Mercedes ML500 LPG converted

[Gilbertd]

Sounds like you have an almost identical standard of installation to the Range Rover owner who's tale I linked to earlier in this thread. Maybe they've had a change of staff and whoever is doing the installs now has lower standards?

[Tubbs]

Oh dear, oh dear, thats not very good is it...those 'dinky' magic reducers fail to keep up with a 3 litre v6..where 450 bhp comes from i will never know.
Hope you get it sorted anyway.

[woody]

Dont call me cynical,but is this not yet another case of "you got what you paid for" ???

If i was you i would go for a full refund and get the job done properly.

Woody

[simonp]

Thank for the feedback again everyone. Im going back up on thursday am for Mint to look at things. As I have always said, things go wrong, as long as things get put right im happy. Im a bit disappointed that the inspector found faults that could risk the safety of my family, but as long as mint put them right and ensure myself and my kids are safe while travelling then im happy with that. My wife, on the other hand, is rather livid. Shes a solicitor by trade and is itching to declare the work as 'not fit for purpose' and start a claim, but im holding that back as I trust that mintLPG will put things right. I will stipulate however that this is the last time I will be going back for things to be 'fixed' ....

[Gilbertd]

Blimey, you're a pushover aren't you. Would you be as laid back about it if there had been a fire while your family were in the car? Not only would I want it fixed to the satisfaction of the UKLPG inspector but I would also be claiming for travelling costs, the difference in running costs while you have had to run it on petrol as the LPG system is too dangerous to use, loss of earnings for the day you had to be available for the car to be inspected and a compensation payment for the potential danger you and your family were subjected to. I'm with your wife on this one. The system fitted correctly and a full refund of everything you've paid at the very least.

[simonp]

Normally im not a pushover, but in this case I think you may be right, ive been very flexible so far - but as you say if something had gone wrong the consequences could have been disasterous to say the least. At this stage i just want it right, ill give them this chance on thursday to do that and if that goes wrong then will be exploring other options available to us.

[N_Willmott]

Are Mint what was previously Autogas Worldwide??

Cheers.

Nige.

[markocosic]

Autogas Worldwide Ltd? A company that defended* the use of bubble wrap and duck tape to secure components in the engine bay? New name, same commitment to quality?

*http://www.lpginfo.co.uk/golpgcourt.html

[simonp]

(@ N_Willmott , yes i belive that the two companies are connected as they are based on the same site. However, they could have separate ownership for all I know)

The car is back with mint as of this morning and I have left the car for them to work on today and tomorrow. Once again the chaps were very friendly and looked at the issues. There was some disagreement from them over the assesment from the UKLPG inspection on some of the minor items, however the person (who I believe to be the owner of Mint LPG) did say there were some things that seemed to have been done incorrectly, for which he apologised, and will immediately rectify. He also said that he had a change of staff recently and it seems some of the old staff had done some things below his standards.

I was a little taken aback by the suggestion (not from the owner) that the system was not designed for 'racing' after I had highlighted the times I had seen misfires at 5k RPM, although personally I feel that is an easy RPM to achieve, for example while overtaking. However, after I pointed out 30 someting bhp per cylinder is not a lot (considering im a guy coming from the 80+ bhp per cylinder world) the person im assuming was the owner soon agreed with me that any LPG kit should be able to handle the full RPM range in any gear available on the vehicle.

Overall, I feel that my concerns were listened to and that the company will take a really hard look at this car now to ensure its all tip top. I will, naturally, report back here my findings, feelings and assesment of things when I get the car back. I would currently put my assesment as; this has conversion has been one of the ones that sometimes 'go wrong,', but I also highlight that the guys over at Mint seem to be doing the right thing to put it right. I would really be frustrated if I were coming back for these fixes from a hundred miles away, but luckily im not. Though I am a bit frustrated of the problems that have happened in the few months ive had this conversion done. Heres hoping i get plenty of years good service out of the conversion after this repair visit.

