135.9

[Motorama]

Quoting: HardRockCamaro

Yes but the petrol startup was the same when lpg was 40p...
I found an LPG forum and I cannot fathom how they think that the lpg price being a higher percentage of the petrol price now than what it used to be, is more of a factor than the actual pence cost difference per litre... I feel like banging my head against a wall...

I've done my math assuming a 10% drop in fuel economy as I've heard you lose between 5% and 25% (on old singlepoint kits) on fuel economy.
I haven't accounted for the cold startup as how much impact that has will depend on what kind of journeys and time of year.

I'm going to keep a very careful log of the running costs a sI'm sad like that (I like hard numbers not gut feel, lol!).

As you're only just converting to gas you will be saving, but if you've been running on LPG for a while like i have and your per litre price goes up 20p you feel the pinch the same as anyone else, and as lpg does less mpg you feel it more often

Normally my truck switches over from petrol to gas after a mile or so, a bit more when its cold. If you do little local short trips often you will find you still use a fair bit of petrol

[HardRockCamaro]

That makes sense.  Any increase means more out of your pocket, I'll just be glad I'm not paying the higher petrol price per litre though...
Having been used to 19/20mpg average for 12,000 miles a year for the last 5-6 years, it'll be refreshing to see my fuel bill drop significantly for once.  I'll be able to just enjoy the miles...  

[art b]

my dweisel audi a6 has just been to sheffied and back this weekend,
and used around 4 gallons less than a quarter of a tank and which is 50 mpg....
not bad, for a huge old car with 150k on it,

[HardRockCamaro]

You can't calculate even vaguely accurate fuel consumption figures unless you fill the tank, reset the trip meter, do the drive then fill it back up and do the math on the trip meter mileage and the number of litres you had to put back in.  The gauges are totally hopeless.

Quite why no-one has yet invented an accurate fuel gauge is beyond me..

[F Body]

Quoting: HardRockCamaro

Quite why no-one has yet invented an accurate fuel gauge is beyond me..

Most of the fuel computers are pretty accurate nowadays, the Panda one varies between +0.9mpg & +1.4mpg. The larger errors occur at low speeds around town

[HardRockCamaro]

They should be as the computer knows how much fuel it's injecting.

I just can't fathom why the fuel gauges stay on full for so long and why each 1/4 on the gauge seems wildly different in terms of fuel range.  The gauges/senders are hopeless in other words.

[art b]

the fuel comp seems pretty good on the audi too....

ive seen it on ''E'' before...

[Roadkill]

Quoting: art b

the fuel comp seems pretty good on the audi too....

ive seen it on ''E'' before...

On the Caddy it drops to "E" . . . . . . Then - if you're really brave - the next stage is "Flashing E" - Then you know you're on fumes and it's time to fill up.

[Cunning Plan]

Quoting: Cunning Plan

Quoting: philoldsmobile
if you're only getting 10 - 12 mpg more from a fiesta, something is wrong with it..


It is right on what it should be doing.

Quoting: HardRockCamaro

They should be as the computer knows how much fuel it's injecting.

I just can't fathom why the fuel gauges stay on full for so long and why each 1/4 on the gauge seems wildly different in terms of fuel range. The gauges/senders are hopeless in other words.

Interestingly, I think HRC is totally correct here. We decided to concentrate on the estimated fuel remaining calculation given by the on-board computer rather than the analogue gauge, as usually as soon as the gauge hits 'low' or 'red' we refill at that point.

So, the needle was in red yet fuel computer was saying 40 miles left. So we carried on driving until it got to about 11 estimated miles left and drove to one of our 'preferred' fuel stations.

We managed to get 386.1 miles of of the tank according to the trip counter. I then did a 'real world' MPG calculation and watched how much fuel went in to see exactly how much we had used to do the 386 miles.

Only 40 litres went in, which means there was 5 litres left in the tank (45 litre tank), so the gauge is way out and the fuel computer must be programmed to be extremely conservative to ensure you do not run out of fuel - which I guess would in-turn make you disappointed in the car.

