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I've been offered a BMW five series tourer, 100k on the clock, full history, 2.5k.
The catch - if it is one - is that it's an LPG conversion.
What say the STW car experts: good or bad?
The upside is obviously the fuel price, and it seems pretty widely available, but are there any potential problems?
Help!
Forgot: It's on a Y plate.
The only guy's I know of with LPG cars have had some problems with them. 1 would overheat if used in lots of traffic as gas runs hotter than petrol, presumably the cooling system was tight on spec before and this pushed it over the edge. 2 says that having to find lpg is a pain, fine near home as you get to know where to go but a pain on long journeys. 3 This is the big one, had an engine problem, LPG man said my bits fine it's the petrol bit that's a problem, petrol man said my bits fine it's the lpg that's breaking it - went on for ages and never got a decent resolution. Fine if it's a factory conversion (vauxhall spring first to mind as a manufacturer who supplied gas vehicles) but a problem if it was done after market.
Are you allowed on the Channel Tunnel with LPG yet?
edit: apparently not
http://www.eurotunnel.com/uk/site-information/lpg/
Can't use them in the tunnel but that's no loss really.
If it's a proper vapour injection kit it should be fine. Debugging them is a piece of cake for anyone with half a brain, but that does mean finding a competent garage if you're not competent yourself - the systems are so simple it's beyond a joke.
Shouldn't run any different at all (slightly down on power) unless it's been badly tuned. Finding LPG can be hard, but just switch to petrol until you find a station. Small (borderline) engines with LPG tend to be utterly gutless when converted - a vauxhall van I used at work was a case of this- utterly horrific to drive, but it was a 1.2 petrol fully loaded IIRC.
Ultimately it IS an extra set of things to go wrong, but not much for the saving.
I had a 1994 Transit camper for 4 years, and it was fine.
You shouldn't really have any trouble finding somewhere to fill up, i used my local Flo Gas, cheaper than garages.
When i first got it, i got maps of the UK and there were over 1100 stations on it, i would imagine there would be a fair bit more now.
You've not really got anything to lose.
If you don't like the lpg, just use petrol!
EDIT: post removed, I was thinking of something else 🙂
At my new work place I have to pump the stuff into cars,
we have roughly 5 cars every saturday in from when i work and in a month i have not seen the same vehicle yet.
3 chaps at work with BMW/LPG
325
525
740
All fairly old, 10 year+
no problems on any, other than wear and tear. The only issue is filling up, they all have a range of approx 150-200 mile on LPG and about 40-50 on petrol, They only use a reserve size tank for that
The lad with the 525 has driven to Greece a couple of times and had no issues other than filling up a lot!
Got a 4l jeep on gas. Works fine.
No fundamental reason not to get it (sounds expensive mind).
Make sure it has the installation documentation, you may need that for insurance.
The other thing to check is the tank size. Quite often they have crappy little tanks and as you can only fill them up to 80% you could find you need to fill up every day.