what paperwork will insurers ask for

[marcos]

How is it these days? I hear the LPGA register is no more....If i buy a car with an lpg conversion and declare the conversion to insurers, what paperwork will they ask for (if any)?

[Gilbertd]

I've never been asked to supply anything by insurers, only an invoice for the components or install for DVLA to change the fuel type on my V5. Even that was only needed to get a Classe 1 Crit Air sticker for the French low emission zones.

[marcos]

thanks for the reply.

You are a pro installer right? Do you know how it is with pre existing lpg conversions /diy conversions? Would they ask for some sort of professional sign off doc?

[Gilbertd]

No I'm not an installer, you are confusing me with Simon (LPGC). I had a safety certificate for mine but they wouldn't accept that, they wanted to see an invoice for the parts for a DIY conversion. Not easy when it was already converted when I bought the car.....

[marcos]

Sorry i thought you were the chap who converted Saabs

So dvla wanted a paper trail but the insurers did not?

[Gilbertd]

I bought a Saab that was already converted and it came with a safety certificate showing that the system been converted and tested, but the V5 still showed petrol. In those days the DVLA had local offices so I went into my local one with the V5 and certificate to get it updated. I was told there was no need as it was a pre-2001 car so I wouldn't get the discount on road tax. When I pointed out that I was supposed to notify the change of fuel type, they just said I'd notified them so that was it. My current car was bought, also already converted and, as I regularly drive in Europe, I needed to get the French Crit Air sticker and they wanted a scan of the V5. As it showed fuel type as petrol I would have got a Classe 3 sticker so contacted DVLA and explained the situation. They wouldn't accept a safety certificate but would accept an invoice for an install or for the components to do a DIY install. So I obtained an invoice to send to them and they changed the fuel type from Petrol to Petrol/Gas. Insurer only wanted to see a V5 with the fuel type correctly shown.

DVLA don't seem particularly bothered either. I registered an imported BMW that was already converted and put fuel type as Petrol/Gas on the V55/5 you submit to register a car. The V5 was issued showing simply petrol so I wrote to them and pointed out that it was a restored, early, BMW and was due to be shown at Retromobile, a large French classic car show held in Paris. I told them without the fuel type being correctly shown, it would not be possible to drive it in the Paris low emission zone so it had to be corrected. So they did.

Out of 6 cars I have bought that have already been converted, only 1 originally showed the correct fuel type. If this is representative, the estimates of cars using LPG in this country is almost certainly completely wrong and the number is much higher than the DVLA figures suggest. As these figures are used to justify LPG being removed from filling stations, it isn't surprising that it is getting harder to find it.

[LPGC]

Exactly as Gilbert said.

I am a pro installer, DVLA accept the invoice or receipt I provide after converting a vehicle as proof it has been LPG converted and (I dunno how relevant) by a competent person.

Over the years I have provided many people with paperwork that says I have inspected an LPG converted vehicle, it has been LPG converted and fitted properly etc, this also satisfies DVLA for those who want to get their logbook changed to show LPG as a fuel type.

I've said this any times - Back in the days (until quite recently) of the LPGA / UKLPG / LiquidGas running their private LPG converted vehicle 'safety' registration scheme they tried to give everyone the impression that they were the authority that ran THE Lpg safety scheme, that the only way an LPG converted vehicle could be legit was if it had been converted by or inspected and passed by one of their trade body members, that the only way an LPG converted vehicle would ever get insured would be if it was on their private database. The impression they wanted everyone to have was always incorrect. Most insurers would only question it if the logbook fuel type details didn't match the spec of the car the owner was trying to insure, if the owner said the car was LPG converted but the logbook said it wasn't then insurers might start asking questions and want the owner to jump through other hoops to 'prove' that it was safe but if the owner said the car was LPG converted and the logbook said the car was LPG converted insurers didn't usually question it. None of the factory LPG converted vehicles were ever on the trade body database but they had no problem getting insured. The trade body could/should have told all their LPG installer members that they should be advising their customers to get the fuel type changed on the logbook, it is a legal responsibility to tell DVLA about any fuel type change to a vehicle. For this purpose DVLA would have been more likely to accept the invoice/receipt provided by the installer than the 'certificate' or 'database registration' (inverted commas because these are nothing official, they are just the trade body's self run scheme) done by the trade body. We can easily imagine why the trade body didn't want to advise their installer members to advise their customers to send the invoice/receipt off to DVLA to get the logbook changed to show LPG as a fuel type.

