Ive just had the bright idea of having an LPG conversion installed on the Escape, as its a gas guzzling, wallet raping monster!

Unfortunately, i have absolutely no idea about the costs of such a conversion, and how much money can be saved by having it done.

I also have a few other concerns:

1) Will performance be adversely affected?

2) Will the LPG tank take up all the boot space?

3) How available is LPG? If im on a long drive from Bangkok to Phuket, or even to Singapore, will i be able to find LPG on the way to fill up?

4) Can i still run the car on gasoline occasionally if i want to??

Youre advice will certailny be appreciated!!

Regards

The installations are widely available, especially in Bangkok. I put LPG in my gas guzzling volvo 245 automatic...
Costed less then 20,000 Baht about half year ago (in Pattaya, maybe even cheaper in Bkk)

1) Will performance be adversely affected?
Yes, you'll lose about 10 to 15% of your power, they still use the old system here
2) Will the LPG tank take up all the boot space?
Not all the space but a pretty big chunk. I put in a 58 liter tank, about 60cm diameter by 1 meter long
3) How available is LPG? If im on a long drive from Bangkok to Phuket, or even to Singapore, will i be able to find LPG on the way to fill up?
Not so sure, in Bkk pretty much anywhere. Pattaya has two LPG stations
4) Can i still run the car on gasoline occasionally if i want to??
Of course, just flip a switch to change almost seemlessly between gas and petrol...

All in all it certainly was worth it. Gas at the moment is at 9.55 Baht/liter. Even if you calculate your 15% increase in consumption when running gas, your kilometer kost is still reduce by more then a factor 2.5.
I went down to 1.7 Baht/km from 4.3 Baht/km. At over 2000km per month the installation cost is recovered in less then 4 months.
Plus it just feels good to fill her up for 500 Baht instead of 1500 Baht

The only other alternative is NGV, but installation is more then double the cost of LPG, and NGV is onle available at very few stations in BKK. You do however have almost no loss in performance because of newer equipment, so consumption stays the same (equals even better savings/km)

I got a Thai mate with a mid 90s Merc S280 on LPG, seems to drive very smooth, even with 200K on the clock, the power seems fine, and he swears he's saving a bomb on fuel.

The Escape would be a good car to try it with, buy yes you'd lose boot space.

anyone in chiang mai know where to get this LPG kit? thinking of getting one of those.

An engine running on gas will always sound a bit smoother then when running on petrol!
Reason is that the LPG goes into the engine in gas form, whereas fuel will always be injected in the form of small droplets...
Because of this, the gas burns smoother/completer and thus cleaner...Another advantage of gas is the high octane number (over 100) compared to the 95 of premium fuel. I have yet to see an LPG fed engine ping!
There are people in Europe running turbo engines on gas, and they can happily increase boost/compression without pinging the engine into smittereens

And certainly with a big benz (or even my Volvo) as a passenger you'll never notice the difference in power. The reserve in power/torque is big enough to hide the fact that you lost 10% when going full throttle!
It would be another story with a 20 year old toyota whatever with a 1300cc engine!

actually I'm interested in an NGV conversion for a 98 range rover 4.6HSE. this beast is murdering the wallet, and it needs to be tamed. from what i hear, NGV is the way to go over LPG, better technology, but at the cost of a more expensive setup and less fueling stations. But isn't PTT in the works to fix this? either way, I'm looking at NGV over LPG... there's also the safety issues re: the two (NGV being less prone to burn you straight to hel_l in the case of some crazy crash)

Anyway, does anyone know if the tank itself has to be accessible or not enclosed for any reason? how to they refill the tank, from some valve on the tank itself? The reason I'm asking these questions is because I'm thinking about surrounding the tank with a large subwoofer box and putting a 15" sub and amp on top to make the think look as if it's been made for the subwoofer to hide that ugly tank (yeah yeah i know the box will be huge, but will it work?). I guess what i'm asking is can the tank be placed in a sealed enclosure like a subwoofer box or am i an idiot/doest the tank need to be accessible for refueling?

Cheers,

teej

Not sure about NGV tanks, but it sure is easy to have the LPG tank accesible, there's two valves on them and a fill level indicator...

One other disadvantage is the apparant very long fill time of NGV... LPG is comparable or faster to fill up then regular fuel...

The cheap LPG installations are old technology (common, cheap and inefficient), but the new systems where the gas is injected in liquid form and controlled by a gas injection computer are very efficient. They are used quite a lot in the West. Hardly any powerloss and/or consumption increase!

