fuel prices

Thu Jan 20, 2011 12:38 am

Fuel consumption per unit weight of fuel should be a little better on LPG than on petrol, but because LPG is much less dense than petrol, miles per unit of volume is about 20% worse.
You won't save 50% of your fuel costs like you could a few years ago, but the amount saved per mile is as much as it ever was, and when LPG prices drop back a bit, will probably reach record levels.

Thu Jan 20, 2011 12:49 am

that doesnt make sence to me brian, i'm being dim

if the cost of LPG is going up, how does the ammount saved per mile go up or be as good as its ever been, or are you taking into account the difference between LPG and current petrol prices ?

but as i'm reading it, you use less LPG per mile but get less MPG per unit, thats whats thrown me

Thu Jan 20, 2011 12:58 am

yep, what he is saying is that even though lpg has risen in price, fuel has risen so much more that it is now and even bigger saving to use lpg.

Thu Jan 20, 2011 1:17 am

well, i think i follow

i'll survive on 26mpg for now........

Thu Jan 20, 2011 4:57 am

That's assuming the price of LPG does fall and not actually rise.
What's the betting as soon as the amount of motorists using this reaches
a number attractive enough for the Treasury to hammer, the price will rocket.

Thu Jan 20, 2011 8:23 am

It will always only be a minority using LPG, there are not enough filling stations selling it for the average joe to bother, they'd rather buy a modern diesel.

As for prices, the saving per litre is less now for me than it was a few years ago when I started using it, but its still over 50p per litre cheaper than petrol. LPG prices now seem to follow petrol prices whereas before it was just the basic gas price plus a bit of duty/VAT
29p when I first bought it from my local supplier 3 years ago, its now 72p

People are telling me the prices are expected to drop soon as demand for heating gas drops off, but I dont expect petrol stations will drop the prices until petrol drops...

Thu Jan 20, 2011 9:16 am

gooner1 wrote:That's assuming the price of LPG does fall and not actually rise.
What's the betting as soon as the amount of motorists using this reaches
a number attractive enough for the Treasury to hammer, the price will rocket.

I'm sure that the treasury is slavering at the chops to get their hands on some more LPG duty. Remember, it is already taxed, just at a lower rate than petrol. Gordon fuckface Brown introduced the tax at a low rate to set the precedent ready for the time when the amount of cash STOLEN from the public will be worth the uproar.

Thu Jan 20, 2011 9:24 am

I just bought the good lady a Volvo S40 with the bi-fuel kit on it. A round trip to Kent from Stockton costs £140 in my T5, only £70 in her car.

Needless to say, no more long journeys in my guzzler!

Thu Jan 20, 2011 10:20 am

I did hear that fuel is to increase by 5p in april

Thu Jan 20, 2011 10:36 am

Last tank I averaged 22mpg... £75+ fill ups are here to stay.

I am half temtped to LPG convert something with a really small capacity engine. There was a £100 matiz with a blown HG on ebay a while back. Take the head off it, get a someone from my work to put some decent valve seats in it and just use a single point system on it. It it blows the manifold up, just replace it with another one. If you drove it nicely, it might do the equivilent of 80mpg for a £500 car.

It would be a pretty horrendous drive though...

Thu Jan 20, 2011 1:01 pm

Jon_Bmw wrote:
It would be a pretty horrendous drive though...

Thats the problem, would you be happy driving around in a shitter? I dont think I could do it TBH, there was a chap that used to fill up at my local gas place with a poverty spec saxo, 500 miles for £20 worth of gas at the time, the same amount of gas would now be costing him £50 odd, not seen him for ages so maybe he had enough depravity?

Thu Jan 20, 2011 1:11 pm

I have had shitters before and I can't really stomach more than 6 months.

What I was thinking was perhaps use it for 4 days a week. Use the 540i on a Friday and occasionally at the weekend. Once you get used to a car with useful toys and a bit of grunt it is hard to go back to something so basic.

It would mean that I could make spur of the moment decisions to go 250miles + without thinking that it will be costing me £70! On second thoughts, 250 miles in a matiz...

Thu Jan 20, 2011 1:36 pm

Back when veg oil was cheap (and before it got written off), I had a VW Caddy... 50mpg at ~half the price of diesel when I got it!

Sadly, driving the slowest car in the world gets very tedious after a while, and veg oil was getting close to the price of diesel when I last bought any. Was still sad to see it die, but LPG is easily preferable.

