Gilbertd wrote:
LPGC wrote:
Price he pays for gas works out at 48p/litre.
That's because there's no road fuel duty added to the price. But risky for a taxi driver, if HMRC find out the first thing they'll do is seize his car.....
I know and I told the taxi driver but he already knew... He fills from bottles at home and seems to think there's little chance of getting caught. Like he says, once the fuel is in the vehicle it is indistinguishable from LPG bought at a pump. He says he declares some of the bottled gas he uses as road fuel (form EX101?) so if he gets caught he can use the get-out 'But I declare all the bottled gas I use'...
People are always looking for ways to reduce fuel bills, that's why I got into LPG... Before I got into LPG I looked into producing bio-diesel. To produce it properly, dangerous chemicals were/are needed and if the finished product didn't / doesn't meet government specs (the specs are demanding and producers do get inspected) then the full road duty must be paid on it, if made to spec biodiesel attracts less road duty (or at least it did when I was looking into it)... At the time, if the full duty had to be paid it wouldn't be viable to produce for a profit. Even if the product met government specs the cost to produce it would work out at just a few pence less than normal diesel... so I didn't do it. I taught a friend how to make it properly and he set up producing / selling it but, like most backstreet biodiesel producers, he simply filtered waste oil and passed it off as 'bio-diesel', so it didn't meet spec and should have attracted the full duty (but he didn't pay the duty - he's dead now so mentioning this won't do any harm!). He had people queing up to buy it but many vehicles had problems with their fuel pumps, clogged injectors, blocked fuel lines, etc. If he had made it properly to spec then the vehicles wouldn't have had problems with clogged pipes, filters, injectors, but some vehicles would need adapting to run on proper spec biodiesel (it attacks fuel system seals, so seals need to be changed to metal, a kind of catch22 situation). People still bought his biodiesel even though it was illegal (no road duty paid), could easily be discovered in their tanks, potentially damaged their vehicles and made their exhaust smell like an acrid McDonalds
The comparison:
Biodiesel is illegal if bought from an industrial estate (no duty paid) or will probably cost more than pump diesel if produced properly and fuel duty is paid - LPG is half price fuel and is legal if bought from a garage or gas depot (road duty is already paid).
Biodiesel can easily be detected in vehicles (a simple dip will find it) - LPG from any source is the same stuff, so once it is in the tank no test can point to where the fuel came from i.e. a garage forecourt or out of a bottle.
Biodiesel (the none spec simple filtered category) can damage injection pumps, injectors, clog filters, clog fuel lines, makes the exhaust smell nasty and leads to acid build up in the oil. This type of biodiesel is arguably a worse fuel for diesel engines than pump diesel. LPG is arguably a better fuel for petrol engines than petrol.
Biodiesel (the 'to spec' properly treated variety) is usually more expensive than simple biodiesel, usually even more expensive than normal diesel, and many vehicles using it need to be adapted (seals etc changed) first. Even this proper biodiesel can creat further problems in engines because it doesn't lubricate the expensive diesel fuel pumps, so often has to be mixed with normal pump diesel. To run on LPG no major engine parts need changing, though obviously the vehicle will need the additional LPG fuel system installing if it isn't already converted to LPG.
Garage forecourt biodiesel isn't really biodiesel, it is only a mixture of around 90% normal diesel and around 10% properly treated (to spec) biodiesel (B10). I believe it usually costs bus companies that use different mixes of biodiesel (up to B100) more to run their fleets than it would to run their fleets on pump diesel... They use biodiesel only because they think people will consider their company more environmentally friendly.
Plenty of people seem willing to run a diesel vehicle on anything that costs a bit less than pump diesel, even if they are aware of all the issues/risks mentioned above. People with LPG converted vehicles seem similarly willing to run their vehicles on LPG bought in bottles to save even more money than they would running their vehicle on pump LPG. The risks for LPG users (if avoiding road fuel duty) are arguably lower than for biodiesel (or red diesel) users and, since LPG is the same whatever the source, it is definitely less likely to cause vehicle problems.
Simon
www.Lpgc.co.uk_________________
Full time LPG installer
Servicing / Diagnostics / Repairs to all systems / DIY conversion kits supplied with thorough tech support
Mid Yorkshire
2 miles A1, 8 miles M62,
http://www.Lpgc.co.ukTwitter
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