WRX-DAN

Could somebody give me some information on this like...

how much it will cost?

are there are any power loss'?s

and in general is it worth doing?

Thanks

scooby L

on a subaru?

WRX-DAN

yeh

subaruturbo_18

I think there may be a slight power loss, but i'm not too sure. I think it costs a four figure sum to do so you wil only benifit from it if you are doing thousands of miles.

scooby L

Quite a bulky piece of kit too...

Hense why only big 4x4's with big v8's etc get converted... more cost effective.

G.Mac

iTrader: (2)

I emailed a company ages ago, might have been greenfuels or poss not, asking whether it was suitable for my car as its not standard and if i would be able to safely get the car mapped again after having the LPG conversion


never got a responce

Graeme

scooby L

Driving the Subaru Forester LPG
Introduction

Subaru has a new turbodiesel up its sleeve for 2008, but in the meantime it has launched liquid petroleum gas (LPG) versions of its popular Forester, Legacy and Outback models. Here we try the Forester SUV, which uses a conversion carried out by Millbrook, one of the leading LPG installers in the UK. What makes this conversion different from others that have been carried out on Subarus before is that it has a full three-year, 60,000 miles manufacturer-backed warranty. You can choose to have the conversion carried out before collecting your new Subaru or have the work carried out at a later date.

What is it?

The LPG conversion means ousting the spare wheel from its home in the boot floor. In its place is a large, circular tank that's referred to as a doughnut tank due to its shape. This doughnut tank is in addition to the usual petrol tank and is a very neat, uncluttered installation. When the boot carpet is placed back over the tank, there's no intrusion into the load space or any sign of what lurks beneath.

The only clues to the Forester using LPG are the discreet supplementary filler mounted just to the rear and below the normal petrol filler flap and the dash button to switch to LPG. Once the engine has been started as normal, the LPG fuel is used by pressing the button. There's a faint whirr from the doughnut tank's pump before it quietens down and, when the button's light goes from flashing to a constant light, you're running on LPG. The button also has a series of lights marking its circumference to tell you how much LPG is in the tank. You can switch between the normal petrol and LPG tanks at any speed, and with the combination of the two it usefully increases the Forester's journey range.

How does it drive?

Other than the initial whirr of the LPG tank's pump when it's engaged, you would never know that this car runs on the liquefied gas. There's no hassle to using it, no big drop in performance and the weight of a full tank is not much greater than the spare wheel it replaces, so handling remains unchanged.

The Forester LPG's 2.0-litre 'boxer' engine is, if anything, slightly more refined when using LPG than it is on unleaded. It's not quite as forceful when pulling hard to overtake slower traffic, but this is only noticeable when the engine is closing in on its red line, and you can always switch back to normal petrol power if you feel the need for those extra few horsepower.

The LPG-fuelled Forester is every bit as good to drive as any other. It has plenty of grip, direct steering and surprising agility for an SUV, although there's a fair degree of lean in bends. This is a pay-off for the supple ride that is ideally suited to the rural roads that most Foresters spend their lives negotiating. Standard four-wheel drive helps with on-road traction, but the Forester is not up to any serious off-roading.

Planet hugger or planet mugger?

Run a Forester only on LPG and you'll produce a shade less than one tonne of carbon dioxide emissions per annum, as well as fewer other harmful gases such as oxides of nitrogen. Using LPG, you can travel about three quarters of the distance possible on the same amount of unleaded, but the lower price of LPG makes it attractive. On top of the environmental savings, those living in London and proposed congestion charge zones are exempt as LPG is seen as clean and green. Even with upcoming changes to the London Congestion Charge, the Forester LPG would pay less than a petrol-only version.

Verdict

LPG is a balancing act between the cost of the conversion and the savings it gives due to the significantly lower fuel costs. At present, LPG costs around half that of unleaded petrol, so for someone travelling 12,000 miles or more per year, the Forester LPG pays off its £1,918 premium over a standard Forester in just less than three years. LPG is better for the environment than petrol and you can run a Forester solely on LPG with this conversion, so it's a muted thumbs up.

Wednesday October 31

scooby L

Forester 2.0 Litre £1918.00

Legacy 2.0 Litre £1918.00

Outback 2.5 Litre £1973.00

All conversions are covered by Subaru's new car warranty , and retro fits are the balance of the cars warranty from first registration.

Paul666

My wife has a Forester non-turbo, which is LPG converted and does 60 miles for the price of a gallon of petrol. Cost £1600 and the power loss with the multi-point injection systems is very small. The price for a system to suit a New STI at 300bhp is £1700 - 1750.
The car on your profile, I am told, has soft valves or seats and is not suited to the conversion as I have asked about a conversion for a MY99.
LPG has only 80% of the calorific value of petrol so if you get 25mpg on petrol you'll get 20mpg on gas but £1.19 against £0.50 per litre does make a difference but it all depends on your mileage as to whether it's worth it.
Thanks,
Paul.

Phildodd06

I have started doing gas conversions at work, They are not just fitted to big 4x4 v8
Infact we fit them to all kinds of cars.
The tanks are either fitted in the spare wheel well or underneath the floor pan, or in the boot space as a last resort.

The engine tends to run smoother on gas because it has a higher octaine than petrol (107 ron if i remember right)

There are some engines which are not suitable because of the soft valve seats.