Increased servicing costs on LPG is a load of cobblers tbh - filters etc are no more expensive than for the petrol equivalents and as above, you could do an oil service less often if you wanted to...

Do any of you LPG people on here have an account with anyone or do you just use regular stations? Countrywide, despite the name, don't have anything anywhere near here, but I think there's a Calor place somewhere on Southampton docks...??

Thu Jan 20, 2011 1:53 pm

[quote="Ziggy"]
Increased servicing costs on LPG is a load of cobblers tbh - filters etc are no more expensive than for the petrol equivalents and as above, you could do an oil service less often if you wanted to...

quote]

I keep getting told/reading that the lpg system its self needs servicing and is therefore more expensive to service than a comparable petrol/diesel vehicle.

Is this not the case then?

Also has any one done or owned a vehicle with lots of miles in a lpg vehicle 150k + ? I have a feeling that a lot of you that are singing it's praises have recently converted vehicles.

If its really all its made up to be i need to convert as i am doing mega miles for work!

Thu Jan 20, 2011 2:00 pm

The Volvo S40 I have just bought the missus has 224,000 miles on it ( hefty for a 2002 car) but is one owner and has always had full Volvo service.

Still running like a good 'un. Mind you, that might be because the owner had a brand spanking new donk put in it 56000 miles ago due to the old one blowing its head!

Thu Jan 20, 2011 2:14 pm

mattrs wrote:I keep getting told/reading that the lpg system its self needs servicing and is therefore more expensive to service than a comparable petrol/diesel vehicle.

Is this not the case then?

Also has any one done or owned a vehicle with lots of miles in a lpg vehicle 150k + ? I have a feeling that a lot of you that are singing it's praises have recently converted vehicles.

If its really all its made up to be i need to convert as i am doing mega miles for work!

My car has done pretty much exactly 100k since it was converted. I've had it about 18 months & done ~20k of those. In that time I've serviced it once (£15 for the filters) and also fitted new injector o-rings (£5) which probably won't need doing again for another 90k or so.

It'll take you a fair few miles to recoup the conversion costs if you pay someone else to do it, but make sure you can insure it without an installation cert if you want to go DIY!

Thu Jan 20, 2011 2:32 pm

mattrs wrote:I keep getting told/reading that the lpg system its self needs servicing

The only thing that needs 'servicing' is a single filter. Up to now I've never found the slightest contamination on any of them, and have never replaced one. There is also the alleged build up of a tar like substance, known as 'heavy ends' in the vaporiser, which can be drained off by removing a screwed plug. Again, I've never seen any yet.
The only other 'servicing' I do is to occasionally connect up the laptop to check the readings, and to make sure non of the settings have returned themselves to default.

Also has any one done or owned a vehicle with lots of miles in a lpg vehicle 150k + ? I have a feeling that a lot of you that are singing it's praises have recently converted vehicles.

I converted the red touring in my sig. in 2000, and this was our main car for most of the following decade, clocking up more than another 100,000 miles in that time.
The only failure in the LPG system was a stepper motor valve, which developed a habit of occasionally jamming shut when switched to LPG, resulting in it sometimes needing several attempts to get it to switch over.

Thu Jan 20, 2011 3:17 pm

Cheers for clearing that up guys. I definatly need to look at these again.

Thu Jan 20, 2011 3:25 pm

It depends on the car manufacturer in some instances as well.

I know for sure that running some engines on Gas is not going to work. The valve seat regression is unbelievable. Try 0.1mm in 3 hours on the dyno! Not to mention numerous other issues. Don't worry it wasn't a BMW engine, but I can't really say what it was for obvious reason.

Thu Jan 20, 2011 5:25 pm

Why? Was it a pug shed?

I converted my E34 nearly 3 years ago now and have clocked over 50k miles, the system came off an E36 in a scrap yard, I dont know how many miles it had done previously but the date on the ECU is 2002 so at a guess id say its around 150k miles total.
The only repair ive had to do is fit new diaphragms/seals to the regulator, I did this just after I first fitted the system.

Thu Jan 20, 2011 7:36 pm

Jon_Bmw wrote:It depends on the car manufacturer in some instances as well.

I know for sure that running some engines on Gas is not going to work. The valve seat regression is unbelievable. Try 0.1mm in 3 hours on the dyno! Not to mention numerous other issues. Don't worry it wasn't a BMW engine, but I can't really say what it was for obvious reason.

