LPG economy

[muffster]

Evening folks.
I'm debating wether or not to go for a converted car or not as i'm unsure if i will be any better off.
I'm tempted by a BMW 318 which does 34 mpg on petrol, i think the tank is a 60 litre one. I do a regular long drive of 260 miles to work and usually do around the 600 miles a week.
So does anyone run anything similar to this, i'm trying to find out if i will get 260 miles out of a 60 litre tank, or will i end up running it on petrol as well and end up not being any better off?
Any help on this would be great.

Many thanks.

Muffster.

[Beeza410]

You can count on getting 15-20% less when running on LPG, sounds bad but when you consider the price difference in Petrol and LPG it all makes sense. You can also look at 8 months to a year before you have regained your initial outlay for the conversion, after that you are in 'profit'? You may notice a very small decrease in power on your 1.8 litre engine but not enough to warrant any concern

[CougarV6]

You will partially use petrol for startup, but as your doing longer distances than most it is definitely worth your while using LPG, your costs will be around 60-65% of what you would pay on petrol alone, i thoroughly recommend it, i just wish i had done mine before doing 5years at 95 miles a day lol, but we all live and learn haha

[tommo2009]

if the car does 34MPG and you have a 60litre tank, that works out to be 10.6 gallons of LPG (80% of 60) which in turn is 360ish miles from one tank full. wehter you get that is entirley down to the vehicle and driving but 260 miles should be acheivable quite easily

[stype3]

Hi,
If you drive reasonably you should get more than 260 miles from a 60l tank.

But, depending on age, you may well find yourself with only 80% of the power. (greater power loss from more modern engines, compared with older ones) This is not usually a problem with a large engined car, with the BMW318 you may be a bit disappointed with a lack of performance. You can allways get this back though, by switching over to petrol as required.

As far as MPG goes, reckon on getting a maximum of 75% on gas compared with petrol, for a car less than 10 years old. For cars 15 plus years old, it appears you can get as good mpg on gas as you can on petrol

[muffster]

Thanks for the information folks.
Next question, how easy would it be to fit a larger tank?

Cheers.

Muffster.

[tommo2009]

you can put a bigger tank in quite easily, depends on how much boot space you are willing to lose.
I am intrigued by the comment from STYPE3 about the power loss,
I have fitted very many systems and have never had a loss in performance with an injection system

[lazydocker]

you can put a bigger tank in quite easily, depends on how much boot space you are willing to lose.
I am intrigued by the comment from STYPE3 about the power loss,
I have fitted very many systems and have never had a loss in performance with an injection system

I'd agree with you... I've converted 4/5 Omegas now and not noticed any power loss, even on the 2.2 engine

I'd say you're much better to look at the savings in pence per mile. On an Omega (of any engine size) it seems to work out at a shade under 10p per mile saving when running on LPG

[muffster]

So is installing a larger tank a DIY job or does it need a specialist?
Cheers.
Muffster.

[tommo2009]

it's a fairly straight forward DIY install

[DadBJ]

G'day,
I run a Seat with a 1.4. It has a 47litre (water) tank which works out at about 38litres gas, I can run for 284miles when it starts to lean out and fall over.
So with the larger tank and a not much bigger engine then I would think your expectation of range out of the tank would be no problems.
As far as power loss is concerned, these little 4 cylinder engines dont really have any power in the first place so it doesnt matter anyway. My big 4.0L straight sixes back in oz never had any problems with power loss.
Simon

[lazydocker]

it's a fairly straight forward DIY install

But will need inspecting again to legitimately remain on the register