Lpg Car

AdrianHi

Someone I know of from another forum had a conversion done. He has done it on a V8 BMW 540i and in 52,000 miles has save over £8200 in fuel and calculates this to be equivalent to 42mpg. I'm not sure if the £8200 is before or after taking off the cost of conversion which was around £2000 on his car, will be less (probably around £1200) for a 4 cylinder engine.
Make sure you do some research and find the "good" systems and installers out there. There are a few sorry tales.

deepspace9

Thanks for all the info, like most things it seems best to do a lot of googling as there seems to be pro's and con's, my biggest worry going LPG is if Mr Brown hits LPG ga with yet another TAX! anyone know if that is likely or if there is anything planned?

goldspanners

deepspace9 wrote: »

Thanks for all the info, like most things it seems best to do a lot of googling as there seems to be pro's and con's, my biggest worry going LPG is if Mr Brown hits LPG ga with yet another TAX! anyone know if that is likely or if there is anything planned?

this is one of 2 things in life you can be certain of.
the other being death.

greenman7

When I bought a 1998 Fiesta 1.25 about 4 years ago, I had it converted to LPG for £1,200. I do about 20k miles a year and I think I worked out that I would get my money back (as compared with petrol only, at prices then) in just over a year (at about 37mpg). The LPG tank was where the spare wheel was kept under the car, and I kept the spare wheel in the boot. The car has had no problems with The LPG system, I would highly recommend it - my installer was a bit of a perfectionist and he did a good job. I gave the car to my son 10 months ago and he has had no problems. It is definitely worth getting LPG installed on a small car if you do a high mileage ( but you will lose between 5-10% mpg)

Wig

Tax on LPG is guaranteed for the next 3 (?) years, to be 1p per litre more than the the tax rise on a litre of petrol. Whilst this is annoying and an environmentally unfriendly tax rise, it is not the end of the world. If the tax rise had been guaranteed to be the same as petrol rise, it would still be proportionally a greater tax rise for LPG, because duty on petrol is 50p ish and LPG 33p ish. So the mathematical among you will note that this 1p extra tax is a much higher percentage increase.

Still as I said, after 3 years worst case scenario is that LPG will be duty rated approx 43p litre.

There's still plenty of time to save money by using LPG


Contrary to the popular myth, "factory fitted" cars were converted by out-of-house fitters, and apparently the Vauxhall ones were not the best kits on the market - but they still work.

The advantage of getting a "Manufacturer sold LPG from new" car

*The car will have been emission rated for CO2 on LPG and hence have a possibly lower banding. It will also not require a certificate

*It will already be registered with DVLA as alt fuel. - You can do this too with aftermarket conversions.

*It will be more likely to qualify for London congestion charge exemption
But you must apply before 27th Oct 2008, rules will change after that, but those already registered will apparently be ok until 2010 unless the car is sold.

*It will not be a declarable modification for insurance purposes - which is where the certificates come in for aftermarket conversions (with some insurers) - If you have a declarable modification you cannot obtain online insurance so you won't get the discounts and cashback offers.

You can get a conversion for £800 & possibly less. Finding someone who is good is the difficult part, and the fitter being a member of LPGA is not a guarantee of good work.


Aftermarket conversions almost certainly will not qualify for London congestion charge exhemption.

You do need to work out your annual mileage, your local supply cost of LPG, and conversion cost. And work out when your break even point will be. If you buy a car already converted it is generally much cheaper way to go, but you should still know the cost of the car you are buying and the cost the same car without a conversion would be worth, so you can still work out a break even point.


It is entirely personal choice to buy or convert a small hatchback car, you may not need a big boot, you may decide not to carry a spare wheel - which means your boot space will not be affected at all.

Usually people convert large saloon cars because they are more thirsty and more likely to be used as commuter cars over long distances. But if you have an LPG hatchback you will have very cheap motoring - but because you use less fuel your break even point takes longer to arrive.

Using autotrader use the keyword 'LPG' in your search. There are currently 3 LPG corsas. The 2005 LPG Corsas are band 'B' (you should double check the CO2 rating on the V5 before buying the car) the previous ones are band 'C'. But next year the better ones will be band 'C' and the worse ones will be in band 'E' or 'F' << depending if my appeal to Vauxhall is a success or not.

Next years bandings link

HTH

davroshudson

If you want to convert your car read my blog http://www.lpgguru.co.uk/ and it will tell you pretty much what wig has already said. In the end savings are there to be had but check out if there are people who sell the stuff in your area first and then hunt around for people to do the work and I would have no problem reccomending the guy who did mine in coventry http://www.lpg-cars.co.uk/