I can ditto this - a number of engines that have come through work have had some significant valve recession over a test cycle... Generally it seems like most of the BMW engines aren't affected substantially, so it's not a big problem for us.

Thu Jan 20, 2011 7:52 pm

If you choose to run some accountant designed machine, such as Ford, or most japcrap, on LPG, you will either need to fit a replacement cylinder head with hardened valve seats (standard on all BMWs!), or fit a system known as "Flashlube", which continuously drips a small quantity of upper cylinder lubricant into the inlet system.
Such systems are of no interest to BMW owners.

Thu Jan 20, 2011 8:03 pm

Brianmoooore wrote:
e301988325i wrote:Still 60.9p here Woohooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Where's that? I paid 81p yesterday, and I'm only 45 miles away!

J25 Sainsburys, I think it would pay for you to drive there and back to fill up.

Thu Jan 20, 2011 8:15 pm

Jon_Bmw wrote:Last tank I averaged 22mpg... £75+ fill ups are here to stay.

I am half temtped to LPG convert something with a really small capacity engine. There was a £100 matiz with a blown HG on ebay a while back. Take the head off it, get a someone from my work to put some decent valve seats in it and just use a single point system on it. It it blows the manifold up, just replace it with another one. If you drove it nicely, it might do the equivilent of 80mpg for a £500 car.

It would be a pretty horrendous drive though...

The irony here is that with an already economical 40mpg car the saving on lpg is only 5p/mile, lpg something juicy 20mpg and it jumps to a worthwhile 10p/mile

Thu Jan 20, 2011 8:47 pm

e301988325i wrote:
Brianmoooore wrote:
e301988325i wrote:Still 60.9p here Woohooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Where's that? I paid 81p yesterday, and I'm only 45 miles away!
J25 Sainsburys, I think it would pay for you to drive there and back to fill up.

I have a 90 litre tank, so it probably would be! Would be worth throwing a spare 90 litre tank I have in the boot as well and filling that.
Thornfalcon always used to be the cheapest around your area, but you can't get at their pump with a trailer. What are they selling at?

Thu Jan 20, 2011 9:25 pm

Sainsburys have undercut thornfalcon for the whole time since I converted. . . yes, 150L would be worth it!!!!

Where are you paying 81p? and how much is petrol???

Thu Jan 20, 2011 9:58 pm

mattrs wrote:I keep getting told/reading that the lpg system its self needs servicing and is therefore more expensive to service than a comparable petrol/diesel vehicle.

Is this not the case then?

Also has any one done or owned a vehicle with lots of miles in a lpg vehicle 150k + ? I have a feeling that a lot of you that are singing it's praises have recently converted vehicles.

If its really all its made up to be i need to convert as i am doing mega miles for work!

I answered all this for you earlier in this thread.

I've only done 52k since I converted, but Brian and many others have done loads more miles than me and I doubt there's any of us who wouldn't do it all again.

You'll probably find, like that I did, that the vast majority of people you're getting information from either haven't actually run a vehicle on LPG, or they are among the few who have had problems which usually seem to be caused by cowboy fitters.

Ziggy wrote:make sure you can insure it without an installation cert if you want to go DIY!

Liverpool Victoria is your friend here.

Thu Jan 20, 2011 10:03 pm

LPG is tipping @ 89.9 here

Gits !

LPG tank @ home/workshop/farm gents ?????????

Thu Jan 20, 2011 10:20 pm

I've had crap in the filters once, loads of it in fact! Enough to jam the solenoids solid. However this is a rare case and i've not found any in it since.

At my local prices, i wouldn't bother converting to LPG unless i knew i'd be keeping the car for a long time, however the rest of the country seems to get a much better deal than me!

I know for sure that if i bought something like a E46 330i touring daily driver, it would receive LPG very soon

Fri Jan 21, 2011 8:30 am

IIRC, my local LPG retailers have a habit of putting their prices up during the winter and then back down early spring. I hope the same happens this year.

Fri Jan 21, 2011 2:43 pm

Went somewhere this morning in a direction I don't often go, and came the petrol station about 12 miles from me in the middle of nowhere has LPG for 71p.
I've got a couple of weeks work waiting for me about three miles short of there, so it may be a good time to start that job!