LPG Discussion Forum

Just completed a trip to Sarlat France, covered 1550 miles.

I took 2 adapters with me, the Acme style for Belgium and the dish style for France.My dish adapter was aluminium and not well made I had to be very carefull about tightening to stop the "O" ring blowing out, everyone looks to see whats happening!

In Belgium/France LPG is called GPL. Apart from the motorways LPG can be found at lots of filling stations in Belgium at 30cents per litre--yes 30 euro cents about 25pence.

I used 4 filling stations in Belgium and 2 used the Acme thread filler and 2 used the French style dish.

In France it is best found at supermarket filling stations where it costs 70 cents per litre, similar to UK prices. Just remember that supermarkets in France close on sunday and the ones that open is only up to 12. midday


My car is a BMW 745i and doing the maths it averaged 23 mpg on "D" roads (Funny enough my MPG showed as 22.9 mpg on the car computer)- I only use motorways if speed is needed.The "D" roads are excellent - many long and staight for 10s of miles with little traffic and much better scenery.Usually I average about 40mph over a few hundred miles.

Just got to remember that all towns and villages are 50kph and speed cameras are on the increase. I have been told that they dont prosecute foreign registered vehicles because they dont have access to registration information.

Most of the French filling stations will sell you a decent quality, brass cup adapter for around 8 Euros. You are right about the speed cameras, they are popping up everywhere but can be ignored. There was talk about 3 years ago that there would be cross border agreements so drivers of foreign registered cars could be contacted and chased for payment. Unfortunately, the EU instigated Data Protection Act doesn't allow DVLA to pass personal information to another countries authorities so you can get flashed with impunity (same goes for parking tickets too). I once set myself the target of being flashed by every speed camera between Nice and Calais. I succeeded but never heard anything..... Beware of manned speed cameras though. They will stop you and demand an on the spot fine. So if you see a marked car (often something like a Subaru Impreza) lurking at the side of the road, beware, he'll be pointing a speed gun at you. They have their favourite spots of Autoroute where they sit and they also sit just inside the sign to tell you when you enter a village to nab you in the 50kph area.

Gilbertd wrote:Most of the French filling stations will sell you a decent quality, brass cup adapter for around 8 Euros. You are right about the speed cameras, they are popping up everywhere but can be ignored. There was talk about 3 years ago that there would be cross border agreements so drivers of foreign registered cars could be contacted and chased for payment. Unfortunately, the EU instigated Data Protection Act doesn't allow DVLA to pass personal information to another countries authorities so you can get flashed with impunity (same goes for parking tickets too). I once set myself the target of being flashed by every speed camera between Nice and Calais. I succeeded but never heard anything..... Beware of manned speed cameras though. They will stop you and demand an on the spot fine. So if you see a marked car (often something like a Subaru Impreza) lurking at the side of the road, beware, he'll be pointing a speed gun at you. They have their favourite spots of Autoroute where they sit and they also sit just inside the sign to tell you when you enter a village to nab you in the 50kph area.

Interesting you say that - Someone I work with got penalty notices on a uk registered car for non-payment of the m50 toll in Dublin. Not sure how he missed the signs for it as they are somewhat obvious though suspect he may have got confused by the toll for the tunnel to goto the port (which you pay at a barrier, rather than the m50 which is barrierless like the Dartford crossing is now). There may well be different agreements with Ireland and the UK due to the shared land border though i guess.