I seem to remember you will find it easier to get the tank if your not somewhere thats served by mains gas as well.
Ah sounds interesting..
I have a few LPG stations close to me, just hope they stay open for a good while.
Fingers Crossed. lol
I 'like' Gilbert's #20 post on this.
But I think most people's idea is to pretend they're using all the gas for heating purposes (chicken pens, etc) and none for road use thus avoiding paying any road fuel tax or just paying a bare minimum to cover their backs.
Unlike diesel (red) LPG isn't (and can't be) marked to differentiate between heating or off road fuel and road fuel.
Some suppliers will be happy to fill any tank almost regardless of how you've modded it, like by fitting a liquid take off to connect to a vehicle filling pump.
Can buy second hand 'Smiths' pumps (similar to those forecourts use) occasionally on EBay for £500. A UK spec bayonet type fill gun is a bit expensive but you can buy Italian dish type spec fillers new and reasonably cheaply from suppliers such as LPGshop and use an adaptor.
There isn't much duty on LPG when bought from a forecourt, legally you should pay the same duty if you fill at home. If you pay the duty it's likely to be no cheaper than filling at a reasonably priced forecourt... But it's possible to illegally avoid paying that duty, and then if you get a good deal on heating LPG it can work out way cheaper than filling on just about any forecourt.
Few years since I looked into it though. Even back then some suppliers wouldn't fill any tank except one you rented from them and would make sure you hadn't modded their tank - expensive. You'd need a supplier who would fill any tank (one you bought outright and cheap) and didn't ask any questions so would fill a tank that you'd modded by fitting a liquid take-off.
Quite fancy doing the same myself! Maybe I'll look into it again.
Lpgc wrote:
I 'like' Gilbert's #20 post on this.
But I think most people's idea is to pretend they're using all the gas for heating purposes (chicken pens, etc) and none for road use thus avoiding paying any road fuel tax or just paying a bare minimum to cover their backs.
Unlike diesel (red) LPG isn't (and can't be) marked to differentiate between heating or off road fuel and road fuel.
Some suppliers will be happy to fill any tank almost regardless of how you've modded it, like by fitting a liquid take off to connect to a vehicle filling pump.
Can buy second hand 'Smiths' pumps (similar to those forecourts use) occasionally on EBay for £500. A UK spec bayonet type fill gun is a bit expensive but you can buy Italian dish type spec fillers new and reasonably cheaply from suppliers such as LPGshop and use an adaptor.
There isn't much duty on LPG when bought from a forecourt, legally you should pay the same duty if you fill at home. If you pay the duty it's likely to be no cheaper than filling at a reasonably priced forecourt... But it's possible to illegally avoid paying that duty, and then if you get a good deal on heating LPG it can work out way cheaper than filling on just about any forecourt.
Few years since I looked into it though. Even back then some suppliers wouldn't fill any tank except one you rented from them and would make sure you hadn't modded their tank - expensive. You'd need a supplier who would fill any tank (one you bought outright and cheap) and didn't ask any questions so would fill a tank that you'd modded by fitting a liquid take-off.
Quite fancy doing the same myself! Maybe I'll look into it again.
Definitely worth looking into then by the looks..
How is the LPG situation at the moment?
Do you think it will really take off in the coming years?
StrangeRover wrote:
Do you think it will really take off in the coming years?
Bloody well hope not, they'll start upping the duty on it then. Seriously, an awful lot of more modern cars either can't be or are very expensive to convert as they use direct injection so that will restrict take up. There's far more out there than official figures suggest. DVLA records show somewhere in the region of 150,000 LPG cars on the road yet I've owned a Saab, a Range Rover Classic and 3 p38s, all on LPG but only one had it shown on the V5, all the others just showed petrol. So in reality, there's probably in excess of 500,000 of us running on it. As long as we keep buying it, then filling stations will keep selling it. There's one filling station near me that is supplied by Flogas. I can go to the Flogas depot and pay 54p per litre yet if I go to the garage down the road, it'll cost me 64.9p a litre. Now you aren't going to tell me that Flogas charge a garage that is buying thousands of litres a time the same 54p a litre as they charge me to fill my tank with 60 odd litres. So that garage is making over 10p for every litre they sell, far more than they make on petrol. So why shouldn't they continue selling it?
I heard the Goverment is looking to only raise the duty 1p for the rise in tax against Petrol/diesel so in all likely hood it'll take 30+years for LPG to be equal to petrol..
Assuming petrol goes up too much..
Love me some LPG ;) lol
I'd suspect it will stay around for some time, simply as there are places that are pushing it to improve the local air quality. London probably wouldn't have so much of an issue with that if Boris hadn't removed the congestion charge exemption (or at least made it slightly more targeted) Electric cars aren't the answer for everyone in their present state.
This is the rather depressing map of LPG stations near me. They were all selling LPG a couple of years ago :(
Within 30 miles of me around half the available stations have disappeared for one reason or another over the last couple of years. Still a fairly decent amount of options left though unlike above. Helps to have as big a tank as possible to go between fillups.
https://www.uklpg.org/advice/faqs/what-is-the-future-for-lpg
Not going to take it as gospel but looks to be getting some support in the future.
The annoying thing is that the two nearest (I live in Malton) have closed for stupid reasons. The Malton station apparently did a software update on their till system that broke the connection with the LPG pump and they haven't fixed it since (over a year ago). The one on the A64 nearer York claimed to have a problem with the line from the tank to the pump - but then was bought/rebranded as BP so I guess they'll never bother fixing it.
The Helmsley and Sheriff Hutton stations are owned by BATA - a country stores group with 10 stores in East and North Yorkshire. I hope they can be bothered to keep it up!
Good old ASDA at 53p, they get our weekly grocery shop just so I can do Click and Collect and pick up Fuel.
This all sound very negative but if you're going to run a V8 Range Rover there's still every reason to convert to LPG. With the truly horrific consumption of these beasts, you make back the install cost in fuel savings very quickly. Once you've done that you're running a huge and heavy luxury car at an effective economy of something like 30mpg. That's not too shabby. In the worst case, you've still got a full size petrol tank so you shouldn't ever need to be stranded if you turn up at a garage and find there's no LPG. Of course, filling a 100l tank isn't exactly a cheap pastime!