Looking for an installer in W-s-M/Bristol/Taunton area

[trapdoor]

Hi all,

New poster here, though have been reading the forum as a guest for a while.

Have recently taken on a new Freelance contract that now requires me to travel (used to be 90% home based). I have a 2004 BMW X3 3.0i which if I'm lucky, I can achieve about 26mpg on a run. Town driving is much, much worse at about 18mpg.

After making some long trips recently, I've been horrified at the cost of each journey, and whilst I do get the HMRC rate paid by my 'employers', it covers the fuel cost but not much else for the wear & tear element. So I'm now seriously considering LPG. I don't want to change my car as the X3 suits my job 100%, it's a cracking car with lots of 'toys', and living out in the wilds, with a set of winter tyres fitted, I can get about whilst the rest of the village is snowbound. The car is also still covered under the BMW 'insured warranty' so I need to seriously consider this when looking at an LPG conversion.

So my initial question is, does anyone have any recommendations for a top rate installer in the Weston-super-Mare/Taunton/Bristol area? I was initially going to look at Greenfuel in Bath, and have had a (pretty high) quote for a BRC system, but I'm somewhat concerned that I've read some negative things about Greenfuel, one fairly recently over on the General discussion. There is also Blaze in Chippenham, but they seem to mainly do Landrover. I've also seen info for Lloyd Ash in Bridgwater.

One thing that concerns me is that most of these installer websites seem to be out of date, one stating LPG at 30ppl! And there never seems to be anywhere showing the average LPG price to enable me to work out the cost savings. Does anyone know if there is a 'petrol equivalent MPG' calculator out there which will be able to give an indication of what my petrol equivalent MPG would be when running on LPG, so taking into account the lower efficiency of LPG, but also the lower cost - so as an example, on petrol I run at 26MPG, but on LPG the equivalent MPG would be say 32MPG ....

Any info and pointers gratefully received.

[Tubbs]

Blaze in Chippenham ! he is called rossko on here and a very good installer by all accounts.
Its a pretty easy calculation. Petrol is at, and always has been at a 2:1 ratio to LPG. So if you are spending 100 quid on petrol then you would pretty much spend 50 quid on LPG.... Simple.
You hear that its about 20% less on MPG but its more like 10% with the modern systems, dependent on the car obviously.

[Gilbertd]

If it does 26 mpg on petrol, it should do 20 mpg on gas. Cost is roughly 70p per litre so near as makes no odds half the price of petrol which will give you the equivalent running costs of 40 mpg on petrol.

[rossko]

Tis true we mostly Landrover now. Lloyd Ash are local and will do you a good job, but (like us) not a cheapo job.

If you are on "fuel-only" allowance beware that the payer of your expenses may have a LPG rate that is less, you'll be back where you started.

[trapdoor]

Thanks for all the replies.

OK, will try Lloyd Ash. I don't want a cheap job, I want the best job, but don't want an expensive poor job masquerading as 'the best', which does seem to happen. It seems to be a minefield where some installers for some reason just fail to do a decent job on the odd car - and I don't want to be that one customer that gets a poor job because a BMW is a bit more 'complicated' than the average Ford and the installers margin is starting to slip during the install. After all, the LPG kit is pretty much the fixed price element, and the only corner-cutting can be the labour/install. My car is now an essential tool for my work, so I can't let anything turn a 100% reliable (though extremely petrol-thirsty) car turn into a problem, as no car = no work = no fee

My mileage is based on a flat rate, not any specific fuel type, so LPG won't be an issue, just means I 'make' more for each journey (and more if I can short-cut the Google route ).

[tommo2009]

"If it does 26 on petrol it will do 20 on gas", it may do if it is a very poor system that is badly installed and set up. On the older single point system you may have seen a drop that big but newer injection systems don't give anywhere near a big a drop as that.
A drop of around 10% should be seen although it may not even be that much

[Tubbs]

Hallelujah ! Its not just me thats noticed this then ? Ive been doing a bit of a straw poll on this. It seems anything up to a 2ltr can be as little as 4-5 % and seems to go up to somewhere nearer 10% with the bigger engines ? mates in the trade think im a bit mad. They all say you will never get better than 20%.
With all experiments you need a control factor and thats impossible to get because people drive so differently. Its a really hard one to get a definitive answer. You get a converter in say bristol or london then the customers are going to be reporting different things than where i live, Shropshire. And im sure a converter in Lincolnshire will be reporting different results than me too. Also you dont really know how capable the installers are at tuning etc.

[Gilbertd]

Alright then, I suppose I should have said if it does 26mpg on petrol it will do 'at least' 20mpg on gas. I can get way better than the 80% even on a single point if I drive carefully but as I conciously know that it's not costing me too much to run, I'll give it more welly than I might do otherwise. But there's also the ones, quite a few, that come on here saying that their consumption on gas is way different to on petrol. No matter what the reason, isn't it better to err on the side of caution than have somebody constantly thinking his system isn't set up right because it is using more fuel than he had been led to believe it would?

[john_d]

but as I conciously know that it's not costing me too much to run, I'll give it more welly than I might do otherwise.

thats what i do

[Tubbs]

Alright then, I suppose I should have said if it does 26mpg on petrol it will do 'at least' 20mpg on gas. I can get way better than the 80% even on a single point if I drive carefully but as I conciously know that it's not costing me too much to run, I'll give it more welly than I might do otherwise. But there's also the ones, quite a few, that come on here saying that their consumption on gas is way different to on petrol. No matter what the reason, isn't it better to err on the side of caution than have somebody constantly thinking his system isn't set up right because it is using more fuel than he had been led to believe it would?

Absolutely agree with you mate. It is, but its just an observation. As i said there are far too many variables anyway.

[tommo2009]

But if you welly it when on gas, it still doesn't mean a drop of 20% the MPG will decrease when you welly it whether it is on petrol or gas.

I do agree that it is better to err on the side of caution, but some people would not convert if they thought the consumption differences were that big, especially on some of the smaller cars that give very good fuel economy to start with.

A lot of cars also use knock sensors to alter the timing, this can bring the fuel economy right back up when on gas.

[pimpin gimp]

Have you had it converted yet? If not, speak with Andy at A&D 4x4 in Winscombe. They look after my RX300 (It's having a new set of Cats tomorrow by them) and they are incredibly professional and knowledgeable. They only deal with Prins systems as far as I'm aware, and offer quality installations.