Has anybody had their car converted to LPG, I am thinking of getting the Ulysse done as LPG is only £0.36 litre and you can drive into the congestion zone in London for free.

I worked out we get the installation money back in about 14 months and after than the fuel cost would be half and I would be causing less pollution.

seen good reviews of lpg conversions. as you have rightly said its a long term plan to recoup your outlay. even better if you go into london regularly.
where were you going to put the lpg tank?

The only things I can think of is that the conversion requires plently of space. Usually they remove the spare wheen and put the tank in there. Because of the limits of space it means the range on LPG isn't as good as petrol (unless you go LPG only, which I don't think they do). ALso performance is down since there's more weight in the vehicle.

Also, you need to know what petrol stations sell LPG. My local Shell does, but not everywhere will. Having the conversion done and then having to run on petrol isn't good, so make sure you can get hold of it whenever you need to. I think as well that the engine has to start on petrol, so you'll still need a bit, and some in reserve so that you can get to a petrol station. So it's likely to be longer than the best case (unless you know the above) 14 months before you get your money back, but still a reasonable time frame.

So how many miles does the Ully go in a year?

The price I was quoted was £1,600.00 and the tank goes in place of the spare wheel under the car. They give you a can of foam for temporary fixes of punctures.

It sounds like a lot but we spend over £2,500 in fuel per year for the Ulysse plus congestion charge cost which are now £8.00 a day. The LPG fuel cost would be £1,100 as you get 10% less MPG on LPG. That is a top of the range fully automated system with 2 year warranty.

Seems like a good deal on paper.

i remember when diesel was that much cheeper than petrol, so loads of people bought diesel, then the ficking goverment put the price of diesel up

My wife uses it most and it does about 14-15K miles, but as it is now 90% town driving and the car is an auto we get about 24-25mpg.

dave said:

i remember when diesel was that much cheeper than petrol, so loads of people bought diesel, then the ficking goverment put the price of diesel up

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I thought that as well, but apparently they have some agreement to maintain the difference between petrol and LPG for a certain period, trouble is I have no idea how long. They were giving conversion grants of 60% until recently, which would have been well worth it.

Gav said:

I think as well that the engine has to start on petrol, ?

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I don't think this is the case, our local council use transits that run on LPG only, and it's a normal engine.

The added benefits to LPG is that it is a higher octane rating than premium unleaded too, which is good for performance cars.

brickfoot said:

I don't think this is the case, our local council use transits that run on LPG only, and it's a normal engine.

The added benefits to LPG is that it is a higher octane rating than premium unleaded too, which is good for performance cars.

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This system starts on petrol depending on the temperature and then switches to LPG, if you run out of LPG it will automatically switch to petrol without any engine hesitation - apparently.

well htat's where the confusion is, our council vans don't have petrol tanks, and it's clear to see this on the flat-bed transits they use too.

I suppose it's all down to the setup.

I read up on LPG on www.howstuffworks.com worth a look

There are loads of different systems, sequential injection plus others. Loads of cars are LPG only in Europe so it is possible, probably factory fit systems.

Hi,
i have a marea 1.8 weekend converted to run on lpg, and as i drive about 2000 miles a month it saves me a lot of money !
i can do about 320 miles on 50litres of gas @ 29.5 p.p.l
as has been said the car starts on petrol and switches over to gas after about 20 secs, will also switch back to petrol if gas runs out.
i have noticed a big difference in lpg prices from 29.5 to 42.5 so it can pay to check around. i have been asked a lot if there is a change in performance, and all i can say is i haven't noticed any, although i do not "race about" as i did in my youth !!
if i can be of any help just ask
andy

Biggest load of rubbish out I am afraid. I have alot of experience with lpg and unless the vehicle was designed to run on it to start with then it doesnt work very well. Typically power is down by much more than 10%, in fact alot of people end up having then adjusted to full richness because the engine does not respond well enough. i have also had two vehicles burn out valve seats due to lpg. Also it interferes with the self adapting part of modern efi ecus so they get confused by the different settings required, ( I had a marea 1.6 that refused to start on petrol because the lpg had upset the efi ecu adaptions).
The other point that should be made is that there are also some real cowboys fitting this stuff, (you only need to go on a one day course to be qualified to fit it). Personally I wouldnt touch it with a bargepole.

oh well, i think my car must be on the way out then !!
however- i have just checked and i have done 38217 miles in 19 months,
mostly on gas, the car is now up to 125000 miles,and runs troublefree ,i use my car mon to fri for work and so need it to be reliable, which it has been, apart from changing the head gasket when the radiator got holed, at which time we inspected the valves and seats which were fine.
just goes to show every car is different, and you can be lucky or unlucky.
cheers
andy

NumanR said:

Biggest load of rubbish out I am afraid. I have alot of experience with lpg and unless the vehicle was designed to run on it to start with then it doesnt work very well. Typically power is down by much more than 10%, in fact alot of people end up having then adjusted to full richness because the engine does not respond well enough. i have also had two vehicles burn out valve seats due to lpg. Also it interferes with the self adapting part of modern efi ecus so they get confused by the different settings required, ( I had a marea 1.6 that refused to start on petrol because the lpg had upset the efi ecu adaptions).
The other point that should be made is that there are also some real cowboys fitting this stuff, (you only need to go on a one day course to be qualified to fit it). Personally I wouldnt touch it with a bargepole.

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How much experience have you had because you must have seen bad installations, all my relatives in Holland use it and there is no reason it would burn out valves as it has a lower calorific value than petrol. Power loss is only a problem on high performance cars.

Nowadays you need to an intensive course for approval and you also need type approval for the system used.

All the Volvo, Vauxhall etc cars running on LPG are standard engines with a factory fit conversion (made by one of the LPG manufacturers).

I'd convert if:

1: I lost no Performance
2: My Tipo could be gaurunteed to start everytime, anytime like it does now
3: That the prices wont turn gay as soon as I convert
4: I wouldn't have to be in the Garage every week to have something fixed
5: If I did have to visit the Garage more regularly (currently only for Mods and Tune ups) that they would know exactly what they were looking for and it wouldn't take years to fix it.

So no chance then, Tranc

Only report what I have seen and experienced, performance is lost regardless of it being a performance car or not. I have experience of the training as I was invited to train to fit it. I have stripped the aforementioned engines with valve problems, the lpg fitting company accepted liability and paid for repairs. Unless its factorary fit I would not touch it.