Death of UKLPG scheme!!

[Avensist]

Not that most of us here care, but I just found out that UKLPG's installer scheme, run by the autogas lobbying trade body has closed down.
https://www.drivelpg.co.uk/news/liquid- ... er-scheme/

It was a funny scheme with good intentions at first but lots of flaws.

When I used to work for a client who used to run a LPG conversion business some 20+ years ago, there was a lot of pressure to become a member of LPGA which was the name then, issued paper certificates for the conversions.

Some insurance companies required this although many didn't but seemed some sort of back handing going on to promote this between them. There was no proper training or exams to become a member so it was a matter of simply paying the registration fee and the annual membership fees to becomes an 'Approved Installer', although there was a set code of practice that had to be adhere to, but some of them contradictory.

For this reason, some cowboys were operating at the time paid and became a member, but under this scheme, any conversions done by such people were still classed as an 'approved' or 'certified' conversions.

At my clients, many cars used to come in with various faults caused by poor conversions, some of them outright dangerous but they were all done by the 'Approved Installers' with issued certificates. Customers were not happy and my client used to ring up LPGA to report but nothing got done.

Then the LPGA expanded and re-branded as UKLPG. At this point, it was coming towards the late 2000s and they were going online with their paper certificates and launched the online registration system, a bit like the MOT system where information could be entered and accessed online.

Since my client was quite active at that time, the head of UKLPG, Mr C used to come over to the premises for consultation of the new online system. As I was there at my client's as an IT consultant looking after the office IT and servers, I was told to give some advice to Mr C which I did.

Despite being the head, Mr C was as clueless as today's Rachel Reeves. His IT knowledge was even worse. None of the points I have made were taken into account when the system was eventually launched.

The whole interface looked like something from the Soviet era, presumably designed by some teenagers he knew who had a bit of SQL knowledge. It was a simple database but was very buggy with several annoying errors which could have been ironed out but they didn't. Furthermore it was hosted on a budget shared server with very limited bandwidth. This resulted in significantly slow access and entry to the system, pretty much the same scenario when the MOT first went online.

To register details of one vehicle conversion, during the day time it could take about an hour. Similarly accessing the information to check for registered information took as long.

Then I knew this whole things is another money making scam.

Despite the membership fee increase from time to time, Mr C did not do much to promote or secure the future of autogas, although he did seem to hold events or visit various installers across the country every now and then.

Scaremongering tactics were often used to entice more members as well as consumers to use approved installers but it seems the facts have finally caught up with them.

Nevertheless, I am surprised that it has lasted this long.

[LPGC]

I already knew the UKLPG scheme had ended, I think that was sometime around August this year.

I don't think it was set up with good intentions, I think it was set up to make money for UKLPG and to set the LPG converted vehicle scene up as the same kind of monopoly that UKLPG members like Calor and Flogas have over the LPG supply industry.

I was always against the UKLPG scheme, it did very little to improve safety, it gave customers the incorrect impression that UKLPG member installers were 'proper' installers who all did a safe job and all got excellent results when in my experience an install was just as likely to be safe in terms of fitting regardless of whether the installer was a member or not, and more likely to run properly on LPG if converted by an installer who wasn't a member.

I have met Mr C too, I allowed him to come visit me for a chat after a long running argument I had on this forum with an installer who was a UKLPG member about the merits of the UKLPG scheme. The other installer asked Mr C to pay me a visit, Mr C asked me if he could come, I said yes, we got on OK, I have been in touch with Mr C by email many times since. I instigated most of those emails, moaning to Mr C about the damage UKLPG was doing to the vehicle LPG conversion industry in the UK but to give him credit he always replied... though his anwers tended to shy away from directly asnwering my points. During our one meeting he told me it was his idea to set up UKLPG's (then LPGA's) vehicle LPG conversion department and he thought it would be an easy ride for him leading up to his retirement.

