How much does LPG conversion cost?

[Tamworthbay]

Does anyone know a rough cost for LPG conversion? Just got myself a nice 318 touring and it's perfect apart from the fact it likes to drink a bit. Just wondering about the possibility of LPG conversion. It will,only cover about 6000 miles a year so need to work out if it's viable or not.

[gordonbennet]

Depends where yergow obviously, reckon on about £1200 tops....we got the Outback (6 pot) done early last year for £1350 incl electric flashlube kit, you could save £50/80 or so by having a vacuum fed flashlube which would no doubt be fine on a Bavarian steed with valves made of summat stronger than Brie.

Yer only problem is where to put the tank, do 3 series have a spare wheel well cos i'm buggered if can remember.

 

To put this in perspective, a Polish lad i used to chops with regularly at one of my drops got his Mazda 6 2.5 V6 done while he was home for a few weeks on hols, cost him about £600.

[Eddie Honda]

6K miles p.a. in a 318 touring? Johnny Ball maths says not worth it.

[Tamworthbay]

Depends where yergow obviously, reckon on about £1200 tops....we got the Outback (6 pot) done early last year for £1350 incl electric flashlube kit, you could save £50/80 or so by having a vacuum fed flashlube which would no doubt be fine on a Bavarian steed with valves made of summat stronger than Brie.

Yer only problem is where to put the tank, do 3 series have a spare wheel well cos i'm buggered if can remember.

 

To put this in perspective, a Polish lad i used to chops with regularly at one of my drops got his Mazda 6 2.5 V6 done while he was home for a few weeks on hols, cost him about £600.

  it has a nice big fat spare wheel well. They only supply a space saver but loads of room in there for a tank. 

6K miles p.a. in a 318 touring? Johnny Ball maths says not worth it.

based on? I have heard costs anywhere from £500-£1500 with savings of £400-600 pa based on 6000 miles. If the installation is towards the £500 end and savings towards £600 then it's a no brainer, if it's £1500 installation and only £400 then it doesn't make sense as I will probably keep it three to four years. I am after real world experience to determine which end it's likely to be closer to rather than trusting the claims made online by the makers.

[skattrd]

Not worth it for that mileage in that car.

 

If you want lpg buy a car that's already converted.

Personally I wouldn't touch one unless it comes with an installation certificate (for insurance) and it's a decent multipoint system with a large tank.

[dave21478]

average pez cost per litre = 1.10

average lpg cost per litre = 0.56

 

lets say 30mpg average for the car = 30 miles to 4.5 litres

so 6000 miles would use about 900 litres.

 

900 litres pez = £990

900 litres gas = £504

 

LPG saves £400.

But in the real world LPG gives slightly lower MPG than petrol, so your savings will be less.

 

I will pick a figure of £800 out of my ass for installation costs, which is IMO probably on the low side......

 

Paying up £800 or more in a lump sum and loosing boot space or spare wheel is a lot of arse to possibly save £300 or so spread over a year and likely to take 3+ years or so to recoup your investment.

 

Verdict : Bollocks.

[gordonbennet]

TBH its what you do so you can have the beasty engined bastard which others avoid, meaning you can enjoy that beasty and go where your little heart pleases you.

 

No, LPG isn't for everyone, but it suits me and her cos its not been done calculated on a 'pay back' basis, bear with me...SWMBO doesn't think twice about going anywhere, her Outback H6 auto does about 21 mpg and she drives like fook, if she wants to pop up to the NEC or whatever takes her fancy she does, pops down to Watford to see her daughter same thing, its doing the equivalent of 38/40mpg...i have a big problem with how our country has been misgoverned over the last 40 years by traitors, so every time i fill up the accountant in charge of pissing my money up the wall gets less than he would otherwise, i don't actually care if payback doesn't happen he's getting as little of my money as i can get away with and i get to drive a 6 pot old school Benz with a proper auto box as fast as i like doing about the same MPG as the Outy and not some shit box little wanking chariot.

 

Was sorely tempted by an E500 recently, now one of those is worth LPGing cos you can have tarmac ripping power and Diesel saloon economy..again with a proper auto box.

 

Haven't converted the Landcruiser cos being a 90 series the bloody fuel tank is right where you'd mount the LPG tank so unless you want the tank in the boot, i don't, it means a reduced size petrol tank too sited beside the gas tank...too expensive for a 15 year old cruiser, though if get me lorry licence back this time (its up for renewal and it always has to go to the medical section) i might keep it for only a shortish time and then replace with an Amazon when the next recession strikes in about 2 years which is an easy conversion, dunno yet.

 

Don't expect anyone else to get my/our reasoning, LPG is a niche market at best.

