4.0 petrol or dedicated gas

[axe]

I'm looking to buy a new daily drive to replace the VY duel fuel and i'm looking at getting a early FG sedan but i'm trying to decide between buying a petrol or the ecoLPI version since duel fuel versions seem to be very rare.

What are the LPG only versions like in terms of reliability, are they any better or worse than the petrol? Is there any additional costs to having the LPG version over the petrol?

If I plan to keep the car for 3-4 years what do you think the odds are that LPG will still be available given that it seems to be a dying fuel type in Australia.

[Vesper Martini]

Originally Posted by axe

I'm looking to buy a new daily drive to replace the VY duel fuel and i'm looking at getting a early FG sedan but i'm trying to decide between buying a petrol or the ecoLPI version since duel fuel versions seem to be very rare.

What are the LPG only versions like in terms of reliability, are they any better or worse than the petrol? Is there any additional costs to having the LPG version over the petrol?

If I plan to keep the car for 3-4 years what do you think the odds are that LPG will still be available given that it seems to be a dying fuel type in Australia.

LPG will be available for years. you'd be mad to purchase the Petrol over the EcoLPI

[axe]

How far will a tank get you doing pretty much all highway kms? I've heard it ranges between 400-700km on LPG. Can anyone with experience comment?

[Trump]

Very easy equation:

EcoLPi >> petrol

[mcflux]

Originally Posted by axe

I'm looking to buy a new daily drive to replace the VY duel fuel and i'm looking at getting a early FG sedan but i'm trying to decide between buying a petrol or the ecoLPI version since duel fuel versions seem to be very rare.

What are the LPG only versions like in terms of reliability, are they any better or worse than the petrol? Is there any additional costs to having the LPG version over the petrol?

If I plan to keep the car for 3-4 years what do you think the odds are that LPG will still be available given that it seems to be a dying fuel type in Australia.

Just to clarify, early FG's have the oldschool egas setup.

Egas, if kept in good nick (ignition in particular), is perfectly reliable.

Whilst I have no direct experience with ecoLPI, my last Ford (BF Fairmont) had a JTG liquid injection conversion - same technology as ecoLPI - and it ran flawlessly. The only additional cost I had vs petrol ownership was electing to get the liquid LPG injectors checked over & filters replaced where necessary at 20k intervals whilst under warranty (~$180 a pop). Once warranty ran out I stretched these out to 50k intervals & never noticed a dip in system performance.

For 3-4 years ownership, you'd definitely be fine with an LPG vehicle. I highly recommend SVI or LPI, ecoLPI is probably the best of the lot given the Ford-Australia-wide support.

[kypez]

EcoLPi is awesome! More power and torque than petrol engines and dare I say smother!?!

Egas is good, lpi is much better! You'll get almost 700kms on the highway (750 max I've seen) without much fuss and 450 around town. and towing is so cheap on gas (not that you said you would, but that's what mine is used for).

You won't regret it. If you like, get a battery with higher cca than the standard battery. Else it will take a little more to crank but as with all auto fg's, you don't need to hold the key turned till it cranks anyway. Twist once and it will do the rest.

Servicing is capped price and is only a little dearer than petrol 6. Ecoboost is a lot cheaper I found. You won't have to do what Ghia5L said to the lpi as it's dedicated gas.

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[vztrt]

Besides the lack of a boot lpi is a good buy.

The servicing costs seem a bit steep but worth it if your doing the kms.

[axe]

Originally Posted by vztrt

Besides the lack of a boot lpi is a good buy.

The servicing costs seem a bit steep but worth it if your doing the kms.

I thought the tank sat in place of the fuel tank on the dedicated versions. Is it mounted in the boot?

[Craig@AUDI]

Originally Posted by axe

I thought the tank sat in place of the fuel tank on the dedicated versions. Is it mounted in the boot?

Boot is flat the whole way across, so no wheel dip, and hence no spare wheel either...just a can of goop and an air compressor.

Awesome drive compared to the petrol however, 3KW more and 20NM more and at 1000 less rpm...feels like a mini turbo is hiding under the bonnet.

Both have their pro's and cons.

[axe]

Hmmmm, that sort of sways me towards the petrol. I don't like the idea of relying on that foamy stuff and not having a spare and also want a boot that doesn't have a tyre floating around in it.

Don't you have to replace the whole tyre after using that spray stuff? In saying that i've only had 1 puncture in 10 years of driving (not counting work cars) so maybe its not that big an issue.

[kypez]

Go the Ecoboost then! Unless you need the towing capacity... It's a great drive. I loved my ecoboost. Only sold it cause i needed more towing capacity.

