LPG Conversions - Worth it ? Downsides

craichoe

Hi Guys,

I know LPG Died a death in Ireland and filling stations are few and far between, however in continental europe they are all over the place,

Was looking at something like this:
http://voorraad.wheelerdelta.nl/sd9e8f6250d92c2325b98c802e3af7002/2b710/details/?sid=1983654

Has anyone experience with an LPG Conversion ?

1. Whats the power difference like, is there a distinct drop in performance ?
2. Whats the MPG difference, currently Petrol is 1.52
3. Does LPG have any negative longevity effects on the Engine ?
4. Is there anything different when servicing ?

Here are the current prices of fuel in the area I live in, right next to the border with Germany:

Euro Unleaded 136.4
Super Ongelood 98 150.4
Diesel 101.9
LPG 52.5 (another bonus is that this price is fixed till 2012)

Prices for Petrol + Diesel are around 10 cent more expensive on the motorway stations.

Taking road tax out of the equation because its simply too complicated, can anyone give an indication of what the price difference would be between each ?

I'll be doing between 40,000 - 50,000 km / year.

Also, does anyone know what the difference between an LPG and LPG G3 conversion is ?

Cheers.

unkel

Depends on the car. Works best the bigger the petrol engine is. But even with a medium size engine, with your mileage, you'll have paid for the installation within a year!

Best mate had his Alfa GTV 3l petrol converted a couple of years ago (in Holland) and his break-even point came within the year at about 30k kilometres iirc.

Yes you will lose a little power (<10%) and you will use a little more fuel, but it's not for nothing there are very large numbers of LPG conversions in Holland. Even with the higher motortax, it saves many people lots of money

Alun

I had loads of LPG cars in Holland back in the 80's / early 90's, and yes, there was a loss of power but not earth shattering. I'm sure the technology has improved shedloads in the meantime though.

Back then the hit for motor tax was quite high due to the tax bands depending to a large degree on the weight of the car (as did the 3rd part component of insurance), and you had to get your car re-weighed by the RDW after installation but I'm sure that things have probably changed there to a CO2 based system too, so you'd have to check. The G3 systems bring with them a rebate on your motor tax of €300+ so that might help to alleviate the extra cost. MPG wise you're looking at 15-20% worse mileage per litre, and as far as I can recall, there were no problems with servicing intervals or the like. In a few cases, car manufacturers used to revoke their warranties on engine components if an LPG installation was done, but the LPG installers would then take it over, so no problem there either.

As unkel said, with that mileage, you'd almost certainly be in the money, but do the sums carefully before you commit.

Only big downside for me was the size of the tanks taking up valuable boot space. You could get ones that fitted in place of the spare wheel, but they were much smaller, and if you're doing a lot of autobahn munching, you don't want to have to be continually stopping for fuel all the time. Plus you lose your spare wheel as well.