[lisbon_road]

I'm with Gordon here.  I wouldn't just make the decision based on cost.  

 

Reckon on 20% loss of mpg.  If you want a bargain install, there are some very competant Polish installers out there who will do a good job and (I am generalising here) might well not pass the UK Code of Practise which is not obligatory but many insurance companies ask for it.  Or use a more reputable company and it does get a bit expensive.  

 

Agree also with the comment that you want a modern multipoint injection system. Nothing else.

 

But - it is cleaner, they run well and quieter (more noticeable on an older car admitedly) and feels good to be paying so little at the pump.

[Junkman]

A 318 shouldn't gulp a lot, so I'd investigate that issue first.

[Rusty_Rocket]

LPG cars always promise the earth, but the reality in my experience is not quite so rosy.

 

They never do as many miles on gas as you'd expect.  I would hope the latest 2010-onwards multi-point systems are better but the one on my Omega V6 was unreliable and chomped through the smelly stuff like there was no tomorrow.  It went back countless times to be recalibrated and set up by those 'in the know' but it was never 'right' and I sold it on disappointed.

I had a Mk3 Transit (twin wheeler bus- wish I still had it now..) with a basic mixer system which was faultless and reliable.  I suppose it saved a few pennies on every journey but I came to the conclusion that a diesel was less troublesome and easier to live with.

 

Mind you, nowadays diesel technology is too flaky and has the potential for massive bills with no warning.  Also, the guffament have now decided that diesel is the devil and is doing its best to ban such vehicles in various places (a trend which will continue I'm sure) so maybe LPG conversions will have their day in the UK yet.

[Bobthebeard]

Somewhere between £1000 to £1500 for a good warranted installation in my experience. Mine cost £1100 for a Honda Accord in June 2011. Did over 70K and paid for itself before the car was sold, as we were mostly running the car for business trips (45p per mile up to 10K per year) but Flashlube isn't cheap and often not taken into account when working out payback time/distance.

[lisbon_road]

I didn't put the figures in - my 4 cyl Polish install was £750.

 

Interesting, generalising again, their install isn't COP11 really, but they sure know what they are doing and it seems rock solid in terms of reliability and so on.

[Richard]

I think there is less energy in LPG than there is in petrol, so you'll never get the same mpg or performance. I would have another LPG car but I don't think I would have another with the bottom of the range engine.

[Fabergé Greggs]

What's the deal with the prices of LPG? I always worry that the prices will get hiked up one day without warning...

[DSdriver]

As previously mentioned, if you happen to be passing Poland that is the place to get it done. There are far more LPG cars over there so prices are cheaper and they know what they are doing.

[sierraman]

If I was lpg converting something it wouldn't be a 318. At least do a 325 or similar, something nice to drive and worthy of spending that sort of money on.

[Tamworthbay]

A 318 shouldn't gulp a lot, so I'd investigate that issue first.

318i SE AUTO, lucky to see 25mpg around town with 22-23 being closer to the mark. Not tooooo bad on a run at around 35mpg but I do a lot of start stop driving unfortunately. But due to other issues it had to be an auto really.

[Tamworthbay]

If I was lpg converting something it wouldn't be a 318. At least do a 325 or similar, something nice to drive and worthy of spending that sort of money on.

it's gorgeous to drive, a lot nicer than a Sierra

[sierraman]

In the same context, I wouldn't be converting a 1.8CVH, I'd be converting a 2.9. That's the essence of what im saying...

[Tamworthbay]

It's irrelevant though, I don't have a 325, I have a 318. Might as well say I wouldn't bother converting anything but a silver shadow. There are many reasons not to want one of the sixes, that's why I went for the one I did. The issue is the cost of conversion and whether at 6k a year it's worth doing. thankfully I have had some very helpful replies.

[dieselnutjob]

what would be the feeling about a large engined carby car, and totally dumping the petrol tank and going LPG only?

[Twiggy]

What's the deal with the prices of LPG? I always worry that the prices will get hiked up one day without warning...

This is what I`d be fretting about - the only reason that LPG is so cheap is because there is no fuel duty on it. I can see the day coming when the government decides to treat LPG in the same way as petrol for fuel duty.

[Skizzer]

what would be the feeling about a large engined carby car, and totally dumping the petrol tank and going LPG only?

 

You still need the petrol set-up for starting - LPG cars don't fire up on LPG.  You could swap the petrol tank out for a smaller one to make some space for an LPG tank I suppose, but that's a whole lot of extra installation cost even if you can source suitable size/shape tanks.

