Topic

Mal7921 wrote: wrote:

I'm wanting to put a fuel tank in the spare wheel section for a future LPG conversion I have planned. Would there still be room for that?

As you may or may not know, I have an LPG conversion in my boot. It's an 80 litre tank and I pay 65p a litre (Brand name fuel stations sell it for up to 80p a litre). Here's a link showing the UK LPG filling stations. Users update it voluntarily to keep the rest of us in the loop on 'good deals'. The site is very slow so I've provided a screenshot if you don't want to wait.




I was fortunate to have this conversion in the car when I bought it. The previous owner said he paid £1800 to have it fitted at a reputable fitting station. So, it cost me nothing and I paid £2100 for the car, a 02 plate Stepspeed with 48k on the clock. Now it's 56k and it's my daily runner for a 50 mile round trip. The wife uses it sometimes too. I've heard since that you can get an lpg conversion fitted for as little as £700. Don't ask me where that is please, as I don't know.

I'll try to make this as simple as I can.. In 6 months, check my fuelly signature below, the car has covered 7700 miles approximately for a cost of £936.90.

At 65p a litre locally for LPG and the local cost of petrol at £1.36. So, I pay 52% less for fuel using lpg daily. Now, I believe that it gives me 10% less power and range than petrol. Feel free to work it out better than me if you're a mathematical genius. But roughly though I have used 1441 litres of lpg to cover that distance.

So 1441 litres of lpg cost me a rough £939.90, converting that to petrol costs at £1.36 a litre it amounts to £1959.76. The difference is £1019.86. Already a fuel saving of a grand which can go towards a new head gasket when it's need. I figure that in just over a year the car will have paid for itself at todays petrol prices. It all depends on how many miles you do in the car. The more miles, the quicker it pays for itself.

The lpg system needs to have a service every 20k. *Where they stock lpg they stock lpg fitters.. sometimes.. ask about it there. There are also 'mobile fitters' I believe. *Google is your friend.

LPG is everywhere on the continent. It's not so frequent over here in the UK. I downloaded their locations to my satnav and it 'beeps' when I'm near one. I live in a city. It's everywhere locally for me.

My average milage is 25 miles per gallon driving like 'Lewis Hamilton'. That, calculating the costs difference, equates to 50mpg. I got 34.9 once when I drove like a hurst being driven by Captain Slow. Did I mention that the car also runs on petrol yet? Hahaha not effin likely if I can help it! Unfortunately, fuel is a necessary evil and reducing the cost of it is a real benefit to us all.

Any thoughts or questions on this subject, please post them here. I'll try to answer them, or find an answer if I can.

A few more pics of the LPG FUEL GAUGE - click here & read the explanation under each pic for further info.

It all looks and sounds good till I get to the picture of the boot....

If I could have a tank specificly shaped to fit in the spare wheel well then it might be a long term plan. Would help with front end stability whilst still allowing me to keep decent storage space.

Although I did notice on the map a distinct lack of flags around where I live!

I think LPG is a great way to cut your motoring costs, especially if the mod is already on the car you buy, however what would put me off having it done to my TF is.................

1 The size/position of the tank in the boot.

2 I only do around 40 miles a week so it would take a very long time for me to get back the cost of having the conversion done.

3 Diesel used to be cheaper than petrol, now diesel cars are very popular, it now costs nearly 45p a gallon more than petrol. If LPG gets too popular, will it go the same way?

Red Devil wrote: wrote:

Diesel used to be cheaper than petrol, now diesel cars are very popular, it now costs nearly 45p a gallon more than petrol. If LPG gets too popular, will it go the same way?

Of course it will!

LPG is the one thing I really miss from my original F and the DIY kits can be as little as £618 including the tank for a good quality kit. My issue is that for the cost, my car may do around 40 miles in a week, so while I intend to get it done, the overall value for me will be less per year than for someone using their car on a daily basis.

Quite a good site for LPG info is www.lpgc.co.uk which tells you a lot of things about LPG and dispels a few myths about conversion requirements. Just to note as well, the conversion they sell there was of the same type that I had on the F, though I have no idea if they sold or fitted the conversion.

Simple answer is, ,if you do a lot of miles and have a petrol engine, it really is a no brainer and for the brief time I had my MG F I spent about £40 on LPG (only actually used £20 as the car was written off after the second lot was put in) and covered a good number of miles.

On holiday in Norfolk, I was staggered by the number of petrol stations down there that sold LPG, while only a few here in the north sell LPG, the situation in places like Norfolk is reversed, fewer stations don't sell LPG than do.

