Diesel, petrol or dual fuel

If you want efficiency in towing then diesel is the only way. You don't see anything else in trucks (other than toys) or tractors.
Neil

Having had a dual fuel landcruiser, I would not do it again! Although LPG is cheap and available in a lot of places, it is not everywhere.

If you rarely leave town, thats fine. If you go bush lots it's a right royal pain in the arse, good economy or not

I have a petrol Patrol that I will be putting on gas soon... I've previously had a 60 series that I converted to gas.

I have found that if you are like 90% of 4wd owners and spend 95% of your time driving on the tar in or around cities, then lpg is the cheapest way to go. For me, it makes sense to go that way, even though I hope to do some long trips into the outback as well (but who knows when???) If and when I get the chance, I know that extra jerry cans will be involved, and I know I'm going to be wishing I had a diesel... but overall, it's going to be better money-wise with the lpg. If I were doing a lot of 4wding, though, or if it was a second car that I was only going to use on trips and leave in the garage the rest of the time, I'd have a diesel for sure, as they are so much better economy-wise in the bush. I've found that in heavy bush work a diesel's fuel consumption will only increase by say 20-25%, whereas a petrol may be 50% or even worse. So it all depends on your intended usage!!!

Tim Zylstra
Tanna Island, Vanuatu
Diesel 2.8 4Runner on Tanna (wouldn't touch a petrol here, there are no tar roads!)
Petrol GU Patrol in Oz (soon to be lpg)

Diesel every time. Owned petrol 4wds but they don't have the range.
But I do feel like a racing driver in my wife's Camry :)

All depends on what you are going to use it for and where you live...

Go diesel if you are:

Planning to do A LOT of towing like boat or caravan
Planning to do a lot of REMOTE outback touring
If the price of LPG where you live it to high (more than 60 cents per liter)

Go Dual Fuel if the car:

Is manly used for city/town driving
And you are not planning to a LOT of stuff which listed for diesel.

Like footy, I drive diesel because I need the range for the desert trips.

I think that if you look at all the costs of vehicle ownership, theres not much difference between the 3.

I'm sort of loking at the possibility of a small gas tank (30-40l) as well as a larger normal tank + auxiallary tank. Reasons are If you are in the city where you come across LPG filling stations frequently, there is no reason for a large LPG tank, whereas having the petrol and aux petrol tank still gives you a bit of range out in the sticks.

Thanks for that.

We live on the very outer east of Melbourne but having child number 3 on the way we be looking to camp as much as possible during the warmer months. We have use of a camper trailer so i'm thinking diesel would be the way forward?

As an aside i did a thread about driving from Melbourne to Uluru a few moths back and had some excellent advise and links to maps etc, but i can't find it!! Tried the search but doesn't bring it up?

Any (more) advice? (thanks AGAIN!)

Well hevs, touched on a favourite issue there!

Had it on a Maverick (carby), and two Commodores (VN and VS series II - fuel injected). While admittedly fuel costs were lower, I had to constantly take account of the gas factor in everyday driving.
. more frequent trips to service station - crap fuel consumption
. loss of power, even on computerised/injected vehicles
. remember to leave it on petrol when turned off or there would be - cold morning starting issues
. backfires, blowing off air cleaner cover etc. and on one infamous occasion at Stockton with the Maverick, blowing the muffler apart through a backfire (there is a much longer story associated with that particular incident, but it could be directly attributed to the fact that it was a dual fuel vehicle)
. collateral issues to do with the fact that they were non-factory installations, eg it can be unreliable, and as someone pointed out above, hard to fix in the bush, and can be more prone to problems. On the GQ, the petrol tank had to be replaced by the gas cylinder, and a secondary tank installed. No one realised that the new tank was rubbing on brakelines, out of site under the vehicle. We found out the hard way when the brakes stopped working one day, when it finally wore through the brake line on a trip through the Alps to Corryong. Now that was interesting!
. fuel range in the bush
. the petrol side of the engine is also compromised and doesn't perform as well as standard - although this aspect is better with computer controlled engines
. takes a long time to recoup original outlay, which is even greater if you have to add a fuel tank, or re site the rear wheel.

I now have a dieself 4WD (Patrol GQ) and a petrol car, and would never go gas again.

