LPG and hybrid cars - any gotchas?

QQQ

I am thinking about buying either a second hand car with LPG equipment or a hybrid car.

1. If you own one, how much do you save per mile?

2. I am worrying that it may be more difficult and therefore more expensive to insure such a car. Is this the case?

3. Do you find it more difficult or expensive to maintain or use such vehicles?

4. Any other gotchas to be aware of?

BeenThroughItAll

QQQ wrote: »

I am thinking about buying either a second hand car with LPG equipment or a hybrid car.

1. If you own one, how much do you save per mile?

2. I am worrying that it may be more difficult and therefore more expensive to insure such a car. Is this the case?

3. Do you find it more difficult or expensive to maintain or use such vehicles?

4. Any other gotchas to be aware of?

1. Depends on what you're comparing the saving to. In percentage terms, my LPG vehicles were about 30% cheaper to run than an identical unconverted vehicle.
2. Not in my experience of LPG-converted vehicles. Never owned a hybrid.
3. No.
4. For LPG, cheap conversions, badly converted or poorly maintained vehicles are the things to avoid.

AdrianC

QQQ wrote: »

I am thinking about buying either a second hand car with LPG equipment or a hybrid car.

Umm, are you actually thinking about this simply in terms of fuel cost? Because the type of car that gets LPG converted is usually very different to the type of car that's available as a hybrid.

4. Any other gotchas to be aware of?

LPG - are there pumps available locally? Do you use underground car parks or tunnels (including Eurotunnel) often?

motorguy

QQQ wrote: »

I am thinking about buying either a second hand car with LPG equipment or a hybrid car.

1. If you own one, how much do you save per mile?

2. I am worrying that it may be more difficult and therefore more expensive to insure such a car. Is this the case?

3. Do you find it more difficult or expensive to maintain or use such vehicles?

4. Any other gotchas to be aware of?

I've been taking a cursory look at hybrids, specifically the Golf GTE.

Info gleaned so far is that you wont get anywhere near the headline "MPG" claims, nor will you get anywhere near the claimed range on battery only mode.

Thread running on said car on Pistonheads....

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=23&t=1694047

TheMoonandBack

Hi, I had a Toyota Auris hybrid.
I sold it as part of my debt free journey but had no issues with it as a car - very well built and reliable.
MPG wise I got 47mpg out of it, so my opinion is the mpg savings are exaggerated. That is a real 47 mpg over the whole of my ownership, measured full tank to full tank.
Certain individual journeys would get 50 to 70 mpg on the trip computer which I worked out was 3 mpg optimistic. The Toyota hybrids are a lot better in stop start urban driving. The mpg drops on motorways.

Mercdriver

TheMoonandBack wrote: »

Hi, I had a Toyota Auris hybrid.
I sold it as part of my debt free journey but had no issues with it as a car - very well built and reliable.
MPG wise I got 47mpg out of it, so my opinion is the mpg savings are exaggerated. That is a real 47 mpg over the whole of my ownership, measured full tank to full tank.
Certain individual journeys would get 50 to 70 mpg on the trip computer which I worked out was 3 mpg optimistic. The Toyota hybrids are a lot better in stop start urban driving. The mpg drops on motorways.

I drove the estate version of that on holiday in Italy last year, Avis 'upgraded' me from a BMW 220d. It was very useful. I was considering a Rav4 hybrid. I wasn't after 9 days with the Auris Hybrid. It was downright annoying on the Autostrada from Bologna to Tuscany and across country to Rimini from Tuscany. You had to push it too hard to get anything out of it. Good in town rubbish on motorways - it sounded like a dying fly, according to my wife, who like every wife is always right.

AdrianC

Mercdriver wrote: »

I drove the estate version of that on holiday in Italy last year, Avis 'upgraded' me from a BMW 220d. It was very useful. I was considering a Rav4 hybrid. I wasn't after 9 days with the Auris Hybrid. It was downright annoying on the Autostrada from Bologna to Tuscany and across country to Rimini from Tuscany. You had to push it too hard to get anything out of it. Good in town rubbish on motorways - it sounded like a dying fly, according to my wife, who like every wife is always right.

I rented a current-shape Auris Hybrid hatch for a couple of weeks, two years ago, and doubled the total mileage from new on it.

I was delighted to hand it back.

In zero-emission mode, it was frankly useless. The range was minimal, the performance without getting the petrol engine to kick in was embarrassing. It wasn't particularly economical. It wasn't particularly quiet or refined. The throttle pedal was so bizarrely weighted that it was a much more pleasant experience to drive on the cruise control's +/- levers. The boot was laughably shallow. The reversing camera was unusable after driving on anything but a perfectly dry road. The remote locking needed the key buttons, but it had RFID ignition so you could then leave the key in your pocket once you'd opened the car. On the way to the airport to drop it back, I restarted after filling, and the dash didn't come back on...

It had zero redeeming features.

facade

I looked at getting an LPG converted RX300. The reasons I didn't are

The poor availability of LPG. There is a garage about 3 miles away that sells it, but I never ever go past it, so I'd have to make a special journey to fill up.

The miniscule tank capacity, but large tank taking up boot space.

I worry that LPG damages the engine (so I'd fit a flashlube system)

macman

With the exception of the CVT, most of the comments you make about the Auris would apply equally to any Auris model, not just the hybrid.
The Auris hybrid, like the Prius, has a horrible CVT gearbox (hence the dying fly impersonation under acceleration). Most hybrids do well on urban fuel consumption (since that's what they're designed for), but on the motorway they're generally inferior to the average turbodiesel for economy. If the bulk of your mileage is on open motorways, then a hybrid is probably the wrong choice.
To give hybrids a fair chance, try one that was designed for the ground up as such, like the Hyundai Ioniq. it has a conventional 6-speed dual clutch auto gearbox, and so drives much like any other petrol hatchback. Too many manufacturers have rushed into adapting existing models to give them a hybrid option, and the result is rarely satisfactory.

AdrianC

macman wrote: »

To give hybrids a fair chance, try one that was designed for the ground up as such..
Too many manufacturers have rushed into adapting existing models to give them a hybrid option, and the result is rarely satisfactory.

Given that the Auris hybrid uses the same drivetrain and platform as the Pious, and the previous generation was available hybridised since 2009 - I think we can safely say that Toyota didn't do some kind of last-minute-bodge-up, but designed the current generation Auris to have a hybrid version from the outset.

ComicGeek

Mercdriver wrote: »

I drove the estate version of that on holiday in Italy last year, Avis 'upgraded' me from a BMW 220d. It was very useful. I was considering a Rav4 hybrid. I wasn't after 9 days with the Auris Hybrid. It was downright annoying on the Autostrada from Bologna to Tuscany and across country to Rimini from Tuscany. You had to push it too hard to get anything out of it. Good in town rubbish on motorways - it sounded like a dying fly, according to my wife, who like every wife is always right.

I've had the Rav4 hybrid for nearly a year, absolutely love it. Suits my driving style, very smooth ride but still responsive enough for overtaking and accelerating. I do 50/50 motorway and country lane driving, great for both. But it doesn't have the power of my wife diesel 2.2L, so not everyone's cup of tea.

I haven't driven the hybrid Auris, but I didn't like the drive of the normal Auris or Verso - felt very cheap compared to the Rav4, in terms of internal finish, drive and handling.