In some places it is already popular, but as it is still a 'greener' fuel, it is taxed less as overall it does less harm.

lpg is a good idea
however if only doing short distances per year then to get your money back will take ages
and if you sell the car and not recouped the cost of the kit then you lose out

also lpg is not as good as petrol so you use more per mpg (miles per gallon) and you lose power
so if you do lots of milage ect and dont rush then its chaeaper

i worked it out for diesel for the cost of the car and the fuel you need to be doig 20k miles per year to brake even against a petrol car

me i will stick with petrol pefer the performance

i only average 6 k per year

MGF MARK wrote: wrote:

also lpg is not as good as petrol so you use more per mpg (miles per gallon) and you lose power

......

i worked it out for diesel for the cost of the car and the fuel you need to be doig 20k miles per year to brake even against a petrol car

Not quite true, it depends on a few things such as the kit itself, quality of the conversion and the condition of the engine in the first place, as well as your driving style,

Yes there is a loss when it comes to mpg, however with a good kit the difference is less. As for power, I only noticed a slight loss when the conversion to LPG forst initialized, once this was done and all petrol out of the system, there was no noticeable loss of power.

As for the cost of diesel, I do less than 20k a year and the savings I made running my Citroen c5 against my previous 1.6 petrol megane were (and still are) noticeable, even with diesel costing more per liter than petrol

Mal7921 wrote: wrote:

MGF MARK wrote: wrote:

also lpg is not as good as petrol so you use more per mpg (miles per gallon) and you lose power

......

i worked it out for diesel for the cost of the car and the fuel you need to be doig 20k miles per year to brake even against a petrol car

Not quite true, it depends on a few things such as the kit itself, quality of the conversion and the condition of the engine in the first place, as well as your driving style,

Yes there is a loss when it comes to mpg, however with a good kit the difference is less. As for power, I only noticed a slight loss when the conversion to LPG forst initialized, once this was done and all petrol out of the system, there was no noticeable loss of power.

As for the cost of diesel, I do less than 20k a year and the savings I made running my Citroen c5 against my previous 1.6 petrol megane were (and still are) noticeable, even with diesel costing more per liter than petrol

are but a diesel car will cost more to buy in the first place so you have to factor that in

As already said the tank spoils the conversion but on the F/TF is limited on tank locations, spare wheel well tanks are designed to stand verticly or horizontaly and the wheel well is neither.

LPG will remain much cheaper than petrol for some time if not always.
It is basically a by-product of refining and there is a worldwide surplus.

MGF MARK wrote: wrote:

a diesel car will cost more to buy in the first place so you have to factor that in

Depends, when I bought the Citroen the petrol ones were about the same price, but then again I bought it second hand.

MGF MARK wrote: wrote:

lpg is not as good as petrol so you use more per mpg (miles per gallon) and you lose power
so if you do lots of milage ect and dont rush then its cheaper

i worked it out for diesel for the cost of the car and the fuel you need to be doing 20k miles per year to brake even against a petrol car

me i will stick with petrol prefer the performance

The car will do a ton on lpg. How fast do you want to go? The power loss is really negligible and hardly noticeable. Most of my driving is in a 30 zone.

That, having been said, can be adjusted by pushing a button for an immediate 10% power boost when switching over to petrol. That can be done at anytime. Whether moving or stationary.

The gauge shows the car running on petrol.



Warming up on petrol occurs at start up. This can take 5 seconds or 2 to 3 minutes depending on the ambient temperature. You may drive at this time as normal. As this 'warm up' occurs, the green 'G' (Gas) light flashes. The yellow petrol light stays on.



Once warm the yellow petrol light goes out and the green 'G' Gas light stay on. The four green lights marked as
'| || ||| ||||' are a rough gauge to show how much lpg fuel there is in the tank.

The 'R' represents the Reserve lpg fuel being in use. That light shows as a red dot. It flashes and makes an audible beep when you have 10 litres of lpg fuel left. It will switch over to petrol automatically when it runs out.

You can switch between petrol and gas, or vice versa, at anytime by pressing the white square in the middle. That change-over in fuel is almost immediate.

Luckymarine wrote: wrote:

It all looks and sounds good till I get to the picture of the boot....

If I could have a tank specificly shaped to fit in the spare wheel well then it might be a long term plan. Would help with front end stability whilst still allowing me to keep decent storage space.

Although I did notice on the map a distinct lack of flags around where I live!

you can get tanks to fit where the spare wheel lives (that's where the tank was in my F) and quite often there are places that will sell you LPG, such as the taxi firm down the hill from where I live at about 15p per liter less than the main garages.