 

Another downside of LPG is that the fuel gauges are notoriously unreliable.  On my Disco, when it runs out of LPG (as it very quickly does) I have an oh-shit-it's-died moment, then realise what's happened and flick the switch over to petrol.

 

All this is worth putting up with in the V8 Discovery - which cost me less than the price of a back-street installation - but I really wouldn't bother for a marginal benefit.

[michael1703]

its surprising how much petrol you use when the car is cold, mine needs to be at 40celsius and over 1800rpm to switch over, I drive about a mile in the morning and a mile in the evening on petrol while its warming up and it all adds up.

 

In the winter every tank of LPG needs two gallons of petrol

[Junkman]

318i SE AUTO, lucky to see 25mpg around town with 22-23 being closer to the mark. Not tooooo bad on a run at around 35mpg but I do a lot of start stop driving unfortunately. But due to other issues it had to be an auto really.

 

So we are talking about 1,100 litres of petrol a year, or roughly £1,300. Hardly figures a motorist should be concerned with in any way.

Considering that with LPG you'd need about 20% more in litres, that would be about 1,300 litres, or £800.

So you would have to drive the car 3 years until you see the first savings.

[Tamworthbay]

its surprising how much petrol you use when the car is cold, mine needs to be at 40celsius and over 1800rpm to switch over, I drive about a mile in the morning and a mile in the evening on petrol while its warming up and it all adds up.

 

In the winter every tank of LPG needs two gallons of petrol

I think this is the deal breaker for me, I do a lot of short runs so by the sounds of it it will barely see LPG in the week in winter. Got 20.1mpg on way home today due to traffic.......

[steve_earwig]

From my experience of Croatian lpg conversions, the cost will likely be horrendous piston slap, burned valves and cracked cylinder heads. I hope they have a better idea what they're doing in Poland!

[gordonbennet]

This cold running problem shouldn't exist, fine tuning by someone who actually gives a fuck makes all the difference, and it's handy having the converter within easy reach for such things.

 

Both our cars will swap over to petrol by the time i've put me work kit in the boot and cleaned the windows of dew/frost or SWMBO has put her stuff in or got the dogs in the back, in the afternoon when i come home from work even on the coldest day its only 1 mile at the very most before switchover happens, my LPG man lowered the temp changeover point seeing how well it was doing at a higher temp.

 

TBH i'm glad its a niche thing, if too many people jumped on the bandwagon effin dick turpin would soon come up with an excuse to load more tax on the stuff.

[mat_the_cat]

You still need the petrol set-up for starting - LPG cars don't fire up on LPG.

 

You’re right in that LPG converted cars don’t start on gas, but that’s not to say they can’t…

 

Especially with a carb engine, or simple injection (no cat), with a mixer system there’s no reason why you can’t start on gas or at the very least switch over straight from cold. So long as the coolant is above -40 °C it will be warm enough to allow the gas to vaporise. I’m running my log collector Discovery just on a Calor bottle, and haven’t used the petrol system for around 5 years (it had a faulty fuel pressure regulator anyway, and no point in fixing it now, plus the petrol pumps seems to have failed).

 

With a gas injection system, there are two reasons why you can’t/shouldn’t start on gas. First of all, any ‘heavy ends’ in the system will tend to block the gas injectors when cold and therefore thick. This can be minimised by pointing the gas injector outlets downwards so any build up can flow as soon as it becomes warm enough.

 

Secondly, the LPG system works out the injection times from the petrol injector pulses, just adding a fiddle factor depending on gas pressure/temperature etc. When cold, gas doesn’t need the enrichment that petrol does (as it doesn’t suffer the problem of condensing on cold surfaces) so if it blindly followed the petrol system when cold it would be too rich. I’ve set the green Disco (injection system) to changeover at 28 °C and 1200 rpm, which is OK but going lower in temp. causes brief stuttering on changeover under load.

 

If you do a lot of short journeys on LPG a Kenlowe Hotstart or similar would probably pay for itself in a short while! One way round the cold enrichment problem would be to switch in a fake 'hot' resistance to the petrol ECU's coolant temperature sensor input when on gas, but the heavy end problem would remain.

[lisbon_road]

The AC Stag system on my car will start on gas.  This is a modern multi point system - you hold down the gas button when starting, and you don't need to do it again.  It just runs on gas and always starts on gas.  I don't know how it does this but it seems to work fine.  The installer showed me how to do it.

 

Advocates of the system say that Polish systems being most recently designed are the best.  I don't know whether they are right.

 

I used to run a Sierra on gas only and that started fine when covered in snow.  It was a Leonardo system, a closed loop system which uses a stepper motor controlled valve.  There are supposed to be issues with icing up but I never had any.  Perhaps I was lucky.