With petrol and diesel prices rising, motorists are looking for more ways to save money on fuel.
Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) – or Autogas – is an alternative fuel which costs about half the price of petrol and has lower CO2 emissions, but lower fuel economy.
We revealed if switching to LPG could save you money – but what’s it like to own an LPG-powered car? Have you converted your car to run on LPG?
We took five popular UK cars to see how much they’d save by converting to LPG – and the Audi A4 came out on top with an annual saving of £794 per year.
With an average engine conversion fee of £1,600, it can take around three years before you notice a saving in fuel costs.
Most engines can be converted to run on LPG, and some cars will run on LPG from new – including the Proton ecoLogic Gen-2.
Owners of LPG cars can generally expect to see a 20 per cent decrease in fuel economy (MPG) however, when compared to petrol and diesel cars.
The LPG trade association, UKLPG, claims long-term savings from lower fuel costs make up for this.
There are more ways to save money on fuel, including reverse parking, changing gear at the correct time and inflating your tyres to the correct pressure.
Would you ever consider converting your car to run on LPG to save money?
What are your experiences with LPG? Is it as reliable as petrol and diesel?
Let us know – leave your comments in the box below.
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16 Comments
October 1, 2008 at 4:06 pm
I have a Range Rover (converted) and a Volvo (factory fitted) and travel extensively. Not only am I helping the environment by limiting the amount of noxious gases that I output into the environment (unlike my diesel and petrol cousins) but also save cash each time I fill up. Benefits are reducing pollution into the environment and saving money. Draw backs are that you need to re-fuel every 250 miles or so. I have had no problems finding LPG in the UK, France or Belgium, all it needs is a little forward planning! Not sure why LPG vehicles can’t use Eurotunnel but caravans with LPG bottles can. Let’s hope that the government don’t spoil it with higher taxes in the future like they did when people realised that diesel was a cheaper alternative to petrol (only a few years ago)!!
October 31, 2008 at 6:49 pm
I’d like to do a research project on this and am looking for some LPG vehicle owners who are based in London to take part. Is there anybody out there who is interested – you will be paid to share your thoughts and ideas on the future of it.
Thanks in advance
Jane
March 22, 2009 at 10:06 am
hi , i have owned an lpg Rover 75 estate car for 2and a half years.
have run it always on lpg, occasionally put it to petrol.
much cheaper and go to garge once every 2-3 weeks,
can do over 300 mils on a tank! motorway
230 in town.
plus being in London great help.
January 6, 2009 at 5:02 pm
can i convert my vw passat 1.8t with petrol to LPG?
January 9, 2009 at 6:34 pm
i have a renault laguna LPG 97 model ,and it runs smoothly
and environment friendly .
i usually service that year 12 k miles and
i commute to wrok between luton & milton keynes,
anyone for car sharing .
most welcome
Many thanks.
February 13, 2009 at 9:37 pm
Hi!
In Poland many people use LPG powered cars. Most of them convert cheap or older cars (escort price range) or american (5.7 or 7.2 ccm engines!). If you do huge mileage a year or your car takes a lot of petrol it really pays up. But if you convert a brand new car you may loose guaranty! Consumption of LPG is 15-20% higher than petrol. One more thing! The simpler engine the easier and cheaper conversion.
Tom
February 25, 2009 at 9:02 am
Yes our cars run on LPG conversions.
LPG, Propane, Autogas are all the same fuel, the stuff thats in red gas bottles and deodourant aerosols……So its commonly used and commonly exported from the UK.
Commonly the saving over 24 000 miles will pay for the entire system….
Every modern car and van is capable of 240 000 miles. So one could easily see a return of £20 000 over this period.
The higher your mileage the greater the return.
The bottom line is without putting miles on your car the reductions cannot be achieved.
The easiest way of seeing a Autogas conversion is as an option extra like electric windows, statnav/stereo. Absorb the cost in with your vehicle purchase cost.
Most petrol models, including a few GDI/FSi/Direct injection, of cars and light vans can be LPG converted.
Some LPG models avoid the London Congestion Charge zone payments. An annual saving of £1650 alone. These models include Citroen & Ford vans and a number of cars – Passat 1.8T is one of them….See the list of Congestion Charge exempt vehicles :-
http://www.lpg-conversions-london-congestion-charge-exempt.co.uk
You can run on Autogas with very little effort and make a big difference to your pocket and the environment.
Its easy. Look into it today
April 16, 2009 at 11:34 pm
With all these new road tax bands where does that leave lpg fulled cars. I have a ML320 running on LPG and my MOT cert states zero emissions so my car should be in band A. But all it says is that vehicles that run on allterunative fuel will get a £20 discount, is this correct? or is my car tax free? My tax renewal is in June.
