LPG tank in 1 year old Outlander Phev - 60,000 miles clocked

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denmans64 and jaapv:
Please could you post details of who does these adaptations, what price, and what warranty ?

I would be happy to let the thing exhaust the charge and then switch to petrol when it likes, then for me to manually select LPG for the longer journeys (and finally reverting to petrol in desperation nearing the end of the extended range). Would that protect/reduce ICE damage/starting problems that other posters hint about ?

That would mitigate the 30 mpg values (approx 9.4l/100km) horror stories for motorway/autobahn journeys on ICE alone.
 
PHEVvirginn said:
denmans64 and jaapv:
Please could you post details of who does these adaptations, what price, and what warranty ?

I would be happy to let the thing exhaust the charge and then switch to petrol when it likes, then for me to manually select LPG for the longer journeys (and finally reverting to petrol in desperation nearing the end of the extended range). Would that protect/reduce ICE damage/starting problems that other posters hint about ?

That would mitigate the 30 mpg values (approx 9.4l/100km) horror stories for motorway/autobahn journeys on ICE alone.

You only get 30mpg if you drive the car pretty hard - and I would expect that you would get similarly poor fuel consumption on LPG too! If you stick to speed limits, you'll get closer to 40mpg - even better in the warm weather. My usage of the car is almost exclusively motorway - in terms of percentage of miles - and the car has averaged 45mpg since new.
 
denmans64 said:
We fitted an LPG tank to our Outlander Phev and were told that by so doing we had invalidated the guarantee. However, MPG is now much improved.e is nowCar is a year old. The engine now is having problems getting started but we believe this is due to the engine's electrical generator failing and this has nothing to do with LPG.
Does anyone else have experience of LPG in the Phev. Answers would be much appreciated. Mitsubishi says we need to pay to have the engine dismantled, but I'm confident the engine is not the root of the problem!

HI.
I am thinking of getting a 2014 Outlander and putting LPG into it as I run a Prius on LPG now, so I asked a couple of LPG Technicians, one said he was told not to toutch a Mitsubishi after 2014 as the engine was too soft, the other said if it was a direct injection system (which it is ) a customised ratio LPG injection system must be installed, i.e.
depending on the engine it may be a 10 to 1 ratio or 8 to 2 ratio, that is 10 injections of gas to 1 injection of petrol or 8 injections of gas to 2 injections of petrol.
This will run the engine cooler than running it on gas alone like the Prius does.

I hope this sheds some light on your predicament.

I wonder do you know what kind of LPG delivery system was fitted in your car or maybe you could ask the fitter, I would be very interested in which system it is and how you have got on with your starting problem.
 
maby said:
PHEVvirginn said:
denmans64 and jaapv:
Please could you post details of who does these adaptations, what price, and what warranty ?

I would be happy to let the thing exhaust the charge and then switch to petrol when it likes, then for me to manually select LPG for the longer journeys (and finally reverting to petrol in desperation nearing the end of the extended range). Would that protect/reduce ICE damage/starting problems that other posters hint about ?

That would mitigate the 30 mpg values (approx 9.4l/100km) horror stories for motorway/autobahn journeys on ICE alone.

You only get 30mpg if you drive the car pretty hard - and I would expect that you would get similarly poor fuel consumption on LPG too! If you stick to speed limits, you'll get closer to 40mpg - even better in the warm weather. My usage of the car is almost exclusively motorway - in terms of percentage of miles - and the car has averaged 45mpg since new.

9.4L / 100km .. is quite in line with what I get when driving at 135km/h on motorway with my PHEV

The outlander is a massive car .. there is no miracle possible at high speed .. as well .. possibly the PHEV design is not tuned for motorway efficiency

For mitigate the consumption .. I run with charge when at speed above 130km/h ... and then once I get enough EV range, I slow down to 125km/h and run in pure EV for few km ... still I can't get much better then 9L / 100km per the MMCS
 
elm70 said:
...

9.4L / 100km .. is quite in line with what I get when driving at 135km/h on motorway with my PHEV

The outlander is a massive car .. there is no miracle possible at high speed .. as well .. possibly the PHEV design is not tuned for motorway efficiency

For mitigate the consumption .. I run with charge when at speed above 130km/h ... and then once I get enough EV range, I slow down to 125km/h and run in pure EV for few km ... still I can't get much better then 9L / 100km per the MMCS

Ah, but the "miles" in "miles per gallon" is a pretty strong clue that we are talking about Britain - and our absolute maximum speed limit anywhere on public roads is 112kph (70mph) - hence, I average better than 40mpg over the lifetime of a car that is effectively used as a petrol car...
 
maby said:
Ah, but the "miles" in "miles per gallon" is a pretty strong clue that we are talking about Britain - and our absolute maximum speed limit anywhere on public roads is 112kph (70mph) - hence, I average better than 40mpg over the lifetime of a car that is effectively used as a petrol car...

