Does LPG wear out the engine more than petrol?

Gas is cleaner, so in theory, a LPG engine should last longer than a petrol engine.

It's the same with all cars, if they have been looked after, they will last a long time, no oil changes in a 3 year old car will mean the engine has worn more than one with regular oil changes. I thought that LPG was a bonus when buying a car, the upside is the cheaper fuel cost of gas,and you can switch back to petrol(if it has a dual system) whenever you want, the dowside is the loss of room taken by the gas tank, and the limited availability of gas suppliers(though it is getting better, there are still many areas with very few gas pumps) Alan.

: A Rodgers wrote: : : > Does LPG wear out an engine more than using petrol? Should I expect a : > shorter life from a car that has been run on LPG or at least more : > repairs needed? : : Gas is cleaner, so in theory, a LPG engine should last longer than a : petrol engine.

Oil stays amazingly clean running on gas - when I drain it from the DS at 6,000 miles it looks like new.

Ian

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember A Rodgers saying something like:

LPG burns much cleaner than petrol and the oil is therefore much cleaner for far longer. This reduction in suspended particles in the oil can only be good in the long term for an engine.

Of course, just because it's an LPG car doesn't rule out bad treatment of the engine by the driver.

I thought I read somewhere that some engines (I think Ford Zetec was one) need to have a gadget fitted to bleed oily stuff into the inlet to keep all the valves happy without the expected petrol additives. Apparently some get converted to LPG without the gadget and don't last long.

I can't remember all the details though, and it could all be ollbocks anyway...

Cheers,

Colin.

Flashlube is the stuff you are thinking of. I have it on my Volvo 2.5LPT Prins conversion as I expect to get upwards of 300K out this engine and every little must help.

Ford engines (and cars generally) are designed by bean counters. If they can save 0.001 pence on the price of the material to make a valve,then they will. Zetec valves are marginal when run on petrol without ever going near LPG. There are a few cars around of a bit higher design quality which direct the incoming petrol onto the back of the inlet valves, using the heat of vapourisation to cool the valves. This cooling effect doesn't happen with already vapourised LPG, so these engines are likely to give problems as well.

Depends on when the conversion was done.

5~10K miles ago on 100K mile car and they could have found that valve seats are recessing and want shut of it. 100K miles on a from near new or factory fit LPG it's almost certainly better than a petrol one. But you won't be able to tell if it's been abused by extended oil changes or lots of short trips as it won't have built up carbon and hence no black sludge, just run on an oil/water mix for lube.

Make sure you get the certificate with it. It's not the end of the world if it doesn't have a certificate but knock £100 for the time and cost of getting re-inspected + you could try to ask them to pay for any repair work needed if it fails.

If the tank is getting close to 10 years old it may need replacing. Tanks should be re-pressure tested every 10 years. The valves or multivalve are removed for pressure test and so should be replaced anyway. The tank has to be removed from the car. Tanks won't usually fail a re-test but it's quicker to just put a new tank in from stock than have car and tank waiting in the workshop for a pressure vessel tester to come and pay them their fee.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Colin Stamp saying something like:

I wouldn't be at all surprised if it's true. Some engines will need the odd special tweak or two, but by this time most of the current engines will have shown up the weak spots.

Thirty years ago, when I was contemplating converting my newly bought petrol car to run on LPG, then came the disturbing news that a private car which had the conversion had an explosion, in Birmingham. Fortunately the car was at the time unoccupied and stationary. There was a huge fireball following the explosion, and a photo of the wreck was in the local paper. I did not switch.

I think if the tank explodes you could consider the engine pretty well worn out.

On or around Sun, 15 Jan 2006 17:35:51 +0000, Colin Stamp enlightened us thusly:

It's not all the Zetecs, though. Naturally, I forget which.. I think it was the 1.6 and 1.8 that were most iffy

and yes, you can have a gadget as you describe - 's called flashlube, and you fill it with additive stuff like the stuff you put in the tank on leaded-only type cars running unleaded petrol.

If I remember correctly, that was a hatchback. The tank was in the 'boot', not in the 'well' for the spare wheel, and it wasn't covered either. It was a sunny, hot summer day. The car had been there for quite some time. Come to think of it, the hydrogen tank in the coming fuel cell is under even higher pressure. Extreme high pressure actually: 3000+ ?bar, ?kPa, ?psi, or whatever the unit (can't remember).

The message from "Peter" contains these words:

Did you look and see what you can actually buy? According to their website the only bits available now are a solar panel, some pipe and a teeshirt.

There are some chaps out there who claim hydrogen can be efficiently stored in form of hydrides. No pressure involved

Peter

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Lin Chung" saying something like:

Sure that wasn't the IRA?

Ityf that LPG technology has moved on in 30 years. Even then, it should have been fitted with a vent valve. Mind you, I think the quality of some conversions then left something to be desired.

I had a boss once with a mid/late 90s Jaguar (Yes, he's short, and he probably *does* have a sheepskin jacket somewhere!).

He had an LPG conversion done on that, and once all the valves had worn out, they were replaced, and some sort of additive delivery system was fitted, that introduced *something* that stop the valve wear.

There was actually a little bottle of the stuff that he'd fit into the engine bay with a screw on lid with a pipe through it.

Apparently not many engines do it, but Jaguar engines are one of them.

HTH.

Pete.

Woo! A t-shirt!

;)

LPG is maybe cleaner, and doesn't contaminate the oil as much, but it's got nothing in the way of upper cylinder lubricant. Which leads to higher wear rates on anything in the upper cylinder (ie valves, valve seats)

Yes, but the energy that has to be put in to disassociate water into hydrogen and oxygen makes hydrogen an energy storage medium, not a fuel.