June 16, 2009 at 6:14 am
I have run a Nissan Patrol on LPG for 2 yrs now with no problems. In fact I have just bought another one. This car does about 40,000 miles a year and the saving over petrol or diesel is significant. I am so impressed that my Daimler, that used to be my daily driver and has now been garaged for 2 yrs because of running costs, has just been pulled from storage to convert to LPG and I will not only have the luxury of using it as my daily driver again but I can do so in the knowledge that I am causing less pollution with my “gas guzzler” than most folk do with a Euro style shopping trolley
.
I would say that there should be more filling stations but then again if there where LPG would become more popular and our esteemed Prime Mentalist would find a way to tax it heavy———-Just like they did with diesel! (remember when diesel was cheaper than petrol?)
No! keep it to the few who really care enough to find out about it and convert. Not to the “pocket Greenies” who spout about saving our planet with schemes that end up producing more harm than good.—— Let us recall some of the hard earned tax dollars that the gov. has stolen from us and do some good at the same time.
Just for interest. One of my working vehicles is diesel; it does more MPG than the Patrols but costs more to run???????. Unfortunately, there is not a petrol alternative available in this country but we are about to start producing our own Bio diesel for it so again recalling tax dollars at the same time as reducing our carbon emissions. I would be glad to help with any research project but keep it quiet eh! .
June 17, 2009 at 5:15 pm
Hi Pete,
you sound like a man of my own heart… I run a V8 4.5 litre BMW 7 series on a school caretakers wages… Mine is the best in the carpark, grin… I have travelled towing my Bailey ranger 5 berth caravan from Hull to Glascow with a 60 litre tank, it cost me £27.47 last year… and not dawdling either, I bought the car converted but I had previously had my Ford scorpio converted by Autogas at a cost of 2k I think it well paid for itself easily within 2 years on a 2.3 engine.
I am the opinion that the bigger the engine the better it works out, it certainly improves the performance and I am highly delighted with the results.
One up for us heh…
pete
August 4, 2009 at 4:08 pm
I converted my own 1986 Land Rover 110 V8 and got the local installer to check it out and issue the certificate. Total cost was under £700 and I have almost made that back already.
I have a closed loop (Lambda controlled) system which actually achieves comparable fuel economy to my twin SU carbs, with next to no loss of economy. The trick is to increase the ignition advance by 8 – 10 degrees when running on LPG. You can even buy a dual timing ignition amp to do this automatically!
All in all, I am a firm convert to LPG.
August 9, 2009 at 7:31 am
I’ve been running my cars on LPG for the past 25 years and now have a 1999 Daewoo Lanos converted since new to LPG. It now has 196,000 miles on the clock. The engine is still all original and still runs fine. I’m thinking of now buying a (new) Mini. Does anyone have a Mini converted to LPG an if so I’d like to hear their experiences.
August 24, 2009 at 10:12 am
Hey, It’s now a year since I’ve got my car converted at Autogas solutions LTD in Corby. Car is still goin’ what to tell more? lol
September 25, 2009 at 11:11 am
Hey, dont tell everyone. If LPG was as popular as petrol, do you think the government would give it a tax break ?
Vauxhall Astra (03 Reg) factory fitted LPG no problems after 120,000 miles.
January 9, 2010 at 8:53 pm
I had my rather unique Jaguar XK8 converted 4yrs ago. I say unique as it was modified for both power and economy to the extent that as a 4lt petrol engine it would deliver 37.5MPG on a 300 mile (95% motorway) run. Mods were:
Free Flowing balanced exhaust
Fully synth Royal Purple 5w30
Iridium Plugs
Cleaned and calibrated injectors
Custom Apexi air intake
Auto-RX’d engine
Nitrogen filled tyres
In it’s first year after conversion I covered 30k miles and given that I averaged 300-350 miles out of a 60ltr fill (actually 76l capacity) tank.
When I had it converted I could fill up at 33 pence per liter which is now up to 50ppl. However in that first year I calculated I saved £1500 (£1440 if you take into account that I roughly get through half a tank of unleaded every 6 months. So even though my second year saw only 15k miles the conversion had paid for itself in 2yrs
Take into account the average price of unleaded or Diesel is now £1.10 per liter and I still fill up I am running fuel at 55% cheaper. The performance work I undertook before the conversion was off-set by switching to LPG so it’s running at stock power output in my opinion. However I am due shortly to have the catalysts removed which are particularly restrictive on this model and should free up a few horses.
No regrets at all except when I run out of LPG and have to use unleaded. The supermarkets such as Asda Tesco and Sainsbury’s have no plans to introduce more LPG outlets and have removed many when refurbing their stations.
Oh, one of the greatest benefits is that with two full tanks I can theoretically drive for 800 miles without having to refill (although anyone in the know will appreciate that there’s no-where you can actually drive non-stop for 800 miles without ending up in the sea!)
Happy LPG’ing!!
Mark
February 10, 2010 at 5:23 pm
That’s funny, i recently came across your blog and have been reading along.. Are there any forums that you recommend I join ?
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