[N_Willmott]

I was a little taken aback by the suggestion (not from the owner) that the system was not designed for 'racing' after I had highlighted the times I had seen misfires at 5k RPM, although personally I feel that is an easy RPM to achieve, for example while overtaking. However, after I pointed out 30 someting bhp per cylinder is not a lot (considering im a guy coming from the 80+ bhp per cylinder world) the person im assuming was the owner soon agreed with me that any LPG kit should be able to handle the full RPM range in any gear available on the vehicle.

Sounds remarkably like:

5.Whichever the gear, if revved to 5K RPM the vehicle would switch back to petrol - this was never explained prior to conversion, nor is it detailed on Go LPG's website as normal LPG operation on a high powered car! So much for 'Sports and High Performance Conversions'! SWITCHING BACK TO PETROL IS NOT RECOMMENDED WHEN YOU ARE TRYING TO OVERTAKE A TRUCK ON THE MOTORWAY! In addition, what if I want to take the car to Germany to drive on the unlimited speed Autobahns? This majority of the driving would have to be done on petrol as the Romano N LPG system installed by Mr Steven P Sparrow would not consistently run on LPG.

3. It became evident that the Romano N system could not cope with the standard power of the vehicle and it it kept switching back to petrol due to the Romano N injectors not being able to match the petrol injection times. This was discovered when undertaking the standard Romano N tuning procedure that he the installer (Mr Steven P Sparrow of Go LPG) instructed me to follow in terms of my driving style whilst he accompanied me in the passenger seat with his laptop and Romano N software. Later, he and his supplier (Autogas Worldwide Ltd) decided to employ more 'dirty tricks' by stating that my driving style was 'extreme' and 'maniacal' (this despite the fact that Mr Steven P Sparrow told me that he has several penalty points on his licence and I have zero!)

http://www.lpginfo.co.uk/whoisgolpg.html

Cheers.

Nige.

[rossko]

That axe is well ground already. This is not a Go LPG job.

[Gilbertd]

I had to hunt to find the relevance too. The only tenuous connection is that somebody from Autogas Worldwide, now trading as Mint LPG, gave an opinion at the GoLPG Court hearing.

[markocosic]

A & B have a commercial relationship. B makes money selling goods to A. A makes money installing those goods. A does a terrible job, refuses to make amends, and finds themselves up in court. B decides to defend A's work in court. Commercial interests over ethics.

It's a company directors' character reference that affects the size of the pinch of salt with which you take everything that B says.

[simonp]

HELP!! please?

Last week (1st or 2nd) the car went back in to mint and work was done to fix the problems and safety issues. The injectors were all replaced. A new tank valve was put on and the owner said he had put 62 litres in the tank. The piping under the car was re-routed to a safer place. The leak under the bonnet was fixed and new injector rails added (though im not sure these should be mounted on top of the manifold, but am assured by mint its safe). The vaporizer was replaced with a more modern version of the same unit that was already on there. No retune was done.

So ive driven it to london and back, and the fuel economy is way way better - a HUGE improvement (think 1/2 tank of LPG to get to work instead of the usual entire tank). Pavel called me on this monday to check how things were and i said the improvements were noticeable, however I was still having the mis-fires at high rpm (5000+, eg 2nd gear while overtaking).They asked met
to bring it back in, but they were busy on wednesday 8th and on 9/10th i had pre arranged time off.

So today me and the family get in the car and drive from wales to newcastle. after about 250 miles, the tank is empty and it cuts over to petrol. I dive into a petrol station and fill up the LPG (shell autogas). It takes 61.89 litres before the pump shuts off, i pay and find a gap in the traffic to accelerate into. As we are entering the road, the car cuts over to LPG and immediately i lose all power. The lights show I have a full tank, and the lights show the vehicle is running on LPG, but nothing happens. As this catastrophic failure happens as im just joining the A1(m), a HGV nearly rear-ends me with a full tank of LPG in the back with my kids sitting right above it.
It will cut over to LPG, the lights indicate LPG is on, but then the engine dies, theres just no fuel going in at all. It was working fine just minutes earlier on LPG.

Ive had enough now. Once again the safety of my kids and family is at risk and im stuck now with paying out double the amount i had budgeted for fuel for the majority of this 650 mile round trip. This is beyond a joke.

Ive tried calling mint, and ive texted Pavel on his mobile but as of nearly 3 hours later, no response. Does anyone know if this is a simple problem I can fix to at least get things going again or is it, as they say, 'screwed again'??

