duel fuel cars-any views?

casey

We have been loking for a car today and found a really nice Vectra.It was duel fuel and I need some opinions about it.I have done a bit of research and found that they can be difficult to insure.I am also worried about what happens if we ever have a crash, explosions etc!!!!Does anyone have anything to say about duel fuel I would really appreciate hearing from you.

Savvy_Sue

I'd say two words:

Honest John

Superb website for all things car, complete with a discussion forum called The Back Room. If you can't find any answers after a search, register and ask there.

PS I hate to nit-pick, but when you do your search, try looking for dual fuel as I think you will get better results! Or try LPG.

littlereddevil

Dont know about this country but when i was in australia my friends all had dual fuel cars and thought they were wonderful

YorkshireBoy

Probably won't help you (may help others?), but a mate has just taken one of these as his new company car. He reckons it'll save him a small fortune in tax!

vansboy

Not rated in the UK as a viable proposition, YET!!

Poor resale value, still hard to find fuel suppliers - bad enough finding a petrol station these days anyway!!

Not a huge choice from factory built models - so you'll rely on aftermarket conversions - & everything good AND bad, that implies.

As Savvy Sue said HJ's site well worth checking!!

VB

chilli_dog

I have an Astra Dual Fuel (company Car).

Dual Fuel cost £2,000 extra on top of the car, Vauhall fitted, ( Cheaper else where but company knows best).

Lpg is half the cost of petrol but you only get half the mileage. Needs to be serviced as well. I do about 30K miles a year and i am filling up every other day with lpg, great for my nectar points. refilling point are bit of a problem don't think lpg has taken off as well as they thought.The new diesel engines may have slowed it down.

They also drink oil.

Car Tax savings are minimal.

Martin

Wig

Casey,

I drove LPG for years, I have to say:

Only worth it if you do above average miles the more miles you do the more it will be worth it for you.

You have to know how much your LPG is going to cost you in order to calculate.

work on your LPG car using 15% more litres of LPG per mile than it uses petrol/mile.

Ask your insurance company what their policy is on LPG cars, some require a certificate complying fitting in accordance with LPGA code of practice, (this does not mean a registered LPGA fitter). Some require LPGA fitting with certificate, some require an LPGA certificate regardless of who did the fitting (this will cost about 50 quid to get)* see my note on this below. Some will have no policy on LPG other than to declare it as a modification.

You won't get any car tax reduction unless it was sold as such from new or was converted under the powershift grant scheme. Car tax reduction is insignificant to worry about anyway. Similar conditions apply to the avoiding LCC. So if you live in London you better be sure about what you're buying.

You need a decent size LPG tank to give you decent mileage range. the larger your tank the smaller your boot will become.

My case, I had an Omega estate with a 120 litre tank which gave me an urban range of 450 miles and motorway range of 700+miles (I never went far enough to find out what the range actually was ). Because it was an estate I had more boot space left than a normal Omega saloon had. My local LPG suppier was cheap and a full tank was 25 pounds..... 25 quid for more than 700miles in a 2.0l Omega! You can also work out the urban 450 miles on 25 quid. Btw 120 litre tank doesn't mean 120 litres of LPG you actually only get 110 in there. Important note is that you will not ever get your LPG as cheap as I did, the cheapest you might get is about 28p litre, which is why it is VERY - VERY important to do your homework first, find your local suppliers and ask if they do customer accounts with discount schemes.

I have loked at auctions (BCA) and quite often there are Volvo S70/LPG available a couple of years old for around 8,000 pounds. I don't know how big the tank is but I am not concerned about boot space so I would just put a bigger (or additional) tank in if it was too small.

*note from above, LPGA only allows fitters to be registered to fit the specific type of LPG system they have done a training course to fit, there a lots of different manufacturers of LPG kits, for example: tartarini, omvl, bigas, necam, bedini, star gas, zavoli etc etc etc etc. A fitter is only allowed to give an LPGA cert for fitting a system he is certified to be able to fit. In practice you will find fitters convieniently forget about this when they decide to use a different system and don't bother to go and do another course and then pay another fee to the LPGA to register for the new system. So in this sense sometimes your LPGA Approved certificate is not valid (not that anyone is going to check). Also if you just need a certificate for insurance purposes - 50 quid - more than likely your cars system is not going to be one that the fitter is certified for so the certificate is invalid (not that anyone is going to check) It just illustrates how full of S@#! the whole system has become.

To conclude: Is it worth it? only you can answer that question for yourself.

Wig

Also, Is LPGA fitter a gaurantee of good quality work? unfortunately not, you can get a good fitter or a bad fitter, similarly a fitter who is not registered can be a good fitter or a bad fitter. You can go by recommendation, but most people don't have a clue about cars let alone LPG systems so they will be thinking their car has been converted well when infact it might not be so good.

Is it safe, was one of your concerns, an LPG tank is much stronger (steel cylinder) than a petrol tank (plastic or thin metal). there is also a solenoid valve on the tank which only opens when the ignition key is turned, when the engine stops the valve closes. In an accident an engine usually stops so the valve would close (I'm not sure if the valve would close under other conditions, such as a ruptured fuel line - which btw is unlikely. Petrol fuel lines are fairly flimsy and easily punctured, LPG fuel lines have (at least) two different grades, a thick one and a thinner one, the difference is the thickness of the plastic armouring sheath around the pipe, the stronger one is just about impossible to rupture.

You can have your LPG system given an annual check by the fitter to make sure it's all good. If you smell gas in the car there are two manual valves on the tank to close by screwing them in. Obviously if you smell gas you open all the windows and don't smoke! and you get it serviced asap.

If you have an accident - like in any car with a petrol tank which might be ruptured - you get out quick.

[Deleted User]

chilli_dog wrote:

I have an Astra Dual Fuel (company Car).
They also drink oil.

Vauxhalls or LPGs?

Wig

I found no difference in oil consumption with my two cars (vauxhall omegas 2.0l, 8v & 16v) both were fine in every respect, there was no difference between running on lpg or petrol. Except that lpg miles cost about 33% of what they would have cost in petrol.

[Deleted User]

Of all the cars I've owned in the last 30 years, the only two that have ever needed oil between services are the two Vauxhalls. (..and the Carlton was the lowest mileage car I've bought.)