LPG CONVERSION - REWIEW 7

Advantages: Cost if done right

Disadvantages: Cost if done wrong

Recommendable Yes:

I have been running on LPG for a little over five years now, and covered a shade under 220,000 miles in two cars.

The first car was a Honda Accord 2.2 Coupe that had 65,000 miles on the clock when I had it converted to gas. Used was a cheap and basic OMVL kit. This basically converted an injection engine, into a carburretor engine by inserting little more than an open pipe into the inlet manifold, allowing the engine to suck the gas into the cylinders for combustion. Luckily the engine was powerful enough to start with to compensate for the resulting drop in power. There was a cylinder in the boot behind the back seats which made the boot one foot shorter, but I still retained the full sized spare wheel. The engine was from the ultimately reliable Honda stable so; all the problems that I could/should of have had with such a cheap and quite frankly nasty conversion I didn't. I eventually sold the car still going strong with 245,000 miles on the clock and the engine had had no work done on it what so ever. The engine used to get little more than oil and filter change every 12-15,000 miles instead of the recommended 6,000 miles. This I feel says more for the benefits of buying a Honda engine, rather than the benefits of LPG, however the car returned some 22 miles to the gallon at an average price of 30 pence per litre in those days (5 years - 18 months ago).

Car number 2. Volvo 2.3 T5 (240 bhp) Kit used A G Multi point injection vehicle-specific. Cost £2200 including a doughnut tank in the spare wheel well. Converted at 55,000 miles now just passed 91,000 in 18 months. Miles to the gallon 26.6. Cost of fuel now 34 pence per litre. So by my calculations I am around £600+ in profit at the moment and going up every mile. Can I tell the difference between running on gas and petrol? Yes. The car runs smoother on gas. Can I tell the difference in performance? No. Well yes actually. It accelerates better from low revs on petrol and better on gas at high revs. This I am reliably informed comes from the fact that I now have an extra 10 bhp (250 now) But I have less torque. As my car is an automatic, when you start running out of the torque stuff, it just changes down and away you go. [My information comes from the kit retailers who have converted the Humberside Police Volvo V70 T5s to gas and they did some rolling road tests.]

So do I recommend YOU converting your car? NO. Not until you have done your sums. The vehicle needs to have a large not very economical engine. Forget doing a V.W. Polo 1.0. You will scrap the car before you make your money back. Big engined Fords, Jag's, BMWs, Volvo s 4x4 s and the like are the cars to choose. Then how many miles YOU will do in the car.(as a guide 15,000 miles plus a year) Lets be straight here You are converting the car to save YOU money, not to save the planet. (Not a right lot of difference in the CO2 levels). If like me, you do a fare few miles a year, like a bit of comfort and performance and tend to keep your cars for a while, you would be a MUG NOT to do it. The best kits on the market at the moment are PRINS and AG in my humble opinion. However, even the best kits can be made into the worst by poor fitting, so take recommendations, and do not rush into this until you have done your homework.