There are 2 types of 'safe' when it comes to an LPG converted vehicle, 1 There's how safe the install is in simple nut and bolts terms, e.g. external venting of tanks, float fill limits, gas pipe routing (not next to exhausts etc). Except for routing pipes past components that get hot or vibrate point 1 can scrutinised without even driving the vehicle, it isn't related to how well the vehicle drives, an install can pass point 1 even if the engine won't run on gas because the installer got something (or lots of things) wrong. 2. There's how safe the install is in terms of drive-ability. If a vehicle doesn't drive properly when running on LPG, for example if the engine cuts out during deceleration approaching a roundabout with consequential loss of power steering and brake boost, that can be unsafe. Everything point 1 related is very straightforward, simple and should be common sense to anyone who works on vehicles. The real difference between installers is all in point 2. The UKLPG scheme focussed entirely on point 1, not on point 2 at all. Years ago DVSA asked my advice about whether LPG conversions should be partially inspected/tested during an MOT test, I said yes and DVSA went on to include aspects of an LPG install during the MOT. But UKLPG didn't want LPG conversions to be covered in the MOT... So much for their take on safety eh.

Yes UKLPG did persuade some insurance companies (mostly companies that were members of UK Insurance Group) that they should only offer to insure LPG converted vehicles that had been converted (or inspected and passed) by one of their members. UKLPG did not tell it's member installers to tell customers that it was their legal obligation to update the fuel type on the logbook (on DVLA records), instead it seemed UKLPG wanted a situation in which they had the only record of vehicles that were LPG converted. This led to a situation in which if government (or anyone else) wanted to know the number of LPG converted vehcles on the roads in the UK they would usually be told a figure that was a small percentage of the real number of LPG converted vehicles on the road - If they asked the DVLA the DVLA would give the figure according to their records which was smaller than the real number because UKLPG member installers (and most none UKLPG member installers) were not advising customers to inform DVLA that their vehicle had been LPG converted; If they asked UKLPG they would be told the figure UKLPG had in their records (in their database) which was a small number because most installs were not fitted or inspected by UKLPG members so were never entered in UKLPG records. We can imagine that if someone in government asked UKLPG or Mr C how many vehicles in the UK ran on LPG that they would not want to give a number higher than the number of vehicles they had on their database/records... because if they gave a much higher number it would undermine/contradict the point UKLPG would rather make which was that they were in some way the overseer of vehicle LPG conversions in the UK - UKLPG can't be the overseer whose whole safety points about LPG converted vehicles boil down to the simple nuts and bolts aspects of a conversion (point 1 above) if there's been no 'incidents' related to point 1 and if your members were only involved in 10% of the total number of LPG converted vehicles because if they were the overseer and the reason for LPG vehicles being safe it would beg the question why then the other 90% of vehicles their members never had anything to do with were just as safe.. If they admitted to not being involved with the majority of LPG converted vehicles it would have (correctly) shown their scheme to be ineffective and pointless.

Regardless of UKLPG persuading some insurance companies not to insure an LPG converted vehicle if they were not involved with the conversion, insurance companies did insure vehicles that were not involved with them anyway. No 'factory LPG fitted' vehicle was 'approved' by UKLPG yet owners of factory fitted vehicles had no problem getting insurance with any insurance company. The reason for that was because the factory fitted vehicles all had LPG as a fuel type on the logbook! If a vehicle has LPG as a fuel type on the logbook most insurance companies that UKLPG and Mr C did dupe into their scheme would insure the vehicle regardless of whether it had been seen by a UKLPG member - This was another reason for UKLPG and Mr C not to want LPG converted vehicle owners to inform DVLA about the fuel type change or have LPG as a fuel type on the logbook and I believe it was a calculated position on UKLPG's and Mr C's part... A calclated position that meant all their installer members customers were technically breaking the law for not informing DVLA about the change of fuel type to their vehicle. A calculated position that meant emergency services approaching an accident would not know if a petrol vehicle was LPG converted or not, they might contact DVLA to find out if a vehicle was petrol or diesel but wouldn't contact a private trade body to find out if a vehicle was LPG converted or not. Anyway, if the word of an installer is good enough for DVLA it should be good enough for an insurance company and DVLA's take on it should outweigh the view of a trade body that is mostly concerned with the supply of LPG fuel not the safe running of vehicles, especially if the vehicle has passed an MOT with the LPG conversion fitted.

