LPG cost Versus Unleaded

Ian,

I am not emotionally attached to fuel. I base my decisions on economic factors. If my car will run, for less, on carrot juice, I'll do it.

I just share simple mathematically sound principles, nothing more, nothing less. Whether or not they apply to you is a decision for you.

WHG has shared some information as to the benefits, or lack thereof, for his personal stuation. A good exchange of relevant information.

I'm sorry if my sharing offends you, but I'm buggered if I know why.

Regards,

Jim.

Hi Jim, Just stirring, don't get upset.
In the last 20 years I have had 2 cars converted to LPG and have benefited financially for doing so. This was when conversion cost was only $1300, and gas was between 14c to 24c per litre. ( 1/3 the price of petrol) However when I purchased a 1990 Falcon and was getting 35 MPG (Highway) and gas was 39cpl (1/2 the price of petrol) there was no way I could justify a conversion to LPG. It just did not compute.
With the efficiency of modern day petrol engines and the comparative inefficiency of LPG it really is a toss up to whether it is worth converting. I guess the Govt.. contribution of half the cost does make it worthwhile.
To make a car run efficiently on LPG the compression has to be raised to around 12:1 and the distributor curve has to be modified for the slower burning of the LPG. Just not economically viable.
You roll the dice, you accept the result.

Merry Xmas Jim

Ian

Ian, the Govt rebate may be less % on 4wd conversion but on a passenger car it's a no brainer. I had my Fairmont converted 6 months ago and the cost to me was $300 after the rebate. No loss of range as my tank stayed in and it now gives me extra range. I can't understand why anyone would be running ULP in a vehicle....unless of course they enjoy making oil companies rich. Even at todays price of ULP at 95c, LPG is 42c. Gas would need to be around 80c to make ULP viable for my car.

Bugger, my business membership expired this morning, will be renewed on Monday.

Just checking to see if I can post as a visitor for a few days

Brew,
Basically that is what I'm saying. LPG needs to be less than half the price of ULP to be worth the (full) price of converting. If you can sucker another party (Govt) into paying for most of the cost, then of course it is a no brainer. (Even though LPG is 15% less efficient than ULP.) The rebate was an attempt to buy votes in an election year, didn't work but the present Govt still honours it. Don't know why. If I had a petrol vehicle I would certainly go for it. But with a Nissan ZD30 engine I am not game to do anything that will put more stress on the engine !!! And diesel/gas conversions are not as money saving as petrol/gas conversions. When I had a Valiant 265ci, and gas was between 12c to 23c a litre it made a lot of sense and saved me a lot of money. Even with a Sigma 2.6 litre towing a large Jims Mowing type trailer around the suburbs of Melbourne it made a lot of sense. ($5 a day for gas, $20 a day for petrol.) At $15 a day saving, it didn't take a long time to pay for the conversion. I'm not against LPG, just like stirring Jim.


Ian

sell the D40 before it explodes

A D40 with a ZD30?? Never seen one of them!!!

Ian

3 litre motor in the patrol is a differfent one to the d40????

trade it on a hilux

D40 does not, never has had a 3.0 litre motor. It has 2.5 litre Common rail. I have the much better D22. (Which also now has the 2.5 motor).

Ian

make up your mind

in your reply to brew you said you had a zd30 motor

do you even own a 4wd when you do get a hilux

Gday Jim,

This is an all time classic!!!!! You have stated "If my car will run, for less, on carrot juice, I'll do it". Ok time to sell you Petrol / Gas car and buy a diesel and run it on Waste Vegetable Oil. See this site http://ozonabatteredfish.blogspot.com/ I have meet these people on our trip around Australia and he runs purely on waste vegetable oil that he collects from fish and chip shops, Thai restaurants and Chinese shops etc. Cost for fuel zip.I guess this is a lot better than Gas, ULP and even Diesel dare I say it.

Goona

Pat, Go away.

If you dont know which motor is fitted to which Nissan, dont bother commenting. Go play with your Toy car. The specs of the D22 Nav completely dominated those of the same year Hilux, there was never any question of buying a Toyo. And I still would not. The D22 was so good they rereleased it with the new 2.5 CRD motor last year; has more power and torque than the 3.0.

Ian

nope dont know nissans well, dont want to

just know when they go bang nissan dont want to know you either specially the zd30

Hi Pete hows things ?? Yes I havnt been on much lately either as having hands full as you know all going well though. Great to see the unleaded under the $1.00 mark eh what a huge difference when refueling, makes a big difference to most people's hip pocket. Hope your catching plenty, that son of yours still outdoing you LOL. WHG

filled the paj for $80 the other day :) enjoying it while it lasts :)

goodday Whg, went up to Gorakan today to have a look at a 01 se jack to replace Sals Paj, sounded good 145 l tank, b/bar spotties, dual batteries, 106 ks,but when we got their it had heaps of paint chips and scratches. Obvious it had heaps of off road use so gave it a miss. If I can find a b/bar like stefans might keep the old girl bit longer.
Hope every thing is going well on the home front
Cheers Pete

HI there V64Runner, no my'n is the venturi system not the injected system. Was going to cost me an extra $2500 for the injected system on the prado and I will be updating next year so wasnt worth it to me. There is a huge difference when city driving to freeway driving on the lpg. City Im using around the 23/25L of gas per 100, petrol its around 17/17.3L per 100. Freeway gas is around the 16 per 100 petrol 12.5/13L per 100. My reserve tank in the prado is 69L and the gas is around 58 usable also depending on when I fill up, temperature etc. My mate use to have the old 4 runner RV6 and was quit thirsty (probably on par with the prado) as well, would get around the 450klm per tank and that was driving it fairly steady. I would only get LPG again on something like a cruiser or patrol where you get to keep your main tank and ditch the reserve where as the prado is opposite. In general thou happy with the way it has been running and as mentioned recouped the $$ but that was when petrol was around the $1.50/$1.70 mark. WHG

how do you get more on gas than petrol

is is specially tuned or set up for gas

The Direct Injection LPG Sysytem was set up and tuned by computer. First settings were done in the wokshop, then on an a Dyno, and finally on the open road ,at the same time the installer was making onboard adjustments to the system for optimum power with in the torque range and for open road cruising when not going off road . The vehicle has been used from Perth to Melbourne, Wagga Wagga, back to Melbourne and then back to Perth . LPG in Victoria was 55 cents/litre compared to Perth`s 65c/litre at that point in time. There is no difference in performance running LPG or petrol. There is little if any, noticable difference in performace on LPG or Petrol and would definately go back to Direct Injection on my next vehicle .

ok

Hi Mark, gas in St Marys (Sydney) yesterday was 44c per litre. Petrol/ diesel on par with prices you have stated. For me to be using gas at 89.9 as you have said would actually work out dearer to run on gas then unleaded for me. 89.9 what a rip off eh. I thought there was a rule or somthing stating gas was to be at least half the price of unleaded ?? Or is this for Sydney only ?? WHG

Wow, double the price up here!
I really don't know how they would sell gas up here at the moment! I'd be running around with extra weight of an empty gas tank while I ran on ULP!
If anyone down your way is thinking about converting, and are looking to do a trip around the block, they should consider stopping in here, and getting a cheap conversion done - Installers up here should be twiddling their thumbs....

$0.44 in Melbourne yesterday also.