Lpg

The Monzta · #1 03-09-2004, 03:31 AM

I work with a girl who between her and her husband run about five vehicles both petrol and diesel on LPG. I'd always poo-poo'd it before but they sing it's praises and say that because of it they can easily afford to run 3.9 and 4.2 litre Range Rovers.

Has anyone here converted to 'gas' yet? As my SVX is my main car and I easily put 12,000 miles on her a year I'm very much leaning towards biting the bullet and going for the conversion. I can use LPG for the daily run to and from work, shopping, ferrying kids and motorway runs and flick the switch to normal unleaded when I'm running low or fancy a blast.

Andy · #2 03-09-2004, 03:58 AM

Autotrader was selling a converted SVX about 6 months ago, so it can be done, might be a little expensive though.

tone · #3 03-09-2004, 04:29 AM

Hi,

Seems a good way to go.

I also run a 3.9 V8 RR but on regular 95 octane fuel and have friends who drive their LPG V8's and get the same mileage and performance with no knocking at all but at half the cost on fuel as LPG cost in Portugal is 50% of the petrol.

These guys seem to convincingly good on LPG conversions and I think they could help although they are V8 freaks.

http://www.rpiv8.com/faq-lpg.htm

Let us know how much it costs and eventually how it goes if you make the move.

Tone

KennEls · #4 03-09-2004, 05:54 AM

Hi

Just a word from down under, LPG cost at the moment is 34 cents a Litre compared to Premium at 88 cents per Litre, (dearer down South tho')

Our work fleet started converting to dual LPG about 4 years ago (1250 vehicles) and the latest Fords are LPG only. Currently from being about 85% converted it is now running at 25% converted. There have been multiple problems with the LPG. Some silly problems like not starting when the weather is cold (Tropical Brisbane?) to spark plugs rusting! Don't ask why this happens it just does.

Down time on a LPG (for the Fleet is probably 30% higher and repairs are higher. The fleet purchasers are no longer purchasing LPG, some will remain for political reasons, as re-sale on these cars is very poor. Might be different in your part of the World.

Currently my company vehicle is a Ford Falcon, 4,1 litre I think, which has two LPG cylinders and no petrol. The ecomony on it is poor, it has been averaging about 70 Litres over 450Km on mixed highway and City. Nine month old and 30,000 km's. So far all break downs can be contributed to LPG. Gas Leaks poor power, having to really gun it to go up steep hills which engages the limiter which doesn't like this so powers down, handy when overtaking.

I'm sure lots of people are happy with their conversions, but to re-coup the costs you need lots of trouble free miles something which none of our fleet has managed. One very annoying thing is that when it goes in for service/repairs the mechanics refuse to work on it because of the gas smell, so they wait until a gas tech pops along before they touch it. Don't blame them as with the number that have been catching fire you can't be too careful.

Hope this gives you some food for thought, as I say the top side will probably be a different market from here and our problems may not be the same. However you still have to do a lot of hassle free miles to recover your costs.

Kenn

BTW Most Taxi/Cabs here run dual and they are happy with them, but they do a lot of miles per week

svxistentialist · #5 03-10-2004, 03:41 AM

Monzta,

I researched doing this at the beginning, but decided against on cost, I mean capital cost.

There are pluses and minuses, even ignoring the capital outlay. Dismayed to hear of Ken's fleet woes, but I do believe the specialists doing installations on these islands do the job to high specifications.

On the plus side, gas has a better resistance to pinking than normal unleaded. Minus, the fuel contains approx 12% less energy, so your engine develops less power. Your engine also gives 12% less mpg, but this is strongly offset by fuel cost.

Plus side again, the gas is a cleaner fuel, does not contain loads of additives. On minus side, the extra gas tank will take up boot space, and the SVX already is poor in that area. A good plan is to put a donut tank in the spare wheel well. You will have to let the get-u-home wheel take up the boot then[or use run-flat tyres!]. Another problem, the biggest donut that will fit does not contain a lot of fuel. You will have to refill a lot if you want to keep using cheap gas.

A bonus of this is you will have extra range for having two tanks, two fuels.

I decided against it on balance. Do the sums. Will cost £1800-£2000 to do a good job. You will need to be doing a lot of motorway driving to make it pay back this money. Do not presume the car will be worth more for resale.