Usually a conversion costs around £2000 for a decent kit, try to get a Prins system, there kits are good.

jono300

iTrader: (8)

Just a quick reply and sorry if It has possibly been covered above ?? but do the goverment not still offer grants for this type off conversion ?? I know there used to be one available.

still not sure about doing it to a car like the scooby thou ??!! would hate to think saving a few quid on fuel each year could potentially cost me the price off a rebuild ??!!

superstar1

I remember when diesel was a lot cheaper than petrol so when more people started to drive diesel cars, apart from truckers, the price went up and now it costs more than petrol. Same thing will happen with LPG.

IainCam

Naah... grants for the conversions were only available for cars up to 4 or 5 years old but were dropped completely a couple of years back.

Have an lpg'd disco (currently growing into the garden as it's so rarely used) which pulls the same on both lpg and petrol (v8i ). lpg makes a huge difference to the cost of running it (for the few times I've needed it), but then it's far more basic than a kit required to run on a turbo'd vehicle I'd guess.

Wouldn't imagine converting any car to lpg would cause any issues with your engine, only real issues are finding lpg stations (not that prolific up here) and the fact that you won't be able to use the channel tunnel with an lpg car (not an issue for me up here )

IainCam

Diesel was never half the price of petrol though was is... people have been claiming that lpg will double in price as it gets more popular for YEARS, decades probably.

It has risen in price in the last 4 or 5 years but only to the point where it remains about half the price of petrol/diesel (at least) so it's rising at the same level as the other fuels, and due to the fact that the numbers of people running lpg will never even get close to TDI/petrol owners the government are unlikely to raise the tax on it to over double the cost right now... esp when the lpg used to heat some peoples houses is the exact same thing as used to run the cars on (but at a further reduced tax rate... so you could do you know what and get it even cheaper )

Not that I'd suggest that anyone here would do that... even if they could

Phildodd06

LPG has rissen about 20 pence in over 10 years, which imo is not much

superstar1

If it gets a lot more popular the price will rocket, you wait and see, the government won't be able to resist nailing it with tax. They will even come up with an explanation because environmental issues will have been done to death. They will probably blame it on the Russians or the Chinese.

David Lock

Not strictly true. The LPG Association have a member's only page on their website which lists many modern cars that are unsuited for conversion or need extra work. Fords and Hondas are included. Many converter specialists use "Flash Lube" as an upper cylinder lubricant to try and overcome problems.

The key thing is to extract a worthwhile guarantee from the garage that does the work.

Incidentally a search will reveal many more threads on this subject in General and Drivetrain. dl

Blueblaster

It seems like a good idea until you have to shell out £1500 up front and then realise you've either got no boot left or you have to give up your spare wheel. Unless you do loads of miles and are always within range of a filling station it's a lot of hassle and inconvenience for very little financial gain.

Welloilbeefhooked

iTrader: (3)

I love these threads on LPG!

ditchmyster

iTrader: (7)

Yep its like the old one about diesel mondeo over petrol mondeo you need to do 100,000 miles to hit break even point on the diference between the cost of each new.. so unless your doing lots of miles £1500 buys a lot of fuel, well at least it used to when the original test was done.. oh and that was when diesel was cheaper than petrol.

SqeekyMclean

There is a guy that runs LPG WRX impreza's on track days.

Read about him in japanese performance magazine this week can't remember the company name....

BlooSooby

Agree with that, the Government need to get their revenue from somewhere so if everyone switched to LPG the price would have rocket in order to maintain the tax income, either that or they would whack you with a higher income tax rate (unlikely because it's a massive vote loser).

At the end of the day it's still a fossil fuel, cleaner or not, so they'll still burden the car user with the guilt of being solely responsible for destroying the planet.

I remember, not that long ago, when LPG was 18p/ltr in the UK!!

PantsUK

iTrader: (1)

Unless my maths are completely rubbish break even point would be 11500 miles which is not extortionate so payback in 1yr average 2nd year half price ??

1500 up front (so at a 50% return in running costs you'd need to spend £3000)
£3000 / £60 (my average cost of filling a tank)
= 50 fill ups to break even

50 x 230 (my low estimate for a tank) = 11500 miles

even if you spent the extra and spent £2000 for a top rate conversion payback would be in 15300 miles which is about 9-10 months for me so it is something I'm considering!

Welloilbeefhooked

iTrader: (3)

My conversion will have paid for itself in 9 months with a fuel saving of nearly £100 per months!!

Welloilbeefhooked

iTrader: (3)

This may be of use to you if you are thinking of converting.

https://www.scoobynet.com/projects-4...g-project.html

BlooSooby

Does the Government give out a grant towards the conversion? Here in sunny Oz you get about $2000 back from the Government when you get converted. The cost of the conversion is around $3500.

It makes a whole lot more sense here though as most people drive around in 5ltr V8 gas guzzling tyre shredders.

fpan

iTrader: (11)

Has anyone RRed their car on petrol and LPG to see what the difference is like?
I am considering a LPG conversion but want more power out of my car so not sure how these 2 would go together.
Should I change my exhaust system (sports cat etc), fuel pump and go for an Ecutek remap, then convert to LPG?
If I gain some power with the Ecutek remap and I am going to loose it by converting to LPG I am back to 0 (power wise - consumption will be better of course).
If only Subaru used direct injection like VW/Audi does in their engines we would have much more torque at lower rpm, less emissions and better fuel consumption. Take for example the 1.4 TSI engine with supercharger and turbocharger delivering 170bhp, or the 2.0 TFSI delivering 200 bhp but with a flat torque curve from 1800rpm!
Not sure whether I should spend any more money on upgrading this car or wait for the next generation of Golf in 2009.