Save a 3rd of your fuel Costs - LPG

StevieG_3

I love this site but am baffled as to why I can find no mention of a major moneysaver I have enjoyed - LPG, are people really unaware of this?

I travel 500 miles a week to work and after a few years of this spending approx £50 a week in a diesel naturally wondered if there was a cheaper alternative and it didn’t take long to realise LPG was worth a try.

I simply purchased a Vauxhall Astra dualfuel car in October for the same price I got for the previous diesel focus and now enjoy pulling into the garage (usually the empty lane) @42p a litre !!

I even get people questioning what is that pump? What is LPG?

Barely a day goes by when you hear about climate change and we have to do something so you can image I am now feeling quite smug that I am not only £80-100 a month better off now but the car is much more environment friendly than others.

see http://www.est.org.uk/fleet/Vehicles/Alternativefuels/LPG

Environment - Generally accepted that LPG gas gives a 10-15% carbon dioxide reduction (well to wheel) in comparison to petrol and is on parity with diesel. It also delivers 80% lower NOx emissions than diesel, as well as zero particulate emissions.

So to reiterate the potential moneysaving ..
Previous cost was towards £50 a week on diesel for 500 miles and now I pay approx £30
£20 x 52 weeks = £1000 !

Also - if a 3rd of your fuel wasn't enough you get an exemption from the Congestion charge and your Car Tax is much lower !

david69_2

I agree with you i looked at lpg a few years back when i thought about buying a range rover .

saintjanet

I think its a great idea if you do loads of miles and buy a vehicle already converted.It can take some recouping if you have your own car converted.

I may sound cynical but the more people that do it may result in the government increasing the tax on lpg.

EnglishBrainIrishHeart

To reinforce saintjanet: Good old GB removed the tax rules on LPG about 2 years ago meaning that it can now be increased at the same rate as Petrol and Diesel, indeed I think the Fuel Duty on LPG was raised above and beyond that of Petrol and Diesel when he removed the rules.

I looked into it also and unless you can find a dedicated Dual fuel car for about the same price as your Petty/Diesel equivalent then it is hard to claw back the money. Certainly getting an after market fitment done at £1200-£1500 means that I would have had to have driven some 30,000 miles per year for 4 years to recoupe my money back - as I currently do less than 15000, then there was no point.

There is no doubting that this is a real moneysaver - but only for those that do astronomical miles each year - Manufacturer DualFuel Cars are not that easy to come by!

Viz_2

I thought I read somewhere although it cheaper to buy per litre, you get less mpg from it.

EnglishBrainIrishHeart

Heard the same cannot quote figures exactly but I recall the consumption increasing by between 15 and 20%. How true that is though......?

ooo000ooo

Viz wrote:

I thought I read somewhere although it cheaper to buy per litre, you get less mpg from it.

Correct, i've ran an lpg car for the last 18 months the gas is about half the price of petrol but i've never got twice as many miles per £. Running on petrol i got approx 30mpg running on gas gave the equivalent of 48mpg. You also lose a wee bit of power on gas which you may be able to get back by advancing the timing slightly. According to the guy that did my conversion and another decent mechanic if you could optimise the engine for gas it would be more powerful (gas is over 100 ron) but would run like a dog on petrol.