UKLPG's involvement stitched up LPG conversions in the UK because it made it seem there were far fewer vehicles running on LPG than there actually were/are - If you're in a position to change transport/fuel/green policies and see LPG as a positive you might still decide to drop any incentives for it if you believe relativley few people were/are interested in it. This was one of the things I've moaned to Mr C about and he agreed with me. But I still think there's more to it - UKLPG's main members are Calor and Flogas, they more or less have the monopoly on gas supply in the UK for bulk gas supply to domestic users, bottled gas and refuelling forecourts that sell LPG. Then along come refillable gas bottles such as the Safefill type bottles that an increasing number of motorhomes use, the motorhome users used to buy gas in exchange bottles at high prices but can now refil their refillable bottles at forecourts at far lower prices for a litre of gas than it used to cost them in exchange bottles. This means lower profit for the monopoly gas supply companies because bottled gas users are filling their own bottles at forecourts, not only are forecourt prices far cheaper than bottled gas prices per litre but also the forecourt prices include fuel duty that goes to the government. If you are the boss of Calor or Flogas and realise that your exchange bottle profits are decreasing because people are refilling their own bottles at forecourts and you have to pay road duty out of the forecourt price, while at the same time you think the number of vehicles on the roads that run on LPG is very small so most of your forecourt sales must be to people refilling their bottles (not filling LPG converted vehicles) then you might think it a good idea to pull LPG from forecourts so you will still sell the same amount of gas to motorhome users but sell it in your higher price exchange bottles instead of allowing people to refill refillable bottles at the the forecourts. The price of LPG around Birmingham reflects what the real price of LPG should be, it is lack of competition due to the Calor / Flogas monopoly and UKLPG's involvement that makes prices higher elsewhere across the country. Example prices - LPG from a Morrisons forecourt today 99.9p per litre, of which 14.44p +VAT (17.33p) per litre goes to the government, so the price without fuel duty (to the sellers) would 82.57p per litre, someone could refill their motorhome tank at that forecourt where-as otherwise they might have paid Calor or Flogas around £2 per litre for the same gas in a mid sized (13kg) Calor or Flogas exchange bottle and Calor/Flogas wouldn't need to pay any road duty on the gas they supplied in the exchange bottle. *It used to cost more than forecourt prices to buy gas in the larger 47kg bottles too, but these days it's usually cheaper to buy it in 47kg bottles than to buy it from a forecourt*.