Joe

svxistentialist · #6 03-10-2004, 03:56 AM

Not sure of your fuel prices, but a rough check:

At 12000 miles pa, and assuming a poor fuel use of 20 mpg on petrol, equivalent 17.5 on LPG, you would be using about 2700 litres on petrol and 3100 litres of gas in a year.

If petrol price is about 90 pence per litre[?] and gas about 35 pence per litre[?], your annual fuel bill will be £2500 on petrol or £1100 on gas.

Gaining this £1400 pa differential will require doing all your miles on LPG. Not practicable. You will probably gain over £1000 pa in fuel savings. This means it will not be paying you back until you are driving it for three years. Bear in mind also, if you are doing highway miles and getting better than 20 mpg, this saving figure will be less.

Joe

The Monzta · #7 03-10-2004, 08:18 AM

Thanks for that Joe, two excellent posts that have pretty much answered all my questions and made my mind up too. As my mileage will be no more than 12000 miles a year and I can't say for sure how long I will keep the car then it financially doesn't add up for me. So unless the costs of fitting it drops and/or the cost of 4* unleaded rockets then LPG is not a viable or practical solution for now.....so is now off the cards.

Cheers.

Glenn

svxistentialist · #8 03-10-2004, 08:38 AM

Yeah, Glenn

I came to the same conclusion, and at the time my mileage was nearer 17K per annum.

It's obvious that gas would be highly effective in a 4.5 litre Range Rover, which has plenty of space for a large LPG tank, and also only does about 12-15 mpg on petrol

The economics of it are also more favourable if you were a taxi driver, or someone doing 20 to 30 K miles a year.

For us normal fools, we just keep paying through the nose for petrol.

Joe

#9 03-10-2004, 08:44 AM

easy answer
svx = jap car
Jap petrol = 98-100 ron
lpg 90 ish .....

svx =rare car
aston martin = rare car

would you lpg an aston

KennEls · #10 03-11-2004, 02:21 AM

Joe,

I do agree with your fuel costing, there are definite fuel savings. On the down side of this, down under, is that LPG will be losing it's Government subsidy over the next few years. Commercial use such as our fleet will still be viable but they are pulling out of the gas market regardless of this.

The GM cars that were fitted out for our fleet with dual fuel were all done at the factory, the only way I've been told that warranty could be maintained on the GM vehicles. Ford is single fuel only and is ordered that way from the factory. I would assume that both manufacturers would install the gas correctly.

I check the fuel consumption every 100 hours of driving, don't write it down though, and compare with similar types of driving. The last 100 hours has shown that I averaged 54 kmph and 15.2 litres per 100 km.. Similar trips on petrol run at about 12.5 litres per 100 km. (Sorry no miles or gallons in Oz)

I do about 160 km per day on the highway with only the last few km's in traffic jams. I then do approximately80 km's slow suburban driving (anywhere between 10 kph to 50 kph). Road and Footway inspections, gee I get paid to kerb crawl!!

Over the life of a car (2-3 years or 60,000 kms) we really get to see the problems develop, as I said previously the Ford's with gas have had more than their fair share of down time when compared to the petrol only Ford's. As you said Joe to recoup the cost of fitting the gas etc to a car would take some considerable time. I know quite a few people here who have “converted” and are very happy having done so and every time I complain about the cost of filling the SVX they remind me of how cheap LPG is.

Kenn

svxistentialist · #11 03-11-2004, 05:15 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by KennEls
Joe,

I check the fuel consumption every 100 hours of driving, don't write it down though, and compare with similar types of driving. The last 100 hours has shown that I averaged 54 kmph and 15.2 litres per 100 km.. Similar trips on petrol run at about 12.5 litres per 100 km. (Sorry no miles or gallons in Oz)

I do about 160 km per day on the highway with only the last few km's in traffic jams. I then do approximately80 km's slow suburban driving (anywhere between 10 kph to 50 kph). Road and Footway inspections, gee I get paid to kerb crawl!!

Over the life of a car (2-3 years or 60,000 kms) we really get to see the problems develop, as I said previously the Ford's with gas have had more than their fair share of down time when compared to the petrol only Ford's. As you said Joe to recoup the cost of fitting the gas etc to a car would take some considerable time. I know quite a few people here who have “converted” and are very happy having done so and every time I complain about the cost of filling the SVX they remind me of how cheap LPG is.

Kenn

Kenn, your figures are not far off my own calculations. I note you have increased consumption with Propane, this would be attributable to the lower energy content, which I estimated at 12.5%. You show a loss of c. 18% efficiency.