Anyway, that bought the 1.4 Fiesta up to 43.87 mpg - much happier with that

:anorack:

[Andy]

After driving without a fuel gauge for a couple of years I got used to filling up at a certain mileage. I used to reset the trip and if I hit 350-370 I fill up. Once I fixed it I realised I actually became more paranoid about the fuel level (waiting for the light to come on etc) and spent more, rather than just the odd £20~£30 here it was constantly £60ish pounds and I never really noticed any much difference in the distance I travelled.

[Cunning Plan]

OK I see your point about your fuel gauge being inaccurate - but how did putting £60 in only last the same time as putting £30 in?

You need an economical car!!

[Big Mouse]

I've been checking the mileage of the pick up recently to see just how 'economical' it really is.

On petrol I used to get around 12-16mpg around town at 117p p/gall. On a run I would be lucky to see that rise to 20-22mpg.

On gas it works out at around 10-12mpg around town so around 20-22 in comparison to petrol prices. Its on a long run that the savings really kick in' on a recent trip to the south coast it returned the petrol equivalent of 35mpg!!

The percentage rise in LPG is just frustrating, LPG is an easy target to hit as the government know that a lot of people are converting to it in order to make their cars more economical, and thus friendlier on resources. Around MK the average increase was 16%, by comparison petrol and diesel only went up by 4-5%.

I hope HRC is confident in his figures, my conversion was on track to pay for itself within 15 months; now I reckon its more likely to be 18 months.

[HardRockCamaro]

At the end of 2009 there were 160,000 cars in the UK running on LPG (There are 31 million cars on the road in the UK so about 0.5% are LPG).

Some numbers on LPG car takeup:

 EUROPE France      - 120,000 UK          - 160,000 Netherlands - 235,000 Germany     - 274,000 Italy       - 966,000 Poland      - 2,100,000 Turkey      - 2,300,000  REST OF WORLD Japan     - 280,000 Australia - 635,000 India     - 1,500,000 Korea     - 2,300,000 

I'm not necessarily confident in my figures, I can only go by the 10% drop in fuel economy as that's what is mainly being mentioned in reports by others.  how accurate these people are at determining that I don't know...
Once I've put 3 or 4 tanks through I'll have a better idea.
I have noticed an mpg drop in the Jeep though since winter came about, I lifted it, and put what I feel is the wrong spark plugs in it (no matter what NGK say).  So I'll have to run it on petrol and then lpg on the same day on a specific route to test it.
Given the extra expense of the new petrol tank which is over and above the cost of a standard conversion and assuming I do only 12,000 miler per year instead of 15,000 it'll take me 18 months to recover the cost at 75p/L vs 130p/L assuming a 10% drop in economy.

From what I understand the wholesale cost of LPG varies with the cost of natural gas, which in winter is in high demand due to heating.
Presumably both petrol and LPG share the same rise in fuel duty in terms of pence, and of course both get hit by the same rise in VAT.

But LPG should rise and fall in line with world gas supply/demand as opposed to a barrel of oil.


(y-axis reads 20p 40p 60p etc, x-axis is from 2000 to 2010)



From the graph (in line with the year writing as a spot number) you can see the following:

Year - petrol price - LPG price - price difference

2001 - 80p - 40p - 40p
2002 - 72p - 38p - 34p
2003 - 78p - 38p - 40p
2004 - 78p - 39p - 39p
2005 - 82p - 39p - 43p
2006 - 90p - 42p - 48p
2007 - 90p - 48p - 42p
2008 - 100p - 50p - 50p
2009 - 100p - 52p - 48p
2010 - 110p - 58p - 52p
Today - 128p - 76p - 52p


So in the last 10 years LPG prices have gone up 36p/L (90% rise) and petrol has gone up 48p/L (60% rise) some people are saying it's no longer worth switching to LPG as it has gone up from the lovely 40p/L they were paying, a much higher percentage than petrol has risen.  While it's true that petrol has gone up much less as a percent, because it's a percent of an already bigger number in cold hard cash it has gone up a lot more per L than LPG has.  So the savings per mile on LPG are greater now than they ever have been...

[Cunning Plan]

That's a B for content, but an A for effort.

SEE ME AFTER CLASS.

[Andy]

Quoting: Cunning Plan

SEE ME AFTER CLASS

Thought you get your 'rewards' on Wednesday... perv!

[HardRockCamaro]

Hehe!

I don't do opinions and guesses, I do numbers dammit!  

[Big Mouse]

For HRC