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[axe]

What sort of kms do the ecoboost engines last for?

I like the idea of the 4.0 being able to last 4-500k (even though i'm not planning on keeping the car that long) The 4l is just a proven engine in my mind. On freeway drives would the 2l be that much more economical than the 4 litre?

[vztrt]

Originally Posted by axe

I thought the tank sat in place of the fuel tank on the dedicated versions. Is it mounted in the boot?

The boot space is small. Lpg tanks arent easy to fit like a plastic tank. If you have a spare in there it gets bad. But if you dont need tbe boot space and just high kms its the best car. Good motor, cheap to run andbthe extra grunt helps.

[kypez]

Originally Posted by axe

What sort of kms do the ecoboost engines last for?

I like the idea of the 4.0 being able to last 4-500k (even though i'm not planning on keeping the car that long) The 4l is just a proven engine in my mind. On freeway drives would the 2l be that much more economical than the 4 litre?

I got from Sydney to Melbourne on a single tank plus some driving around. Did Sydney to Brisbane as well. Get around 950 on the ecoboost. I don't believe the I6 will get you over 750... So yes, big difference!

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[Mechan1k]

I6 will get you over 800 with some to spare.

This just driving around Sydney during holiday periods.

[kypez]

Originally Posted by Mechan1k

I6 will get you over 800 with some to spare.

This just driving around Sydney during holiday periods.

image

Is that one off or consistently though?

I've had the GTF giving me 9.5 litre/100 but I wouldn't say it had a range for 750kms plus on the highway. I'd say 650 tops. Similar with the EcoLPi.

(Not having a go, just really asking as I've never owned the petrol i6 in since E series. All others I've spoken to seem to say 750 is where you get to before needing fuel.)

[Vesper Martini]

Originally Posted by axe

Hmmmm, that sort of sways me towards the petrol. I don't like the idea of relying on that foamy stuff and not having a spare and also want a boot that doesn't have a tyre floating around in it.

Don't you have to replace the whole tyre after using that spray stuff? In saying that i've only had 1 puncture in 10 years of driving (not counting work cars) so maybe its not that big an issue.

Forget the spare, if you do happen to pick up a puncture, the tyre normally goes down slowly, I've found nails, that could have been there for weeks and they tyre is only down 10 PSI. so plenty of time to get to a gas petrol station for mire air.
eventually I stopped loading my spare in the boot of my LPG Territory.
I carry a puncture repair kit, just in case even though a now have a spare. 99.9% chance when I sell my current Territory 10 years from now it will still have an untouched spare.

[Mechan1k]

Originally Posted by kypez

Is that one off or consistently though?

I've had the GTF giving me 9.5 litre/100 but I wouldn't say it had a range for 750kms plus on the highway. I'd say 650 tops. Similar with the EcoLPi.

(Not having a go, just really asking as I've never owned the petrol i6 in since E series. All others I've spoken to seem to say 750 is where you get to before needing fuel.)

That was during holidays during Sydney metro driving.

Normally around Sydney I get 9.0-9.5L/100km ... so about 700-750km per tank.

I haven't had a chance to really take it too far on an extended run .... but if i did it would get this ... Have done Penrith - Narooma (some driving around) - Penrth ... and that was ~800km from memory ... and I still had about 100km left to go on that trip.

Have done smaller trips here and there 100-200km distances ... have have easily obtained 6.5L/100km ... these are on 80-90km/h backroads. So the I6 with ZF is pretty frugal for what it is ... the EcoBoost should be more frugal again.

Coming from ex-EGAS ownership ... and understanding momentum and reading the road ahead for minimum accelerator inputs for best economy also helps here too

[Vesper Martini]

Could have fixed my spelling mistakes too Gasolane!

[commodorenutt]

I've had my LPi over 5 years now, and 185k on it.
Never needed the goop. When I go long distance, it's normally towing a trailer (usually a car trailer) and I just chuck the spare on the trailer.

I get 600km to a fill commuting on a mix of freeway & bumper traffic. Usually I get about 70-72 litres into it.

The boot isn't too small. Never had an issue getting enough into it for a week away with 2 adults & 2 little kids. It's only slightly shallower than a VE boot (our other daily) and I find the flat floor more usable than the voided floor that was a pain in the BA I had 10 years back. Much easier to play Tetris packing with the flat floor.

If anything happens to it, I'll be getting another LPi. You can't beat them for the combination of comfort, space, economy, and towing ability. An LPi territory would have been a good thing had they made one - creating an economic incentive without going diesel, but that opportunity has passed. And I'm from the red camp....but the blue oval deserves credit for a great driveline & vehicle.

