I was wondering if these purpose built duel fuel cars are a better idea than buying a conversion, maybe not after all.
From what I read the vauxhall ones seem to have a lot of problems. And I suspect the main dealers won't have much idea how to deal with LPG cars compared to a dedicated LPG place.
Which manufacturers make purpose built LPG cars? Citroen Xantia, Nissan Primera, Vauxhall Astra/Vectra/Omega, Volvo V40, what others?
On or around Thu, 14 Apr 2005 20:21:39 +0100, BW enlightened us thusly:
I think someone's importing the LPG-dedicated Holden. That struck me as an excellent-looking motor, if you're in that price bracket. Naturally, I forget who.
googling doesn't find it, however, so perhaps it's not a holden. some more googling reveals a dedicated ford falcon, but not an importer.
In the UK, at least, I think you'll find that all duel fuel cas are a conversion. Some may be done before they reach the sales room, and I guess some may even be done within the company infrastructure, but no manufacturer yet offers a car with an engine designed around LPG.
None; they all start off as a petrol vehicle that then has LPG added to it.
I came across a list of manufacturer-supplied conversions here, but I don't know how up to date it is:
could be wrong, but i thought that "purpose built" (as you called them) dual fuel vehicles were just ones that have had a conversion fitted by the vehicle manufacturer, and are not purpose built as such. as in they take a finished car and add an LPG kit. could be wrong though...
Ford.
Correct , any Holden 3.8 v6 conversion will and always have suffered from backfire , the FOrd I6 however is an excellent conversion being pommiegolia I cant make particular comment about the car models but a pure lpg conversion is a much better idea where possible .
Volvo's LPG P1 cars have different fuel tanks, you get a tiny petrol tank and a big LPG tank. Factory designed and installed, crash tested too, unlike Vauxhalls which are a conversion (tank instead of spare wheel)
Ford used to do a dual fuel Focus. Not sure if that's still available.
I surfed into a page about it a while ago. But I can't find it now.
A subsidiary of AC, evidently. Verté. Article here
On or around Fri, 15 Apr 2005 00:54:11 +0100, Stewart Hargrave enlightened us thusly:
ah, that rings a bell. no obvious web presence, though :-(
I thought about this a while ago and decided that a decent turbo diesel was the best option. Vauxhall was the only manufacturer at that time producing a dual fuel, and were charging £1300 more for the cars, whilst they recovered all their additional costs from the Powershift grant. You could have your own (new) car converted and get some cash back, but it had to be one on the Powershift list- and that kept changing. LPG is about 38p a litre but add ten percent as the motor uses more fuel. As lpg is dry it can knacker standard valves, so you you need to have a reservoir of 'gaslube' which throws a dose of upper cylinder lubricant down the induction every few miles. That's more cost- and complication. We do a lot of miles in France and Spain towing a caravan. Diesel is about
60p a litre, Petrol and LPG about the same as UK. Not worth the thousand pounds for the conversion. The lpg newsgroup was full of tales of engineering woe when I last looked at it. Also, remember the scottish misery (the dour one) last year, stating that the latest science indicated that there were no environmental benefits in lpg as a road fuel and so he intended soon to remove the special tax relief. It seems that an engine manufactured to run only on lpg can be efficient, but running on dual fuels can be a problem. It's not viable to convert diesel engines (although there is a system that injects lpg to that fuel). DaveK.On or around Fri, 15 Apr 2005 09:17:27 +0100, "davek" enlightened us thusly:
that's very engine-specific, though. most modern engines are OK, one or tow well-known ones are crap.
Old engines designed for use with leaded fuel may need hardened seats fitting or a flashlube or similar kit.
Holden Commodore LPG (dual fuel/bi fuel)
That's sold here as the Verte Tempest pickup:
Wierd naming. BTW, the model shown is the AU, which ran from 1998 to 2002.
From the same site,
Do they just deliberately mis-name all of the products, or is this "tornado" a copy of the OHG X450 mixer? Mind you, the undersized GANN duct into a Rochester is a pretty bad installation...
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