j4ckos mate

surely this must be a hot topic,

anyone got one,

ive seen that vauxhall do a bi fuel car, is this petrol and lpg?

MattW

Yes. LPG tank in spare wheel area IIRC.

David_Dickson

I looked into converting my car (v6 petrol engine) to LPG. I did some rough calculations and even with petrol prices as they are, its not worth it unless you do high miles or plan on keeping the car a very long time.

Ill copy n paste what I posted on another forum....

Work out your average yearly mileage. Figure on £1500 - £1800 for fitting of the kit. Work out how long it will take you to save the fitting costs of the kit. Thats just to make your money back though, you need to keep using the car after that to actually SAVE money, so figure how long you intend keeping the car.

as a VERY rough guide...
10000 miles per year at an average of 25 mpg = 400 gallons = 1800 litres.
1800 litres of petrol at 1.10 per litre = £1980. Call it 2 grand

MPG is slightly less on gas, soo....
10000 miles a year at an average of 22mpg = 455 gallons = 2068 litres.
2068 litres of gas at 60p per litre = £1240

So, by running gas for a year, you will save £760 therefor it will take you 2 years to pay off the LPG installation costs.
After 2 years, you start saving £760 per year.

If you only plan on keeping your car for 3 years, its not worth the hassle. £760 overall saving in 3 years is only £20 per month. You could just drive more economically and save that much petrol.
But, it becomes worthwhile if you keep the car longer, also, the numbers change if you hunt around for gas. Pump lpg is dear, but you can find it much chaper from bulk suppliers.

Now, diesel.
assuming the same figures for the petrol car...
10000 miles a year in a diesel at 40mpg = 250 gallons = 1137 litres
1137 litres at 1.20 per litre = £1365 - almost the same as LPG running costs.

Now, you dont have the initial upfront installation costs of fitting LPG, but you do have to sell your car and buy a diesel, and probably have to pay the difference. You also have insurance costs and tax cots to figure too. You need to figure what your car will sell for, and how much a decent diesel will cost to buy then work out how long it will take you to save the involved changing costs.

If you are keeping the car long-temr, LPG on the v6 looks very attractive, assuming you can find the upfront installation costs. If you know what you are doing with tools, you could fit it yourself, the kits sell for under a grand, so your savings will start after slighty over one year.
If you plan on changing cars within the next 3 years, may as well do it now and get a diesel

Thing is...diesel is obviously only going to go up and up in price too, and Ill bet LPG will increase too, but I dont know by what rate.

Felix.

LPG price is fixed for a few years yet and you can fit the LPG kit to the car yourself to keep the cost down.

Also, if you want to be naughty, there is no way of telling the difference between heating LPG and fuel LPG. The price of heating LPG is about 12p per litre I think

David_Dickson

very true, thats what i hinted at in my original post, but you will need a bulk storage tank - or know someone who has one.

As far as Im aware, the fixed duty rate on lpg has expired already, but the government hasnt incresed it anyway.

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

As I have always thought, Bi Curious.....