LPG or diesel car???

betterbargains4u

Am looking at buying a Citroen Berlingo Multispace for my business, and am undecided between LPG and diesel.
I can buy a 2006 LPG one for less than £6000 which I thought was good.
However I was wondering, even though LPG is greener and cheaper, whether it was better than diesel in the long run, as you do burn more fuel with LPG.
I know that you cannot run as far on LPG, not all forecourts sell it, and it can be more difficult to get repairs etc done.
Any thoughts and tips would be greatly appreciated.

Nile

Hello betterbargains4u

I'll move your thread to the 'Motoring & Public Transport' board.

Hi, Martin’s asked me to post this in these circumstances: I’ve asked Board Guides to move threads if they’ll receive a better response elsewhere(please see this rule) so this post/thread has been moved to another board, where it should get more replies. If you have any questions about this policy please email [EMAIL="abuse@moneysavingexpert.com"]abuse@moneysavingexpert.com[/EMAIL].

Regards

Nile

deltic_2

Go Diesel. LPG systems can be shockingly unreliable and LPG will eventually become a fuel of the past. Biodiesels and hybrid electric/fuel cars are the environmental choice now.

Wig

I have not joined this forum yet but it might be useful to you
http://www.lpgforum.co.uk

LPG system should be fine and run well with no faults, and if it ever does go wrong, there are loads of gas fitters who know what to do to fix it - but it would be good to get some recomendations of a good fitter near you.

Definately go LPG, as long as you have a good local supplier. Shop around you might find some suppliers in less traditional places such as truck yards, or gas suppliers, i.e. not petrol stations and these places will often be cheaper and offer account discount schemes. google "LPG map" for a pretty good service, then phone them to find out if they still sell LPG - I found that 4 or 5 of the suppliers listed near me on the map no longer sell LPG, and petrolprices.com will give some prices for your area.

Look up the mpg figures for the vans on LPG they should be available, for an indication on running costs, make sure you are looking at the LPG figures not the petrol figures - one way of doing this would be to look at the petrol figures given for the same van in "petrol only" version.. And be prepared for the manufacturer figures to be somewhat embellished shall we say The handbooks for the vauxhalls should be available on the vauxhall website, you might find the figures in there.

I can tell you that the combos have LPG mpg figures as follows
Urban 21.7 mpg
Extra Urban 35.2 mpg
overall 31.3 mpg
CO2 157 g/km << This is another important point the g/km figure (and thus the banding) seems to be wrongly stated on early Vauxhalls on the DVLA V5 document, and certainly from 2005 is correctly stated, I am currently looking into this to find out why the mistake has been made - it may just be my car that is incorrect.
BTW my car LPG is stated as 41.5mpg LPG extra Urban, but I only managed 36mpg. Which if you work it out is 80mpg petrol equivalent and 90 mpg diesel equivalent.

LPG price is set by the government to be roughly what it is now for the next 3 years, what that means is if petrol goes up by 2p LPG wil rise by 2p + 1p = 3p If petrol goes up by 1p LPG will rise by 1p + 1p = 2p. So it will not dramatically rise, atleast not for the next 3 years.

Also check the car auctions for LPG Berlingos.

I just did a search for you, no Berlingos unfortunately, The Combos/astras should be good, but I can't comment on the transits,
( I have ommitted about 7 others pre 2003 - I wouldn't go pre 2003 if I were you)
If you do get a Vauxhall, check that it has been factory converted not outsourced, what Vauxhall (and probably others) used to do was to sell it as LPG from new but they sent the vehicle to an out of house fitter to be converted before delivery. You can tell if it is factory fitted because the LPG switch is neatly incorporated into the dash facia of the car and does not look like an "add on".

betterbargains4u

Many thanks for all of your hard work Wig...but am looking at a Berlingo Multispace car..not a van.
Very useful information though.

Wig

Oh right, you want the car version. Any reason you want the Berlingo, and not a Vauxhall Astra LPG, or Vaux Corsa? Vaux Vectra or Vaux Zafira, Because there's quite a few Vauxhalls in LPG and they come up regularly at auction. Can't say I've ever seen a Berlingo on the auction list.

Also check autotrader for both vauxhalls and Berlingos, use LPG as a keyword.

betterbargains4u

Wig wrote: »

Oh right, you want the car version. Any reason you want the Berlingo, and not a Vauxhall Astra LPG, or Vaux Corsa? Vaux Vectra or Vaux Zafira, Because there's quite a few Vauxhalls in LPG and they come up regularly at auction. Can't say I've ever seen a Berlingo on the auction list.

Also check autotrader for both vauxhalls and Berlingos, use LPG as a keyword.

The reason we want the Berlingo (car) is the fact that I own a part time business, that requires a van sized vehicle...but not all of the time!!
The Berlingo is the ideal size and is easily re-sellable.
Many thanks for your help though.

PhilL_3

It'll depend partly on the nature of your business.

If you fill up locally and you can get LPG then this will be your best bet; if you are travelling further afield and filling up while out and about then diesel will be a lot more convenient.

gilbert_and_sullivan

It might be prudent to check the VED projection for each engine, cos if the petrol engine is over a certain figure you could end up in the 300 squid bracket April 09. That isn't such a big headache, but may make a difference for you personally.

Have you had got a good local independent lpg supplier, as one near us is some 10ppl cheaper than the forecourts.

MrSmartprice

betterbargains4u wrote: »

The reason we want the Berlingo (car) is the fact that I own a part time business, that requires a van sized vehicle...but not all of the time!!
The Berlingo is the ideal size and is easily re-sellable.
Many thanks for your help though.

I have had a diesel Berlingo for over 6 years and it has been excellent. They are the most versatile vehicles imaginable, and extremely pleasant to drive.

Mine is the old 1.9D which has returned over 40mpg throughout its life and has had no reliability problems. My FIL has a 3 year old HDi which returns well over 50mpg and is surprisingly brisk. He is delighted with his too.

We always hire a Berlingo when we go to Spain. (Everyone seems to drive them there.) However on our last trip in January the hire company didn't have one so 'upgraded' us to a Focus C-Max. What a disappointment that was!

Tucker

BetterBargains

I have a Multispace that I've owned from new and it's recently had an LPG conversion, so no prize for guessing my own choice!!

If you go for the deisel, make sure it's the 1.6 or the older 2lt version of it. When I bought my 1.6 petrol version I looked at the 1.9 deisel and it wasn't an advanced deisel engine to say the least. It was much slower and the MPG was the same as the petrol version, hence more costly with the difference in fuel prices.

The better deisel engines mentioned are good and offer decent MPG and better BHP, but at £1.13 per litre, it's not for me, when LPG is 44p locally.