And as the others said, LPG will be around a long tome yet. Shell/Coles express are on a shareholder driven mission to cut costs, and LPG isn't as profitable for them as other fuels and the grossly inflated in-store products, so they are removing it from many sites - not from a lack of demand, or only in affluent areas as some have suggested - it's across the board as things come up for recertification - they won't spend the money, they just remove it. But the other brands have no such plans.

I find I get the best economy from Shell (not now though - can't get it), closely followed by Mobil/7-11 then Caltex. Had a big drop in km to the tank using BP - thought it was only the Norwest one (now closed) but copped the same problem with the BP at Grafton too. Tried it a couple more times, only when I had no choice and it repeated the poor economy, so I avoid it now.

[baboon]

Such a pity we couldn't have access to an ecolpi wagon

[Vesper Martini]

Originally Posted by baboon

Such a pity we couldn't have access to an ecolpi wagon

or Territory

[axe]

Finding it a bit hard to find an EcoLPI Falcon for sub-$13-14000, 150,000km. What does a conversion cost? Can probably get a 11-12 XT for $10-11,000 or less. Is it worth converting to duel fuel anymore?

[Trump]

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[Blue Dog]

I replaced a 4.0 Litre petrol auto XG ute with a 4.0 Litre AUIII dedicated LPG auto ute some years ago.
The fuel costs between the two vehicles was reduced by 50% using the LPG covering the same milage over the same routes.

At the time of purchase, LPG was around .63 cents per litre (similar to todays pricing).

It now has 321,000 k's on the engine, recent milage per litre indicates in city stop/start traffic it's using between 19 to 22 litres per 100kM.
On the highway, fully loaded it averaged 14.9 litres per 100kM, unloaded it averages between 12.5 to 13.5 litres per 100kM.

I have kept a record of fuel used since day one & recently thought the fuel consumption was climbing, however it has been fairly steady overall & the increase in consumption is related to an increase in traffic on the roads.
This is evident during the Christmas holiday period when the roads are a significantly quieter & the fuel economy improves to similar figures as when the vehicle was initially purchased.

Over the last 5,664kM the statistics are:
999.65 litres used
Cost: $639.21
19 fill ups
Best price $0.549
Worst $0.879
Best cost per kilometre $0.077
Worst $0.020 per kilometre
Average fuel consumption 16.35L/100kM
Best 12.61L/100kM
Worst 22.77L/100kM

Based on fuel savings alone the vehicle has paid for itself many times over.

I believe the later injected LPG engines are superior to the system in the AU in both economy & power output, but haven't driven one so can't comment.

[IanC]

When you are buying remember that the tank will need retested when it is 10 years old. Some people are scrapping Egas utes at that point because of the cost of testing. Don't know about the cost of testing sedans.

[Mechan1k]

BFII EGAS ute cost just under $300 for a tank test in Western Sydney.
Dunno why you'd scrap a ute over that cost.

[commodorenutt]

Sedans are likely to be an expensive test, as there's dual tanks, and you have to drop them out to test - the ute has better access.

Scrapping a vehicle because of the cost of a test is very short sighted.

In the first 5 years of ownership I've put $16K worth of LPG through my LPi, so that's a massive saving compared to petrol, which would be at least 50% more, if not double that value. Even if the test is $800 I'm still way in front.


People don't see the bigger picture when it comes to the true cost of things like this.
A closely related example to these tanks is lifetime fuel usage. Like the woman at my wife's work who told her she should get rid of the 6.0L V8, and buy a Mazda 2 like she did, and save heaps of money on fuel. Now for those who know my wife, that's like a red rag to a bull.... but anyway.... I did the workings for her. She averages 3000-5000km a year. The car gets filled up once every 4-6 weeks, at a cost of approx $80-90. We have rarely spent over $1000 in petrol in a 12 month period in the 7 years we've owned the car.

For the same km she may save $500/year in fuel with a little buzzbox, but it would take 34 years to pay off even a cheap Korean one...... We'll keep the 6.0L thanks.

[Blue Dog]

Originally Posted by IanC

When you are buying remember that the tank will need retested when it is 10 years old. Some people are scrapping Egas utes at that point because of the cost of testing. Don't know about the cost of testing sedans.

Surely you can't be serious......
Agree 100% with Mechan1k, the cost of the 10 year inspection is irrelevant.
Considering Mecha1k's 10 year inspection cost was $300.00 & the next inspection is due in another 10 years.
The cost works out to be $1.50 per year over a 20 year period, that's less than half a cent per day!

[Mechan1k]

And with the tank test .... new lock-offs/AFLs/solenoids ... and if i paid a little extra could have had new tank senders (Father-in-law didn't bother with it though) ... and certificate