LPG costs . . .

[fastdiablo]

With the cost of petrol skyrocketing I've been toying with the idea of going down the LPG route for my 325 barge.

How much is it per gallon/litre ? . . .

Is it widely available ? . . .

What sort of mpg could I expect ? . . .

What are the performance differences ? . . .

Are there any pitfalls I should be aware of ? . . .

Thanks for any advice

[Brianmoooore]

Anything from 45p/l to 62p/l.
2000 outlets in the UK. Need to know where they are.
Approx 20% less, as LPG is less dense than petrol, but burns more efficiently.
Minor performance loss with single point. Shouldn't be any with injection.
Loss of boot space or spare wheel. Pros: Greatly reduced engine wear.

[fowler]

Mr moore what is the average cost of an injection system as i would like to buy a 5 series E34 525 24V or 535 old M30 slug and run it on LPG
Oh and how easy is it to fit ??
am an engineer so i presume i could fit it myself ??

[daimlerman]

Most re-built Shell sites flog LPG,similar story with BP. Some Total sites,some Jet sites. Some Morrisons stores as well. It's like a lot of things,keep a lookout and they appear.

[Geoff]

Mr moore what is the average cost of an injection system as i would like to buy a 5 series E34 525 24V or 535 old M30 slug and run it on LPG
Oh and how easy is it to fit ??
am an engineer so i presume i could fit it myself ??

Id budget approx £2k for a multi point injection system fitted by someone other than yourself. Clearly less if your doing the work. Just the front end alone without tanks and stuff i have been told by a fitter near me around £500 (was enquiring to upgrade my singlepoint to multi point on the disco)

LPG has a RON rating of 110, and with mapping i have been told will give significant gains over normal petrol equivalent. (assuming you have the multi point injection and not the early singlepoint)

The local installer to me recently fitted one to a 2002 ST V6 mondeo and saw near 30bhp in gains once it was correctly mapped. Clearly you need to take that with a pinch of salt as i didnt see any proof but im sure good gains are to be had. HTH

[fastdiablo]

Interesting reading, thanks to all ! . . .

£2,000 fitted is a lot of wedge and will take some miles to recoup, so that makes me think, how car specific is it ? . . .

If I was to trash or frag the barge how easy would it be to retro fit to another make of car ? . . .

[78dude]

Cant you get E85 in the UK?

[fastdiablo]

Not that I know of . . . Just had a read about it at Wiki, looks like some of the new money big hitters like Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Goldman Sachs are investing in it so could well take off worldwide making them like the next Saudi oil barons

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E85

[Brianmoooore]

Mr moore what is the average cost of an injection system as i would like to buy a 5 series E34 525 24V or 535 old M30 slug and run it on LPG
Oh and how easy is it to fit ??
am an engineer so i presume i could fit it myself ??

The 535 with the antique M30 engine will run perfectly well on a single point system, and a good new system can be bought for about £600 at the absolute maximum. Fitting is easy, with guidance from COP11 and from here, and doesn't take the car off the road for more than a few hours at a time. That price can easily be halved using a mixture of new and used bits off of ebay, or by buying a ready converted car, removing the kit, and selling the car on. You might even make a profit with the latter!
The M50 really needs a vapour injection kit, and again this can be bought second hand off ebay, or by buying a ready converted vehicle.
A complete new kit is going to be in the £700 - £800 pound range.
Most of the kit isn't particularly vehicle specific, apart from certain things, such as a kit from a 100bhp car will struggle on a 250bhp car, it's no good trying to fit a 4 cylinder kit to a six pot (although 5, 6, and 8 pot stuff tends to be the same), and you won't get a 650mm diameter toroidal tank into an E30 wheel well!

[ShakeyC]

If you go DIY how does it affect insurance, tax and mot to be all legit?

[StuBeeDoo]

If I'm travelling away from home, I refer to this website before I go..... LPG filling stations list

[jaistanley]

how about fitting it to an S50 powered car? They're fairly high compression so should love it.. I just have a felling I'd need an expensive ECU with a dual map?

Whats the deal with the government removing the tax break they give LPG in the future too? Is that true?

Jai

[Speedtouch]

You can't take an LPG car through the channel tunnel for some reason.