Interestingly, my own driving, mostly town and cold start, short journeys etc, runs nearer to the 13 or 13.5 litres per 100. The difference between my 13.5 and your 15.2 is almost exactly 12%!!

I can only get ordinary unleaded here, no super, no premium, no 4-Star, nada. I suspect the knock sensors retarding the timing for the junk fuel is increasing consumption.

Another reason I would like to lower the compression and run a supercharger.

Joe

KennEls · #12 03-12-2004, 02:52 AM

Joe

Not many of my colleagues do as much mixed driving as I do, so figures on the petrol fired car may be somewhat higher than I would achieve. I spoke to 2 of them who would be closer to my mileage and took what was the most likely. I'll have to see if I can get some 30 or so hours in one of them and get more accurate figures. For my own benefit, if for no other reason.

Originally I was very keen to have a gas conversion for myself, I had thought of doing the Liberty GX but the return on the outlay seemed too slow in coming around. In hindsight it would have well and truly paid for itself and put some money back into my bank balance. We did 400,000 km in this before selling it on. I had estimated that it would have paid for itself at the 200 mark. At the time LPG was 26 cents a litre so I could have had ....... Better not think about that.

The LPG sold here is boosted, seems to vary what goes in from week to week. The past month the exhaust has had a definite fresh onion smell, not the rotten type. I filled up this morning and the smell is more like rotten eggs. May have to get my sinuses cleared. I believe that Butane is also added to the gas to increase combustion. One reason the subsidy is disappearing is the scarcity of this gas.

If you can't get Premium type fuels there, what is the rating on the unleaded? Do you have to use any additives to boost the octane? Is this just in your region or all over the Country?

Had an extended lunch today to celebrate with my little green friends, they tried to tell me it was 6 days too early. Great thing in Oz, bring all celebrations forward to the weekend

Kenn

Also had to celebrate Celtic's recent Cup Win

svxistentialist · #13 03-12-2004, 05:43 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by KennEls
Joe

If you can't get Premium type fuels there, what is the rating on the unleaded? Do you have to use any additives to boost the octane? Is this just in your region or all over the Country?

Had an extended lunch today to celebrate with my little green friends, they tried to tell me it was 6 days too early. Great thing in Oz, bring all celebrations forward to the weekend

Kenn

Also had to celebrate Celtic's recent Cup Win

Hey,

Kenn, you could also have celebrated the Little Green Men beating the English World Champions at rugby last week on their home turf in Twickenham!!

I certainly did.

Our 1 point loss to the Aussies was no fluke.

Not sure about the ron rating, but I think 92. The only additive I could find here is Bardahl. A small bottle costs 12 Euro, and is not sufficient to do a full tank. Way too costly, pushes the price per litre up to 1.10 Euros per litre. Tanks, but No Thanks.

If I could find a good additive that I could buy in bulk, say 5 litre cans, then I would use it. Till then the closed loop twin anti-knock sensors have to do the business.

Joe

KennEls · #14 03-12-2004, 06:19 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by svxistentialist

Hey,

Kenn, you could also have celebrated the Little Green Men beating the English World Champions at rugby last week on their home turf in Twickenham!! I certainly did. Our 1 point loss to the Aussies was no fluke.

Joe

Yes Joe I didn't forget that one, certainly had more than a quiet jar or two. Actually I think the problem with my Little Green Friends today was that they were still celebrating that result. Losing by one point in the World Cup showed that the talent was there, I think they lost because although they played hard, they also played too fair.

Your fuel prices are frightening,

we tend to forget here how good we some times have it. I will be filling up the SVX tomorrow as the price of Premium is just under 80 cents a litre. (72 pence per Gallon?) and the Ron is 98.

I have seen some additives here but they are all in small bottles and like yours expensive for what they do.

Kenn

So how much wound licking are the World Champs doing?

Edit Oops I think 1.52 Sterling per gallon, New glasses on order.

svxistentialist · #15 03-12-2004, 07:21 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by KennEls

Kenn

So how much wound licking are the World Champs doing?

They took it with some grace from what I have seen.

In the last few years we Irish have derailed their Sweet Chariot a couple of times at inopportune times for them.

Credit where it's due, the boys are gracious in defeat. Playing rugby breeds men, real men, not prancing prima donnas and wimps like soccer.

Joe