As Gilbert said, this situation has left us in a position where the number of LPG converted vehicles on roads is unknown, there is no record of LPG conversion for most vehicles that have been LPG converted. If the government considered this trade body's scheme all important and accurate then if they asked the trade body how many LPG converted cars are on the road they would be told a very low figure because the vast majority of installers were never members of the trade body. If the government look up number of vehicles with LPG as a fuel type on DVLA's records they will see a very low figure because most that went on the trade body's records never went on DVLA's records and most none trade body installers didn't tell their customers to get the fuel type changed on the logbook. Even if the trade body's figure and the DVLA's figure were added together the true number of LPG converted vehicles on the road would still be vastly under-represented.

The government are not the only people likely to be interested in the number of LPG converted vehicles on the roads. Imagine you're a big gas supply company like Flogas or Calorgas, you know how much LPG you are supplying to forecourts but you don't know if that gas is being used to supply LPG converted vehicles or to fill up camper van gas tanks (which they use for fuelling appliances such as cookers etc as opposed fuelling the engine). Any gas you sell at a forecourt that fuels an engine is gas that you otherwise wouldn't have sold becuase that engine could also run on petrol. But any gas that fills a campervan tank is gas that you would very likely still have sold in portable exchange bottles not so long ago before campervans started getting kitted out with their own gas tanks that could be refilled at a forecourt. You used to make a lot of money by selling gas in the medium and small bottle sizes because you overcharged for the gas in medium and smaller bottle sizes, but now these camper van owners can fill up with gas at the forecourts you supply and fill up with your gas without paying a hire charge for your bottle and without paying your higher prices for gas in medium/small bottles. So you know how much gas you're selling to forecourts but you don't know if that's gas you would otherwise have sold anyway in bottles or if it is gas that you wouldn't have sold at all... you don't sell petrol, you only sell gas. Who do you ask for the figures? The first place that comes to mind is your trade body because your competitors are also members of the trade body and your competitors will also want to know the same information. You ask your trade body and they tell you their figure which is the figure that is on their database, again that vastly low figure. So now you think that most of the gas you're selling at forecourts must be to the camper van lot then, you think you'd be better off just not supplying forecourts because you'd be making more money if people went back to buying your gas in those medium and small bottles again.

The trade body involvement with vehicles should never have happened. A trade body that was set up to look after the interests of big gas supply firms like Calor and Flogas being involved in some sort of a safety scheme for vehicles is as daft as Shell or BP running the MOT scheme. The trade body's involvement should have started with the gas supply companies and ended at the forecourt installation. I think they were out of order and it wasn't their place to even suggest they should run some sort of vehicle safety scheme, they did it purely to cash in on installers who were daft enough to pay for trade body membership and pay a charge for every vehicle they entered on the trade body private database. At one point they were insisting LPG vehicle components suppliers in the UK should also be their members and charging the suppliers more money than they charged installers to become members but that only lasted until the suppliers decided not to pay... Their supposed system meant that an installer could not buy parts except from a supplier who was one of their members, so you can see that if none of the UK suppliers were members none of the installers would have any reason to be members anyway since they would be breaking trade body rules if they bought from any supplier who wasn't a member and there came a point when no supplier was a member lol. They were always changing their own rules to maximise their own profits irrespective of any real safety concerns, irrespective of whether or not it was a positive or negative for the vehicle LPG conversions scene in the UK. I have always said their involvement was bad for the scene, I now think it was worse than even I ever thought. I accept that vehicles are part of climate change and one day most people will be in an EV but in the meentime an LPG converted vehicle is cleaner in 2 ways than other vehicles, it's exhaust emissions are cleaner (and contain less CO2) and the fact the vehicle runs on cheaper cleaner LPG means it will probably be kept on the road longer before it is scrapped. Scrapping a vehicle to build another vehicle uses a lot of energy, uses a lot of resources and creates a lot of emissions anyway even if the replacement is an EV. Most other countries are increasing their use of LPG as a road fuel, LPG can and should have a good part to play in any transission to cleaner vehicles and can make a bigger impact at a fraction of the cost until/if we get to the point where nearly every car is an EV. Even then LPG will still be available and I intend to still run a car on it. By 2040 all LPG sold in the UK will be bio or synthetically made but still chemically exactly the same, still available because it will still be used by caterers, out in the sticks houses, motorhome and caravan users etc. And if it is bio or synthetically made it might be as clean as electric anyway, especially considered my car doesn't have to be melted down to produce an EV.