I also think UKLPG made the same mistake as some of the LPG equipment manufacturers, they imagined the vehicle conversion scene would be mostly 'established garages' (such as MOT garages, places fitting brake pads and clutches etc) turning their hands to converting vehicles to run on LPG. The problem with 'established garages' doing LPG conversions was/is that they are mostly mechanics who are good at replacing worn out existing components with new components on a vehicle, not necessarily (or usually) any good at designing systems to fit to vehicles, not even usually particularly clued up on fixing fuelling issues on the standard stuff. In practice it turned out to be mostly specialists that set up doing LPG conversions not /established garages' and it's probably just as well because the specialists were more likely to be clued up on standard fuel systems and turned out to be more likely to understand/learn how to make an engine run properly on LPG. Prins, BRC and UKLPG all got this wrong, the 'established garages' they wanted to see involved were usually not as good as the specialists they would rather see not involved, the 'established garages' did/do still tend to see LPG conversion as a bolt-on job in much the same sense as fitting a clutch, no need to properly understand it if it should work if they just bolt it on... But 'established garages' were the places most supported by UKLPG (and including at least the couple of systems makers I mentioned above) again to the detriment of the conversion industry. However, mostly unrelated to UKLPG, Calor, Flogas, Prins and BRC we also had an influx of installers who promised lifetime warranties on cheap low quality installs, then went out of business or went abroad leaving customers with poor quality installs that didn't run properly. We also had the 'taxi scam' where local governments/councils would allow owners of LPG converted vehicles to be exempt from emissions zones charges - What usually happened was a taxi driver in (say) Manchester would want an LPG conversion mostly to be exempt from emission zone charges and partly for the lower running costs, so the taxi driver would take their taxi to (say) Birmingham for what would probably be the cheapest LPG conversion they could buy and be happy even if it didn't run properly on LPG because they were still enjoying the emission zone exemptions, if it ran OK on LPG that would just be another bonus. Again, if you're in government and would like to promote LPG as a greener option but realise most of the taxis entering your city that are supposedly running on LPG are probably really running on petrol because they had a naff LPG conversion fitted that doesn't run properly then you'll probably have second thoughts about those taxis really being greener and lose interest in promoting LPG.

UKLPG, a profit making trade body that represented LPG suppliers such as Calor and Flogas and which had already been close on the radar of the monopolicies commission, shouldn't have had any involement in a vehicle safety scheme, it made no sense. An analogy would be having a petrol production / distribution company such as Shell (or a trade body for companies like Shell) being in charge of vehicle testing at both the design stage (like running Ncap) and at MOT level. And if this version of Shell had (say) Ford as a member they'd be getting away with misinforming the public that another vehicle manufacturer (say Vauxhall) that wasn't one of their members produced cars that were bound to be unsafe because it wasn't one of their members. This version of Shell doesn't compete with (say) BP, they are more in collusion with BP via their trade body with the idea being to keep other fuel producers/distributors out of the industry, together they already have a critical mass of forecourts, enough to be in control of the supply industry of forecourt equipment and prevent any new start businesses from making a foothold - except around Birmingham.

[Avensist]

Hats off to Simon for expanding further into details of what actually went on behind the scenes. Very interesting read, thank you.
(By the way, I was being sarcastic when I said 'good intentions' as I associate that term a lot with failing politicians...)

Anyway, totally agree with all the points you've raised.

Although the pleasure of chatting with Mr C was brief as I was not meant to be chatting with him in the first place (I was more of a guy in the background but client dragged me out), I did get the impression that it was something geared towards his own benefit than for the benefit for the industry as a whole. Subsequently, I only saw my client struggle throughout the scheme especially with the IT side of things in conjunction with having to deal with stupid insurance companies for countless hours.

I can relate to the issues surrounding 'established garages' doing LPG conversions that you've mentioned. Back in the day, quite a few were terrified as everything was unknown to them and they were not willing to learn either. I remember one of my mate's garage was adamant that they will not touch LPG vehicles just because two Vauxhall Vectras that came in which both had a draw-through conversion had back fired and blew the air filter box and amongst other thing to such a state. One towed in with already blown everything, the second one happened when they were trying to sort out the running problems.

I tried to explain to them the reasons for the fault and mechanism of how things work but even then they were still not 100% sure I don't think. And the guy who was standing near the engine bay at the time of blow-back was shocked the most. To this very day, we still laugh about it.

And that taxis and ULEZ, whatever happened to that I wonder.... I remember initially there were moves to convert black cabs to run on LPG by putting Vauxhall turbo engine or something but whether that caught on or not couldn't find further information since. Frightening to think that's almost 10 years ago...

[LPGC]

The backfiring / exploding mixer setup would have passed UKLPG's Cop11 test. Same as a Landrcuiser I was once called out to having suffered exploded inlet manifold would have passed Cop11. Both exploded due to having a mixer system on an engine with a plastic manifold and other failings of the installer but as long as the tank was bolted on/in properly, externally vented and pipework from the tank to engine bay / filler point was fit for purpose they could pass.

