Message Forums

Quote: Originally posted by Francais on 09/3/2021

---

Good point Colin, but the powers that be want to get diesel cars of the road before petrol although they are not saying that, so that could come via congestion charges and road tax specifically target at regular diesel cars and not commercial vehicles.

I think petrol cars will get a second chance, as development of synthetic petrol is well advanced and petrol cars can also run on lpg.

Back in the 1970’s when I was a kid, there were no diesel cars that I can remember apart from Black Cabs.

In fact my first Diesel company car must have been around 1995 a Ford Mondeo, well I was a sales rep, but what a racket that used to make on a cold winters morning.

---

Quote: Originally posted by billy on 09/3/2021

---

Hi Fran. The issue with the few bi fuel cars supplied new appears to be that the Lpg tank is quite small. Usually fitted where the spare wheel would go the tank is about the size of a wheel & tyre so not very big. My first sight to Lpg powered cars goes right back to the 1970s. In Colchester plenty of the local Taxis were fitted with Lpg conversions. They were mostly Ford Granadas & Cortinas & had large cylindrical tanks in the front of the boot which took up a fair amount of boot space but gave as much range as the petrol tank.

There was 1 garage in the town that fitted the conversions. They worked well enough & you could switch between gas & petrol at will. The garage was the only supplier of Lpg in the town. The gas at the time was under half the price of petrol so the conversion cost about £200 at the time paid for itself in a few months. Another advantage with cars that were doing up to 1000miles a week it doubled the life of the engine. The oil stayed clear for 1000s of miles because the gas was far cleaner than petrol.

My next encounter was when I had a T25 campervan. Autogas was by then widely available & a T25 specialist garage did a conversion fitting a large tank under the rear seat again giving a good range on gas.

---