Yes at 112kph speed (which sounds terrible slow for my taste) .. at this "slow" speed the PHEV should have a decent fuel economy

Still ... I'm wondering how much popular is LPG in UK .. I have the impression that LPG is popular in some "poor" countries, like Poland ... the risk of LPG are not worth for people that have no problem with money .. here in Poland , many used car from abroad arrive here and they are adapted for be fuel efficient by installing LPG .. I never seen so many tank stations having LPG like in Poland .. in Austria I don't remember to have ever seen LPG in any tank station ... in Germany if I recall right it is quite rare to find LPG

I was reading above "horror stories for motorway/autobahn" .. autobahn ... it made me think of travelling in Germany .. where in many places there is no speed limit .. and driving at 150 km/h is quite common
 
In the poor nation of the Netherlands there are LPG stations all over the place, virtually every petrol station has them. In Germany, it is slightly more difficult, but there is reasonable coverage, at least next to the Autobahn.
I don't know about the "risk" of LPG. AFAIK those installations are more secure than petrol.
 
jaapv said:
In the poor nation of the Netherlands there are LPG stations all over the place, virtually every petrol station has them. In Germany, it is slightly more difficult, but there is reasonable coverage, at least next to the Autobahn.
I don't know about the "risk" of LPG. AFAIK those installations are more secure than petrol.

Having and LPG tank in the car, it would scare me in case of crash ... in my case I don't even have gas in my home, and I feel more safe not having it.

In some places as far as I know, it is not allowed to park "indoor" (in a garage) a car that has been converted to LPG .. since in case of gas leak it can cause a very dangerous explosion

About "poor" .. my "poor" uncle did like to buy powerful cars and then convert to LPG for make them "cost efficient" :ugeek: ... if he would have been "rich" he would not care to modify his cars :mrgreen: :D

PS: Anyhow ... maybe be "poor" is not the only reason ... for instance in Austria 99% of cars were diesel ... while in other countries diesel was only used by trucks and car with extreme high mileage users ... and this is just due how cars are taxed and how much these are taxed ... nicely in Poland there is almost no tax associated on car ownership ;) ... in Austria I had to pay over 100 Euro a month for owning a "little sport car"
 
Pumps serving LPG are pretty rare in Britain - it never really took off here.

As far as safety is concerned, I don't think it is significantly more dangerous than petrol, possibly even less so. Because it is so volatile, you are not going to get pools of burning fuel in the event of a tank rupture. When the Hindenburg full of hydrogen caught fire, two thirds of the passengers and crew survived - many virtually uninjured. The fireball was really quite short lived with no long term fire to burn people alive.
 
I almost gave this some thought!

I purchased a Daewoo Nubira at 1 year old and converted it to LPG. Fuel economy was 10% worse than petrol but the cost was 45% less so in theory it made sense. I kept the car for 150K. It then got sold and was driven to Russia as LPG is almost free there!

I am not exaggerating when I say that I changed the cylinder head 10 times. I got to the stage when I could do it in my sleep! The temperature burns out valves and gaskets. It can be improved with the flash lube system but it adds expense and does not resolve the issue.

An LPG system requires hot water to stop the gas vaporiser from icing up. Consequently it will do the first 5=6 miles of the day on petrol until the water temperature is high enough. Given that the whole idea of an electric car is to save all the energy involved in unnecessary heat, I can't see how you are going to avoid the awful first five miles where you are lucky to get 5-10 mpg. You would need to come up with a way of electric pre-heating the LPG while plugged in?

The sign that said 56p per litre caught my attention again today. Please tell me I would be mad to do it again!

Garnett
 
I guess my situation is unusual.

I need to work with boats on a beach so 4wd is essential but could never afford the commute in a suitable car. I have a 37 mile commute each way. Work charging was promised but is yet to materialise! I do pass 3 Ecotricity chargers on route so that is my current solution.

I am hoping that we see a rapid evolution of chargers in the next 12 months. I would only consider lpg as a last resort.

Garnett
 
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