multiple in brackets would be less than 1, as diesel costs more than unleaded.
This sadness works out as follows:
530i - 36MPG = 36 EMPG
530d - 46MPG = 44.5 EMPG
530i LPG - 32MPG = 74.4 MPG
So given my mileage its the best option, as the extra cost of converting the car will be recouped fairly quickly.
Why not just buy a factory LPG'd Astra from the auctions? Well, its not very pimp is it?!
Robertb said:
My biggest concern about LPG is that the cost benefit is entirely based on the tax treatment. Should greedy Gordon be looking at loopholes, I'd imagine that he could well squeeze a bit more tax on LPG.
He's committed to an increase of 1p a litre a year until 2007's budget. Even then, increases of up to 50% on tax would only bring the price up to circa 60p litre. Petrol would no doubt increase at the same time though, making it less of an effective increase. I believe he is unlikely to target LPG in the immediate future as it has not yet had the chance to become widespread enough to give him the desired revenue.
You should also bear in mind that road fuel duty is applied to the LPG at the pumps, but were you a naughty boy, a BBQ cylinder would fit with an adaptor
emicen said:
You should also bear in mind that road fuel duty is applied to the LPG at the pumps, but were you a naughty boy, a BBQ cylinder would fit with an adaptor
Yeah, I know - I thought of that one myself as I know someone who has access to LPG cylinder for cooking / BBQ's and can refill easily. Though I am always concerned about cocking around with LPG - brings back bad memories of an LPG can cooker I used to use when I was in the scouts many many years ago..... trying to explain away to the campsite manager why we had to evacuate the site due to an unstable LPG cylinder when we connected it to home made bunsen burner.... now that was stupid...
Got a major roasting from the Fire Brigade for that one and always been cautious of LPG since....
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