Pros and Cons of LPG conversions?

Sir_Fused

Hi folks, my first post in here, but thought I would put my own thoughts down here.
I run a motorbike that runs on LPG...and it is great, especially the cost savings, but I stress, I did not do the conversion, it was altready doen when bike purchased second hand..so here is my point.
Petrol and diesel are coming down a fair bit...but LPG is not coming down at all, so whereas it was well under half the price of a litre of petrol a few months ago, the gap has closed considerably now! Given the cost of conversion, I would hold off to see if the gaps continues to narrow..or will it go the same way as diesel? It is one thing the Goverment making all those Green committments, another thing them keeping them up!

big_gay_kirk

rememebr this.. when i started driving many years back, petrol was 135 a gallon... diesel was about 120... thats right.. diesel was cheaper.... then a lot of people started buying diesel cars due to the better fuel economy... and the price went up... if enough people convert to lpg, you can almost guarantee that the price will increase, possibly even past petrol and diesel...

milliemonster

gtd2000 wrote: »

Your logic is sound but missing one very important aspect - Government.

Even if we could run on fresh air the Govt. will still expect a rate of around a fiver a gallon for your personal transport.

The conspiracy theorist in me believes this is why they are moving towards "road pricing".

As it is Petrol/Diesel etc is a very cheap form of fuel - it's only the tax that makes it expensive.

Totally agree with this, we could all go out tomorrow and change our cars to LPG and then what happens to the governments income? it stops, how many billions is that then that they will need to claw off us in some other way?, my guess is you would soon then see the price of LPG shooting up to current petrol/diesel prices

lynzpower

Just thought Id pop this ancient thread up to see if anyone has ay recent experiences of converting to LPG?

iNath

lynzpower wrote: »

Just thought Id pop this ancient thread up to see if anyone has ay recent experiences of converting to LPG?

I'm getting my car converted next Thursday, will update when complete.

iNath

Well I've had my car back for a week now and it seems to be going great. I used to average 40mpg on petrol (1.4 Fiesta) and my first few tanks have come out around 36mpg. It's a 45l tank which can be filled to around 36l giving 285miles to empty. I paid £0.40p/l in Birmingham last week, less than £15 for a tank!

If anyone has any questions feel free to ask, conversion was £1,249 btw, I estimate I will have recovered my costs in around 18 months.

Hintza

I presume you are going to keep the car until it dies?

iNath

Hintza wrote: »

I presume you are going to keep the car until it dies?

Pretty much yes, it's the 2006 model and I've already done 45,000 so depreciating quite rapidly. Instead of buying a new one my money saving plan was to keep this one until it canne go no more

Wig

Hintza wrote: »

I presume you are going to keep the car until it dies?

When it dies you can then self remove (quite easily) all the LPG kit before taking it to be scrapped, and then give all the kit to your LPG fitter along with your next car, and he should be able to fit it all to the next car and save you quite a bit.

Alternatively if you want to sell your car, you can add a couple of hundred quid to the price tag, and sell it intact with LPG. or take your old car and your new car to your fitter and ask him to swap the kit over and reinstate the old car as petrol only for you to sell on.

P.S. that sounds about right your mileage from 36l tank, and is virtually the same as I get on my LPG 1.2 Corsa (44p / litre in South Wales. Birmingham has always been cheap for LPG.)

iNath

Wig wrote: »

P.S. that sounds about right your mileage from 36l tank, and is virtually the same as I get on my LPG 1.2 Corsa (44p / litre in South Wales. Birmingham has always been cheap for LPG.)

The shame is that I don't actually live in Birmingham, I was juts passing through (well, the M6 anyway!) Here in Northampton it's either 53.9 or 60.9!! I know Wellingborough is 49.9 or a place in Corby for 44.0.