With the current economic climate pushing the prices of petrol and diesel through the roof with no end in sight motorists are looking for ways of getting more miles for their money and a technology that is starting to come to the forefront is LPG, or AutoGas as its otherwise known.


Although not a new type of fuel, the general public have never really paid much attention to it until now as the thought of bringing a car in for an upgrade to handle LPG was thought of as an inconvenience, but with petrol soaring from 89p a litre only a couple of years ago to almost £1.20 today, the crunch is making people change their minds and with the aid of a company that has been providing AutoGas conversions for almost 10 years, Scottish motorists are now saving money every time they fill up.


Clarkson's in Glasgow have been in the motor trade for over 30 years and in the past have been predominately a commercial van and light truck supplier, but almost a decade ago they had the foresight to start investigating alternative fuels and LPG was the system they decided to invest in. We visited Barry Clarkson to find out more on how liquid petroleum gas could be the saviour for Scottish motorists.


Since I've been interested in cars for a while now (well I started this site over 8 years ago) I've had a passing knowledge of LPG but beyond knowing that you needed a separate fuel tank in your car and that you'd save money I didn't know much else. What Barry explained was how the market has changed over the past 5 years and what level of equipment was now available to modify cars.


"When we started with LPG it was still very unknown, but through dealing with companies on the commercial side we knew that business owners were looking for ways to cut down their fuel bills and that's where things really took off". Although the LPG business has been successful over the years it's only in the last few that things have really ramped up. "With the way forecourt prices are climbing it really is driving people to hunt out the best value for money and we've been getting progressively busier as time goes on as drivers work out that the initial investment in an LPG conversion will save them literally thousands of pounds in only a couple of years of normal driving" explained Barry. With a car covering an average of 15,000 miles a year at current pump prices you could well be spending upwards of £3,000 annually on fuel, if you converted to LPG you could cut your fuel bill to £1,400 per year on the same mileage "Ah, but what's the catch, how much does the conversion cost?" I hear you ask. Well not as much as you would think to be fair. A fully installed system from Clarkson's can be yours from only £1,750 plus VAT. Add those figures together and if you plan on holding on to your car for more than a year or two you're already saving a serious amount of cash, and if you do more than 15,000 miles per year or have a greedy gas guzzler you will start saving more money even quicker.


Just as the modified and performance car industry has had its fair share of crooks and cowboys there are some unscrupulous people around who offer bargain basement LPG conversions too, but unlike fitting some engine bits incorrectly where the worst you might find happen is your engine grinds to a halt, a dodgy LPG installation could spell disaster. "We've heard all the stories over the years" explained Barry, "we get calls from customers saying they've found a cheaper kit on the internet for £1,000 and would we fit it for them, but we only fit systems that have been proven to work completely safely and reliably in our own workshop and that come with full CE certification and backup. There are a lot of very low cost Russian kits floating around online but we would never dream of fitting something like that to our customers vehicles". Just as eBay "mod chips" have been circulating for a while, these garden shed DIY kits have also appeared but we'd recommend using your loaf and not trusting your safety to a cheap knock off system.


So what's involved in the conversion process then? Is it a serious 2 weeks off the road affair or can it be done fairly quickly? "An LPG conversion is not an easy task so we like to have customers leave their vehicles with us for at least 4 working days. This allows us time to carefully install the parts, update the LPG ECU systems that accompanies the mechanical kit, run tests plus perform on road checks" Barry went on to tell us. We were intrigued to learn more about the types of cars that can be converted as with up-to-date modern cars having so many intricate systems surely it must be a nightmare to link up to the factory ECU and CAN bus systems? "With our kits we supply an LPG ECU system which is programmed with the exact parameters for your vehicle, so that means that both your existing petrol control system and LPG control systems work in tandem to provide the car with whichever fuel is desired. We start with a base system and install a flash program that is tailored to each variation and model of car and so far we've never had any issues from Ford Focus' through to brand new Lexus GS300s, BMW X5s and Mercedes ML's" - that in itself is testament to how well these systems are designed and implemented because even simple repairs to the newest cars require electronic assistance to reset dashboard lights and clear down DTC trouble codes.


Barry went on to explain that in the past turbocharged cars such as Scoobies and Evos posed problems, but not any longer with the current systems - even tuned turbo cars are ideal candidates for the process. With LPG conversions now a mature technology and with research and development being carried out by the world's leading car manufacturers it's no longer the mystical black art it once was considered to be. We asked if there were any types of car that weren't suitable for conversion and Barry explained "we look at every vehicle brought to us in its own right. There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to LPG but what we have found over the years is that newer cars are the best subjects, with older cars tending to have more cylinder leakage, rings that don't make as good a seal and other mechanical fatigue. The most common type of vehicle we carry out conversion on seem to be 3-4 year old 4x4's like Range Rovers, X5's and the like though we've worked on everything you can think of from 1970's ex-Swedish army vehicles through to Daewoo Matiz, Dodge Ram trucks and Volkswagen fleet cars. Our head installation technician used to work with the late Colin McRae when he was a privateer so as you can imagine he is a master when it comes to mechanical engineering no matter which type of vehicle it is".


With more filling stations starting to stock LPG and with our wallets becoming ever more spacious there really hasn't been a better time to seriously consider the switch over to a cleaner burning, environmentally friendly and most importantly, cheaper source of fuel. If you'd like to find out more about the process then we'd recommend you speak to the experts at Clarkson's on 0141 771 3990 or visit their website at :
http://www.autogasscotland.com