[dusty23]

or any tunnel

[Brianmoooore]

If you go DIY how does it affect insurance, tax and mot to be all legit?

MOT: No difference. You should be able to get your emmissions down to post '92 levels without the use of a cat, and the MOT station has to conduct the test using the fuel it is presented to them on.
Tax: No difference with pre '02 cars, although there's rumours that you can get a small reduction if you push your case with the DVLA. The conversion should be registered on the V5C.
Insurance: A few won't touch LPG, most will insure with no surcharge as long as a certificate is presented, and there are several (enough) who don't give a monkey's.

[oze30]

Just went to the local LPG fitters here, and they're quoting me 700 to install a system. NOT SUPPLY!!!. I won an M62 V8 system on ebay, and they're fitting it first week of school holidays! (I wanted it next week.. but hey.. You can't win them all!!)

Is that a reasonable price?

[ShakeyC]

If you go DIY how does it affect insurance, tax and mot to be all legit?

MOT: No difference. You should be able to get your emmissions down to post '92 levels without the use of a cat, and the MOT station has to conduct the test using the fuel it is presented to them on.
Tax: No difference with pre '02 cars, although there's rumours that you can get a small reduction if you push your case with the DVLA. The conversion should be registered on the V5C.
Insurance: A few won't touch LPG, most will insure with no surcharge as long as a certificate is presented, and there are several (enough) who don't give a monkey's.

Thank you for taking your time to explain much appreciated! Im considering converting my fairly modern car (02 reg) can afford to do DIY but not a professional install at this moment. My worries is getting a certificate for insurance and dvla purposes (already checked they want one) what chances/costs of me getting a cert after i diy'd the conversion from somewhere?

[Brianmoooore]

or any tunnel

Only ones I know of are the Channel Tunnel, an insurance thing, which they keep saying they're going to sort, and a tunnel in Rouen, France which I take no notice of whatsoever.
You're also supposed to notify the operators of some of the tunnels under the Alps when you go through, but there's no restrictions as such.
You are supposed to avoid underground car parks.

[DanThe]

I heard the tax reduction was originally £15, but has since been dropped to £10, and by 2010 wont exist.

Also LPG cars apparently got a discount for the congestion charge in London, I think this has also been dropped now.

My insurers couldnt care less about any vehicle modifications certified or not! As long as it passes an MOT im insured

System ive just (nearly) fitted to my M50 has cost a grand total of £100

[Brianmoooore]

Thank you for taking your time to explain much appreciated! Im considering converting my fairly modern car (02 reg) can afford to do DIY but not a professional install at this moment. My worries is getting a certificate for insurance and dvla purposes (already checked they want one) what chances/costs of me getting a cert after i diy'd the conversion from somewhere?

There's a few places around that will certify DIY installs (assuming they are up to scratch), notably the suppliers of the DIY kits.
Going rate is about £50.

[Brianmoooore]

how about fitting it to an S50 powered car? They're fairly high compression so should love it.. I just have a felling I'd need an expensive ECU with a dual map?

Whats the deal with the government removing the tax break they give LPG in the future too? Is that true?

Jai

Gas injectors can handle about 40bhp per cylinder, IIRC (don't quote me), but two injectors per port can be fitted to overcome this.
The gas ECU on a modern gas injected car is slaved from the petrol ECU. The gas ECU contains a map that applies a multiplier to the fuel injector pulses to drive the gas injectors. Set up is correct when the petrol injector pulse width when running on gas is the same (for every cell in the map) as the pulse width when it's running on petrol.

Fuel tax break is being eroded at 1p per litre per year (IIRC), so we've got a few years yet, especially if the basic price of petrol rises faster than LPG.
The savings (in pence per mile) are now higher on LPG than they've ever been, especially if you don't live next to a bunch of crooks selling it at 60p/l, like I do.

[oze30]

I heard the tax reduction was originally £15, but has since been dropped to £10, and by 2010 wont exist.

Also LPG cars apparently got a discount for the congestion charge in London, I think this has also been dropped now.

My insurers couldnt care less about any vehicle modifications certified or not! As long as it passes an MOT im insured

System ive just (nearly) fitted to my M50 has cost a grand total of £100

So there's no skipping the congestion charge?? WTF???

[Brianmoooore]

Just went to the local LPG fitters here, and they're quoting me 700 to install a system.