A lot of taxi drivers were left in the lurch when having paid for the engine replacement and LPG conversion UKLPG member suppliers decided not to supply them with LPG. I believe it was partly a case of bad timing, around that time a new refinery was being built and supply of LPG might have been low, so UKLPG / members prioritised home heating and bottled gas (exchange bottle gas) customers over vehicle fuel using the excuse vehicles including taxis still had the capability to run on petrol. A bit tragic, the taxis could have continued to run on LPG if they bought it in exchange bottles...

We can bet that if there was more competition in the supply chain, if UKLPG members Calor and Flogas didn't have the monopoly, plenty suppliers would have jumped at the chance of supplying the taxi fleet and there could have been healthy competition keeping prices low.

It would be nice if other suppliers set up to supply forecourts. One of the problems with that is that in some cases Calor / Flogas own the equipment of forecourts in which case they'll have a contract that says only they can supply the forecourt. However in many cases the forecourt equipment will be older than the terms of the contract, just that the forecourt owners don't realise they could use any supplier they wanted to use and UKLPG suppliers will try to obfiscate the matter to give the impression to forecourt owners that they are still obligated to use them as supplier. UKLPG member suppliers were in trouble with the monopoly commision a few years ago for using much the same kind of tactics with home heating customers. I don't know if setting prices to much the same (high) price, i.e. not competing with each other, was also involved but I believe it was.Would be nice if some of those cheap suppliers in the Birmingham area invested in more bulk carrying trucks and made it clear to forecourts (and home heating customers) that they were free to buy from them and they would be happy to supply them. A new start supplier wouldn't need to worry about motorhome users filling bottles / motorhome tanks at forecourts they supplied offsetting profits from exchange gas bottles either, because a new start company (or most of those suppliers around Birmingham) wouldn't have an exchange bottle business anyway, for them any sale would be a bonus and if it were one in the eye for Calor / Flogas so much the better.

I reckon Calor and Flogas should be forced in some way to lose their monopoly and if that means breaking them up into smaller supply companies so be it, for too long they have got away with the monopoly and lack of competition has been bad for consumers, particularly LPG fuelled vehicle users. The government has also missed a trick with the Morrisons situation, for a long time Morrisons was a good decent priced supplier of LPG but since they were taken over by MFG they immediately increased the price citing the supply price from Calor / Flogas as the reason for upping the retail price. Government should have considered that Morrisons were one of the last big retail suppliers of LPG to motorists at the same time they were thinking about MFG's increasing monopoly on petrol and diesel. LPG isn't 'zero emissions' like electric powered vehicles but is far lower in CO2 emissions to the extent of somewhere between around 10% and 33%. I have personally converted thousands of vehicles to LPG, if we only said 2000 that would mean I could personally be responsible for the equivalent in emissions reduction as taking 600 vehicles off the road, LPG is an excellent 'itermediary' fuel even if the long term goal is for all vehicles to be electric. LPG bought today is 10% bio or synthetic LPG and according to UKLPG by 2040 all LPG will be bio or synthetic meaning even lower (or effectively zero) emissions which is as good as electric anyway.

[Avensist]

You are so right there Simon!!

One of the reasons why that garage didn't want to touch LPG cars any more was one of the Vectra owner was so upset and went ballistic, swearing and blinding claiming it was fully approved conversion etc, which of course my mate didn't understand what that meant at the time. So, most likely the LPGA approved conversion then.

Even at my client's, many cars came with running issues, but all done by another 'approved installer', many had wirings not securely attached resulting in rubbing against body work or other components causing short or open circuit to name but a few in conjunction with other failures.

Mr C must have retired by now I'd assume...