Hendo

I think the key here is gas injection.

My mum and brother both have late model dunnydores with factory gas injection rather than the older carby type gas mixers. They claim no difference between power and economy between gas and petrol, they also never speak of backfires or starting issues.

On the contary my work collegue had a VS dunnydore on aftermarket mixer type gas and it was a pig of a thing, constantly blowing the crapper out of the air box and backfiring, poor power and economy.

I used to always tell people if they were looking at 4bies for towing to go diesel ( I love my diesels) but I have changed my tune a little. Even if you are using 25L per 100 towing a big van on gas vs 17Lper 100k on a diesel it's still cheaper on gas!

Realistically gas is going to be cheaper for most people, especially considering the round town costs. But I have also owned and driven petrol 4byies that out power my old diesel donk on paper 2 to 1 and I still trundle past them in the sand while they are bogged. Once they slow down or get bogged they can't get the power to the ground because they can't get their rev's up, where as my power is there while I'm stationary just with torque convert slippage. I

I won't be selling my diesel for a long time (can't afford a new vehicle) but if I was in the position to by new or late model I'd have to admit I'd consider the gas option purley for fuel costs... But it'd have to be injection.

i have lpg powerd vehicles for 15 years . never once had any proplems. one car i installed to duel fuel didnt need to go back for lpg tune untill the gas tank expired and then no adjustments were needed. last year i installed lp to my landrover discovery. on the 90 ltrfuel tank i could get 450kms down the road . I have 3 lpg tanks one in the rear cargo area and 2 down stairs were the original fuel tank used to be. a 38lt fuel tank was fitted behind the rear wheel on drivers side. i can now travel 600kms on gas and about 200kms on fuel. i have driven from nsw to darwin detouring to ayres rock and never use fuel, lpg is almost everywere now, . any bad publicity about airboxes get in blown up are usuly caused by worn valves, bad leads and some times puting your foot down when starting. so best rule here is to install gas on a healthy engine and fit spiral wound inition leads. never have i had a miss or backfire. trouble free motoring on lpg is achieved by tuneing the system on a dyno. any other way is hit nd mis.so if you want power and economy buy a petrol 4x4 and convert it to gas, if you just want economy buy a small turbo charged diesel and put up with slugish peformance.my last 4x4 ws a turbo diesel , while it was beter for watercrossings couldnt tow my 2 ton trailer around a semitrailer or a grey nomad on the highway without a great bigrun up. my discovery on lpg towing 2 ton can easily pass a road train . the only valid reason for buying a diesel is if you realy intend to go to off the track on long hauls . the moden day diesel has lost some of its ability in the water crossing as most are computer controld. the computor s usually in the engine bay. many will tell you that diesels are the best for towing because they are the cheapest to run, this is true if you are prepaired to go down a gear on a litle hill an hold up every one else. if you want to maintain the speed limit stick to duel fuel.

As Truckster said, depends on the type of motoring that you do. You can't generalise. My 105 L/C runs at about 10/15% less efficiently. So add that to the cost of LPG = 55/57c per litre. For those of us who do most of our motoring on the coast or cities, it's hard to beat. My mechanic is an ex-installer of LPG and it costs me next to nothing for any particular attention it needs. The difference in power is barely noticeable - maybe similar to having the air con on/off. Having said that, I've just got back from the Gulf, and I bargained for about 500 out of 6000 ks to have to run on ULP. Wrong. Problem was, some of the outlets that normally carry it either had none,(Tambo, McKinlay, Burke & Wills, then Burke & Wills, Tambo on the way back) or there was a problem with the pump (Augathella both ways). Did well over 1000 ks on ULP. I'll be sticking with it for a few years yet and may even go for another after this car as I live and travel near the coast. But if I was to do a lot of outback/country (where gas is by % dearer) driving I'd definately go diesel.

another vote for where you live. If you are over east and never roam far from the bowser maybe gas would be an option.Certainly in Kalgoorlie the only vehicles besides taxis I ever saw on gas were eastern staters over looking for work. Remember even in majour centres gas is 75-1.00 pluss per litre;. Only really an option for city based 4wds

OMG! Didn't realise I'd cause quite a stir! Sorry about that.

Now does anyone know where i can get a TD converted to LPG? :D