Not sure they have them in Thailand but I would assume so...

And for safety of LPG tanks, following quote is from the RAC (Royal Automobile Club UK)

Link:
http://www.rac.co.uk/web/carcare/advice/co...C48CDB8A0A0F3AD

Safety sure would be a wrong reason to chose NGV over LPG, anyway I would be a couple months patient to get NGV, the queues at the NGV filling stations are pretty long at the moment, and as long as you do not have a station along your daily commute, you'll do little advantage!

There were a few explosions during refuelling LPG tanks in Thailand, they
've got reputation of being dangerous. In case of a leak NGV will just evaporate, LPG won't.

With proper installation it shouldn't happen at all, of course.

NGV is a misleading term - Natural Gas Vehicle, proper term is CNG - Compressed Natural Gas.

Thanks for all the input so far guys.

I must admit that i havent loked around while ive been sat on the forecourt filling up for the LPG pump. I also thought that installation would be a lot more that 20,000 THB.

If it really does only cost that much, then it is definately worth looking at. Can anybody recommend a decent place to get the conversion carried out?

Do you think have a look at the NVG option in a couple of months instead?

Im now off to research NVG Vs. LPG!!!

Cheers fellas

If you bring your motor to Bangers I can recommend a few places.

Cheers Terdsak, im in Bangers allready. I live around On Nut, not a million miles away from your place in Bang Na.

Looking forward to your ideas!

Here is some info on NGV in thailand....

http://www.superngv.com/component/option,c...emid,1/lang,en/

Decent website, the english version is better than most in thailand. According to one of the promotions, they were offering a 4cylinder conversion for 31,500BHT.

I can't read thai so I couldn't find out where the stations were, but I know there is one at the PTT on Vipawadee Rangsit near Central Ladprao which is good enough for me....

wonder what a 8cylinder engine conversion would cost.... any guesses/info?

and here is another website of the cylinder manufacturer:

http://www.pluslab.com/

This post has been edited by teej: 2006-05-21 18:53:30

Cheers Teej, thats most useful.

I know my Escape is raping my wallet, but i really dread to think what a Range Rover would be doing to yours!!!

So EVO have you made any progress on your conversion? I'm seriously thinking about doing an NGV conversion on one of my cars, just running the numbers you can just save a load of cash...

I'm just worried about reliability/maintenance issues, that's pretty much the only thing that has been keeping me from doing it so far. But as it stands, I'm paying about 6-7baht/km right now, and if I can pay 1baht/km for NGV that's 100-120K baht savings per year (driving 20K kms).... think about 3, 4, 5 years of savings and you're into figures around half a million baht... now that's savings...

drive up and down Suk Soi 103 (Udom Suk) with a Thai friend, several LPG conversion shops there.

Teej, I think your savings estimate is a bit optimistic here..
With LPG you can cut your kilometer cost in half, so if you're paying 6B/km now, reckon on paying 3B/km on LPG.
With NGV you can count on increasing your savings by about 20% compared to LPG, mainly because of the higher efficiency, and the capped price of 8.5B/kg...
So you'd still pay about 2.5 Baht/km...

Still, on 20K Km/year you are talking of a saving of 70,000 Baht/year...

Well, i hadent quite figured out the savings, but as you put it like that, you just sold it to me!

I havent managed to get around to doing anything about it yet though as im really rather busy with the new business. I must get around to it though as its just not viable contiuiing what using the car for it.

Also, thanks Terdsak for the advice. I drive up and sown Suk 103 myself very regularly and have never opened my eyes long to have a look what is actually there other than what i need. Ill be there tomorrow for a gander.

Having often toyed with the idea of gas convertions since I owned a Landrover V8 110 I have come to the conclusion that now is about the right time to do it . However what are the implications on new or newish (under 100,000kl) vehicle warrantees ?????are they invalidated because of the convertion . ?

I would imagine that the warranty will be invalidated foir sure.

My Escape has done 45,000Kms but the 3 year warranty is up in 3 months, so ill get it done then anyway.

Hi you guys out there ! Nice input on the LPG & NGV conversion over here... I stay in Southern Thailand & have no idea where to go for conversion of my car engine... or is there any NGV refuelling station down south.. sigh ! .. Anyone have any idea.. post it up.. in the mean time I will be going around Hadyai to look for conversion... kekekeke all the best Bro !

What are the LPG/NGV options available for Diesel engines?

Also, do dealerships do these conversions and will the warrenty still be valid if THEY do it?

Greg