I don't see many of those black cabs when I'm down in London so just wondered what happened. Most are Toyota Corolla Hybrids or Prius but many do have the LPG filler on their bumpers.

[Gilbertd]

It's always interested me as to exactly just how many cars are on the road running LPG. Ignoring the minority that will be on the UKLPG database, the figure of 200,000 was mentioned some time ago as being the number registered with DVLA. But registered as what? My car is registered with the fuel type of Petrol/Gas, but what about some of the others? The factory conversions may well be shown as Dual Fuel, BiFuel or whatever the manufacturer decided to call them. So that means that a simple search for Petrol/Gas will only catch some but not all.

Not only that but I have owned 6 different LPG fuelled cars and only 1 of them had the correct fuel type shown on the V5. I had to show DVLA a receipt for the gas system (thanks Simon) and send a letter explaining that I needed the fuel type to be correctly shown as I regularly travel in Europe and I needed it for the French Crit Air vignette. DVLA never seemed that concerned anyway. My first LPG car was a 1995 Saab 900 which came with a V5 showing fuel as Petrol but a Safety Inspection certificate for the LPG system. As this was in the days of the DVLA local offices, I went into mine, showed them the certificate and asked if they could change the fuel type on the V5. No point, said the woman, it's too old to get the discount on road tax. I replied that it was a legal requirement for me to declare a change of fuel type and she just said, "well you've told us now". So that Saab never did have the correct fuel type shown.

I also imported a 1980's BMW that was already converted and sent the papers in to DVLA to register it here. I correctly filled in the fuel type as Petrol/Gas only for the V5 to be issued showing the fuel type as Petrol. I returned it as incorrect and asked them to enter the correct fuel type. I told them that as it was a Classic BMW that was due to be exhibited at the Retromobile classic car show in Paris and without the LPG being shown on the V5 it wouldn't be possible to get the correct Crit Air vignette so it wouldn't be possible to drive it into central Paris (this was all BS of course) but they did change it for me.

But back to my point. If the DVLA records show there are 200,000 cars running on LPG but only 1 in 6 of the cars I have bought didn't have the correct fuel type shown on the V5, that would suggest to me that there are 5 times that number, so the actual figure is nearer 1,000,000. How we can go about proving it though I have no idea.......

[LPGC]

Like you've implied, petrol / gas isn't an adequate description, gas could be any or more of LPG, CNG, hydrogen, etc. But DVLA should be expert on these matters and realise that gas is much more likely going to mean LPG than anything else, particularly when in the UK there are no forecourts selling CNG, hydrogen, etc. They wouldn't be happy if we swapped a vehicle engine petrol to diesel or vice/versa and entered the fuel type as none specific 'liquid' but that is much the same as having a none specific 'gas' as fuel type.

The DVLA front person was wrong not to change the fuel type on the logbook, maybe she couldn't be bothered to process it? If they're interested in petrol/diesel fuel type being correct they should also be interested if it's converted to LPG. Even if they don't see any reason to differentiate between petrol and LPG there are obvious reasons why they (or others) might want to know that information in future... the fire crew visiting the scene of a crash with vehicles on fire, government for their transport policies, etc. They are the government's department for keeping vehicle records after all.

Volume of sales at forecourts should give some indication as to number of vehicles running on LPG but maybe Calor / Flogas confuse sales to campervan owners refilling tanks for cookers etc with sales to LPG converted vehicle users. Or maybe Calor / Flogas have worked the figures out and have a good idea how many LPG converted vehicles are on the roads, the drop in profits due to campervan users refilling at forecourts instead of buying the same gas in exchange bottles might outweigh the profit from selling fuel to motorists who would otherwise not use LPG at all. But if an outside/new LPG supplier who didn't have an exchange bottle business got involved with supplying forecourts it would be a bonus for them to supply motorhome owners at forecourts on top of selling LPG to LPG converted vehicle users at forecourts. Calor / Flogas and their trade body wouldn't want that to happen.