[mat_fenwick]

I paid a £100 deposit over the phone with my visa credit card (not debit card). This is actually a really handy thing to do as it makes the credit card company liable in the event that you have a problem and the retailer is out of business/wont help/cant help etc.

With hindsight this would appear to be a wise move...have you investigated this option? I can't see why it should cut out when changing to LPG as if there is a failure of the LPG supply the system should failsafe back to petrol. I hope one of the installers on here is able to shed light on it.

[simonp]

It's certainly an option at this stage.

Had a look at things this morning stationary on the drive, and when the car cuts over to LPG i can hold it running with a lot of throttle, however when I feel the injectors it's clear from the ticking (or lack thereof) that only 4 out of the 8 injectors are opening. 2 on each side of the engine just aren't opening at all. All the wiring appears secured but as I'm not qualified to investigate I'm not going to do anything than the visual I have already done. I'm just really disappointed.

[Tubbs]

I honestly have to say that after about 10 mins of contemplation I can't think of anything that would cause it not to failsafe back to petrol. Other than a massively lean or overly rich mixture. So it runs on gas but really badly. Any faults and it will revert. But why would it change so drastically ? I'm at a loss to understand tbh. Check both the injector harness multiplugs are plugged in securely ? They seat with a very definate click. Seen that before. But it would also be pants on petrol ?

[simonp]

Hi Tubbs,
Its been on my mind most of the day. Im really itching to get in and rip things apart to diagnose the fault, but its a warrantied system so im not going to touch it. From what i can see everything is securely attached. I did wonder if fuel contamination could be to blame, however the only gas that was in the tank was a tank provided by mint themselves, and then I filled up with shell branded autogas -I would find it surprising if shell and calor are putting out a contaminated product. But then that leaves the question, wouldnt the two inline filters take care of that? Not sure how to describe the system, but there are 4 injectors and 1 filter on each 'rail', so two filters, two rails and eight injectors in total. There are two injectors on each rail that are dead. If this was contamination, then why would half of the injectors on each rail be unaffected? I could be clutching at straws, perhaps this is completely electrical

this overall lpg conversion experience has taught me way more than i ever thought id need to know about LPG, thats for sure

[rossko]

only 4 out of the 8 injectors are opening.

That's a big clue. Mint own-brand / Ultragas system? I have been caught on that issue, the underlying reason for me was a too-small peak in the peak-n-hold injector drive failing to open some injectors sometimes (cold starts, or maybe in your case hotter than usual after a short soak). Fix was a simple software parameter change.

If you hadn't found that, I would have been suspecting an tank excess flow valve glitch as a freshly filled tank tries to repressurise an empty line on a hot day, and may lock.

It's a bit disappointing they didn't get to properly road test the high load/rpm issue (which is probably unrelated to the injector thing) after apparently taking action to address it.

[simonp]

That's a big clue. Mint own-brand / Ultragas system? I have been caught on that issue, the underlying reason for me was a too-small peak in the peak-n-hold injector drive failing to open some injectors sometimes (cold starts, or maybe in your case hotter than usual after a short soak). Fix was a simple software parameter change.

Yep its that one. Looks like they bolted this onto the car with the aeb2568D

http://www.mintlpg.co.uk/Store/Autogas- ... ersion-Kit

It has the powermax injectors, branded as ultragas. I gave each injector a sharp 'adjustment' with the heel of my hand and they have all started firing again and it runs normally now. Typical that happens AFTER the petrol on the tip home has bene used

It's a bit disappointing they didn't get to properly road test the high load/rpm issue (which is probably unrelated to the injector thing) after apparently taking action to address it.

They said they did test it and were unable to reproduce. I find that the problem only occurs under heavy kickdown or when using tiptronic to hold the gears to 6k rpm, so its possible they were just not testing to those conditions. To be fair, id be happy with it running on petrol when it goes over 4500rpm. Petrol and the power when i need it, gas for economy driving - that really would be ideal for me. Is the 2568D capable of this do you know? If thats the case then id be happy to tune it myself as am comfortable in that area - any recommendations for an interface lead and software?

Many thanks!