LPG availability
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russellwheeler
- New member
- Posts: 7
- Joined: Thu Jan 05, 2023 2:47 pm
LPG availability
I currently have a Sandero Bifuel - I have run LPG cars for many years, and saved thousands over the years. There is a problem now with the availability of LPG. It's getting harder to find, and the stations with LPG are often out of gas or broken. Back in the 90's it tended to be specialist sites rather than Petrol stations to purchase LPG from. What then seemed to happen is lots of Petrol stations started selling LPG cheaper than the specialist sites, which then ceased. Now in 2023 the petrol stations seem to be stopping providing LPG. Is there any way of purchasing larger gas bottles (like the type used for static caravans) - and then pumping LPG into the cars tank ?
Re: LPG availability
The short version of the answer, is you need a pump to do so (transfer between cylinders and tanks)
http://www.diy-lpg.co.uk/articles/articles.html - this is from one of the members here (SimonHobson) with quite a bit of useful info particually on these two pages
http://www.diy-lpg.co.uk/articles/files ... -vane.html
http://www.diy-lpg.co.uk/articles/files ... olume.html
There are other ways of doing it but that should give you enough to start with.
As far as availability goes, at the moment it seems getting the gas out of Flogas/Calor depots to the stations is the issue - It would seem winter has caught them by surprise. The local station here has had a broken pump for over a month that they are awaiting parts for, I've tried Shell in Addlestone today to find they now have a working pump, but no gas in the tank and has been out for months whilst they awaited the pump being fixed (suspect a lot of this is them running the tank too low and knackering the compressor as a result personally).
You can see whats available using the following sites if your not already aware of them (mostly UK coverage on the first two)
https://autogas.app/ (moderated and can be a little slow to update info other than prices)
https://www.filllpg.co.uk/ (works, but may take a few tries to get to work)
https://www.mylpg.eu/stations/united-kingdom/
If you've got a few grand to do so and the space, https://www.birminghamautogas.co.uk/ did offer a skid mounted tank that could be used and refilled by them (when I enquired out of interest it was around £6k for it if you had the space ready with power etc).
You don't say where you are located, But Asda seems to be more reliable than the others at the moment if there is one near to you.
Others (Shell, Sainsburys, Moto and MFG mainly) have removed tanks/pumps citing costs around keeping them (regular maintaince and tank testing) as their reason for removal.
A lot of the issue with the man and tank setup, is that they were only open during the daytime, so lost a lot of trade from the drivers that needed to fill up before 9am or after 5pm. Flogas in particular don't seem to be able to keep ontop of their keysites either (which should be easy to deal with as they are monitored!) and on enquiring why one of them was out of action, was advised it had received a delivery, but needed an engineer visit to reset the pump as it was locked out (after running out!). Personally I'd have expected that the tanker driver could have done that in a well run business?
http://www.diy-lpg.co.uk/articles/articles.html - this is from one of the members here (SimonHobson) with quite a bit of useful info particually on these two pages
http://www.diy-lpg.co.uk/articles/files ... -vane.html
http://www.diy-lpg.co.uk/articles/files ... olume.html
There are other ways of doing it but that should give you enough to start with.
As far as availability goes, at the moment it seems getting the gas out of Flogas/Calor depots to the stations is the issue - It would seem winter has caught them by surprise. The local station here has had a broken pump for over a month that they are awaiting parts for, I've tried Shell in Addlestone today to find they now have a working pump, but no gas in the tank and has been out for months whilst they awaited the pump being fixed (suspect a lot of this is them running the tank too low and knackering the compressor as a result personally).
You can see whats available using the following sites if your not already aware of them (mostly UK coverage on the first two)
https://autogas.app/ (moderated and can be a little slow to update info other than prices)
https://www.filllpg.co.uk/ (works, but may take a few tries to get to work)
https://www.mylpg.eu/stations/united-kingdom/
If you've got a few grand to do so and the space, https://www.birminghamautogas.co.uk/ did offer a skid mounted tank that could be used and refilled by them (when I enquired out of interest it was around £6k for it if you had the space ready with power etc).
You don't say where you are located, But Asda seems to be more reliable than the others at the moment if there is one near to you.
Others (Shell, Sainsburys, Moto and MFG mainly) have removed tanks/pumps citing costs around keeping them (regular maintaince and tank testing) as their reason for removal.
A lot of the issue with the man and tank setup, is that they were only open during the daytime, so lost a lot of trade from the drivers that needed to fill up before 9am or after 5pm. Flogas in particular don't seem to be able to keep ontop of their keysites either (which should be easy to deal with as they are monitored!) and on enquiring why one of them was out of action, was advised it had received a delivery, but needed an engineer visit to reset the pump as it was locked out (after running out!). Personally I'd have expected that the tanker driver could have done that in a well run business?