Is that a reasonable price?

No, £700 is not a reasonable price, but this is the UK, so it's about as good as you'll get. Plenty out there who will charge you more.
The other problem with 'professional' installs in the UK is that there are an awful lot of cowboys out there, who saw LPG as a way to 'get rich quick'!
Plenty of installers that no their stuff as well, but how do you tell one from the other? LPGA membership is certainly no indicator!!

[Brianmoooore]

So there's no skipping the congestion charge?? WTF???

Only cars that were "on the register" were exempt, and that was very few.

[oze30]

These are the guys.

http://www.gas4cars.com/default.asp?url=home.htm

If a car is put on the register now, will it be exempt? or...?

[StuBeeDoo]

Just went to the local LPG fitters here, and they're quoting me 700 to install a system. NOT SUPPLY!!!. I won an M62 V8 system on ebay, and they're fitting it first week of school holidays! (I wanted it next week.. but hey.. You can't win them all!!)

Is that a reasonable price?

Before Brian (and others) assured me I couldn't really go wrong DIY'ing my system I got loads of quotes. They ranged from £2500 down to "fitting LPG to a car that age is illegal."!
From experience, I have to agree with Brian's comment about LPGA members - the "illegal" comment came from one of them.
My system, bought new from a known supplier, cost less than £700. 9 months and 10k miles later I've saved more than that on fuel.

[Brianmoooore]

These are the guys.

http://www.gas4cars.com/default.asp?url=home.htm

If a car is put on the register now, will it be exempt? or...?

Taken from near the top of the link: Less than 39 pence per litre
Less than 30p per litre (fleet users)
Ask them where you can find these prices!
Costs thousands to get a car on the register - and each kit and every variation of a particular model needs a seperate registration. No E30 is, ever was, or is ever likely to be on the register!

[ShakeyC]

There seems to be hundreds of brands and companies out there, how do we know what is a good product brands and company to use for both diy and professional installs if lpga is no real indication? How would i find a local supplier?

[DanThe]

What about pumping your own Brian? Buying from the right sources you could half your costs again

[Brianmoooore]

There seems to be hundreds of brands and companies out there, how do we know what is a good product brands and company to use for both diy and professional installs if lpga is no real indication? How would i find a local supplier?

Stick with an AEB Leonardo or Millenium ECU and control system and a reasonable brand of vapouriser, and you can't go wrong for an E30.
The way to avoid the cowboy installers is to DIY if at all possible, with help from here or the LPG online forums.
It really is easy to install a venturi LPG system, as long as you don't try to bodge anything, take no shortcuts, and follow the COP11 guidelines.

[Brianmoooore]

What about pumping your own Brian? Buying from the right sources you could half your costs again

Bottled gas prices seem to be so high, that there's no real advantage, even if you do it illegally without paying the road fuel duty and higher VAT rate.

[oze30]

Whats BRC like? I really don't have the option of DIY. There's so much to this and it's coming off an M62 manifold onto an M60 one.. so could be messy. I'd rather someone else get it done and let them fuss about with it!

[davidorme591]

I have just had my E34 525i SE convereted to LPG, it is paying for itself.. I am saving over £200 on petrol pump prices. The installation cost just under £2k, however, it is totally auto, (starts on petrol and switches over to gas) and has it own ECU and returns average 26/34mpg/. So at 52p a Ltr it gives you a smile every time you fill up. Mine is a multipoint system and the car runs smoother on gas that it does on petrol! I can recommend an Installer too. I will have my E30 320 convertible done later in the year.. No noticeabole loss of performance either..

[jaistanley]

Does your 320i already have some performance installed?

[Geoff]

I have just had my E34 525i SE convereted to LPG, it is paying for itself.. I am saving over £200 on petrol pump prices. The installation cost just under £2k, however, it is totally auto, (starts on petrol and switches over to gas) and has it own ECU and returns average 26/34mpg/. So at 52p a Ltr it gives you a smile every time you fill up. Mine is a multipoint system and the car runs smoother on gas that it does on petrol! I can recommend an Installer too. I will have my E30 320 convertible done later in the year.. No noticeabole loss of performance either..

Multi point is the way forward. Yes its more expensive, but it is by far the better system to be using. Better mpg and performance...what more could you ask for!