What happened to LPG?

MiserlyMartin

About 5 years ago, everyone was banging on about getting LPG cars and wanting to get existing cars converted. Now I hear nothing about them and people are talking about diesels mainly and occaisonally hybrids in particular, the Prius. What happened? I know the drawback is that you lose your bootspace but what was the problem? Was is an economy issue? I mean what kind of MPG figure is returned? Surely not so important if the price of the fuel is only 45p a litre? Was it no grunt from the engine?

Why aren't more people getting LPG? I've not seen one advertised from a motor manufacturer either for years. Have they given up with it?

piggeh

The tax on LPG fuel went up and the benefits were therefore diminished. I think it is still slightly more economical than diesel (I think about a 25% from what I recall), but then you have conversion costs, and extra maintenance costs for the engine & gas tanks.

The performance of the car & mpg is pretty much the same with LPG as it is with petrol, albeit it's almost half the price.

Hermione54

There were some real cowboys doing lousy conversions and that gave the whole thing a bad name. People suspect that if they pay £1000+ for a proper job it will take a long time to pay back in cheaper fuel, and there's always a strong possibility that the government will soon raise the tax on it to petrol/diesel levels.

Markyt

LPG round here is 43p / litre. Still cheaper, still makes sense if you can get a proper conversion and have the space to carry the tank.

mcfisco

I think a few things have lead to the slowing down of the initial LPG frenzy

The government used to make some fairly subtantial [~70%] grants available for some cars to be converted - not any more

LPG has a calorific value of around 20% less than petrol so you can expect around that figure in less MPG than a petrol engine.

Modern diesels are now retuning some pretty impressive MPG figures

A lot of people just don't like the idea of a gas tank in the boot

It's still cheaper to run LPG as long as you do reasonable miles but there isn't the big margin over other fuels that there used to be.

balsingh

I use LPG in my BMW. I bought the car alredy converted so I saved the initial fitting costs of the system. The LPG costs me 47.9/litre which is still half the cost of Diesel. Saves me loads!!!! The tanks sits in the spare wheel well so no loss of boot space.

My only complaint is the lack of fillign stations that sell LPG.

MiserlyMartin

Seems like a way to go is to buy a model that was made for LPG, but make sure it is costing no more than its petrol or diesel equivalent. But I don't see many used LPG cars for sale

Crabman

An LPG station (the only one I am aware of in my area) closed down about a year ago and is now a hand car wash and valet station :rotfl: The taxes are still rising so it will soon have hardly any advantage at all - no demand - no more gas stations offering it - catch 22.

Electric hybrids seem to be a little more prevalent these days...

sideshow_matt

Crabman wrote: »

An LPG station (the only one I am aware of in my area) closed down about a year ago and is now a hand car wash and valet station :rotfl: The taxes are still rising so it will soon have hardly any advantage at all - no demand - no more gas stations offering it - catch 22.

Electric hybrids seem to be a little more prevalent these days...

The duty is set to rise at the same rate as petrol/diesel until 2010. So if Petrol goes up 3p so will LPG.

I pay 39p a litre at the moment. No brainer really. Gas boys have all the fun :rotfl:

david29dpo

example. sister bought a petrol range rover for £15000, then paid £1500 for gas conversion. with petrol she got 13 miles to the gallon, with gas, the same but half the price so lets say 26 miles per gallon. could have bought a diesel one in the first place and got 28 miles per gallon for £14500. mad!

sideshow_matt

Well if you buy a range rover then yes. 4x4's are the scourge of the roads. I can get between 230-300 miles on £15 of gas in my astra sri. If I had gone for the smaller engine then a bit more I'm sure. LPG is a lot cleaner than diesel, even city diesel. The bit people seem to forget is that they only test the co2 from the cars. LPG produces drastically less air born particles, that cause breathing problems, and exacerbate respiratory problems like asthma and COPD.

LPG is used in indoor confined spaces to power vehicles such as fork lifts because of this reason. If they were using petrol or diesel, everyone would be off sick.

The money saving part is a major factor to the switch to LPG, but even if it was the same price as petrol now, I would use it, as it is so much cleaner. I notice no difference litre/mile on LPG than I do if I have to run on petrol. Modern conversions and factory fits (like mine) have come a long way.