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Shell Shocked! End of the Road for LPG?

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Old Dec 18th, 2010, 14:31   #21
Bigcheese1
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I've noticed whenever I fill up in France, my fuel guage actualy indicates full at the end of the process. In the UK the pump always cuts out when the guage is only showing around 3/4 full.
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Old Dec 18th, 2010, 17:03   #22
capt jack
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Wink When a Frenchman says his tank is full..........?

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I've noticed whenever I fill up in France, my fuel guage actualy indicates full at the end of the process. In the UK the pump always cuts out when the guage is only showing around 3/4 full.
There has to be the makings of a cruel, gratuitous and completely unnecessary Francophobic remark in this........!

Jack
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Old Dec 19th, 2010, 10:18   #23
9000Parts
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Filled up with LPG yesterday at my local Shell station and it was 2.31TL a litre so its over £1 a litre now here!

Annoyingly, 97RON is down to 3.78TL a litre!
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Old Dec 19th, 2010, 15:39   #24
M D E
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I thought the gap between petrol and LPG was going to remain just over 50% until the Budget in March 2014 ?

I think this rise will stop alot of people converting ... I only converted last year and with yearly LPG servicing and flash lube every 2000 miles at £17
Per litre LPG is not such a great option anymore ...
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Old Dec 19th, 2010, 17:36   #25
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I thought the gap between petrol and LPG was going to remain just over 50% until the Budget in March 2014 ?

I think this rise will stop alot of people converting ... I only converted last year and with yearly LPG servicing and flash lube every 2000 miles at £17
Per litre LPG is not such a great option anymore ...
In order to see the benefit of an LPG conversion, a certain amount of careful homework is needed.

First thing is to work out how much in pence per mile you car costs to run on petrol. You need to do the sums, not rely on the on-board computer! If over say a 1000 mile period of your usual driving style your car does 32mpg, then with petrol at £1.20 per litre - that's £5.46 per gallon, your fuel cost is 17p per mile. That same car, driven the same way, will do at worst 26 mpg on LPG. If LPG costs 70p per litre, £3.18 per gallon, then your fuel costs are going to be 12 per mile, that's a saving of 5p per mile. That's equivalent to £1,000 saved in 20,000 miles. If the cost of conversion is £2,000 then it'll take you 40,000 miles just to get your money back.

On that basis it's debatable whether or not a new LPG conversion is worth it.

When I had my V70 converted 6 years ago the maths were very different, and I recouped my capital cost in around 9 months. LPG was less than 30p per litre, petrol was around 72p per litre. I was advised at the time (quite correctly) that my 2.5 10v Volvo engine didn't need flashlube, so I don't have that additional running cost. I reckon in the intervening years to have saved around £10,000 in fuel costs. My car has now covered 225,000 miles, 175,000 of them on LPG.

LPG servicing isn't expensive in my experience. £12 for a gas filter and software check once every 12,000 miles or so, plus new spark plugs at £1.50 each every 10,000 miles is about it.

I'd say that running an LPG car is still a good bet if you already own one, or can source a good factory-fit or already-converted model

Getting a conversion is worth it if you plan to keep the car a long time and cover many tens, if not hundreds of thousands of miles. But like everything else automotive, the squeeze is on!

Cheers

Jack

Last edited by capt jack; Dec 19th, 2010 at 17:39.
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Old Dec 28th, 2010, 14:44   #26
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Quote:
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You need to do the sums, not rely on the on-board computer! If over say a 1000 mile period of your usual driving style your car does 32mpg, then with petrol at £1.20 per litre - that's £5.46 per gallon, your fuel cost is 17p per mile. That same car, driven the same way, will do at worst 26 mpg on LPG. If LPG costs 70p per litre, £3.18 per gallon, then your fuel costs are going to be 12 per mile, that's a saving of 5p per mile. That's equivalent to £1,000 saved in 20,000 miles. If the cost of conversion is £2,000 then it'll take you 40,000 miles just to get your money back.
The fuel consumption spread can be rather bigger than that in my experience. The best I've ever had out of my 940 turbo on LPG is 22mpg, on petrol best ever is 36mpg.

It consistently does 19.1mpg on gas; 46 litres every 200 miles, and that has stayed within a few percentage points over 150k miles. Normally it'll do 28-29mpg on the same usage on petrol. Part of the issue seems to be that it is a turbo.

Don't get me wrong, I like LPG and don't regret converting the car at all and it has been a very worthwhile exercise. But there can be a significant fuel economy penalty. Rather more than the 5% a lot of the conversion websites quote.
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Old Dec 28th, 2010, 17:30   #27
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Some interesting figures there. I've found that my n/a 2.5 10v V70 auto returns 24 to 26mpg on LPG over my usual usage - a daily 56-mile round trip commute, mostly at motorway speeds.

The surefire way to improve on that is to keep the maximum cruising speed below 65mph. On a couple of long trips from Yorkshire to Devon I've managed over 28mpg. Not using the aircon can make a difference too I've found!

In all the time I've had the car I've never done an equivalent week of petrol-only motoring, but if the trip computer is to be believed, the best petrol mpg averages out at 30 to 32 mpg.

Taking these figures, my LPG mpg is around 80% of my petrol mpg. This is quite at odds with the 65% 940-Turbo has been getting!

Does a turbo make a difference? Is the 'lower energy content' of LPG compared with petrol more critically exposed in turbo-charged engines?

Jack
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Old Dec 28th, 2010, 20:34   #28
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I found my MAF sensor was faulty causing a drop of over 80 miles to a tank ! ... Took alot of fault finding ...
Best miles to a tank on my T5 was 240 miles (45 L) tank
Worst 150 miles
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Old Dec 30th, 2010, 08:26   #29
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Went past Toddington services on the M1 this morning and the lpg is now £0.799
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Old Dec 30th, 2010, 22:39   #30
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67.9p in Tamworth
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