Hi all.

I do a fair bit of driving for work each week. I currently have an au111 with a 60 ltr lpg tank. I am only getting around 270-300 before the warning sound beeps. I want to install a larger tank so I only have to fill up once a week instead of twice.

How big can I go with a sedan, and how much would I be looking at to just replace tank? Would a larger tank deliver better economy?

Forgive my naivety.

Tiffany

Tank size will not affect your economy. Now you say it is a 60L tank. Is that the actual size or is that the most you have ever filled it with? I say this as I have a 65L tank in my EF (this is a samll tank) but I can only fill it with about 50L as they have what is called an auto fill valve which limits the amount of LPG you can fill with to 80% of the water capacity of the tank. This allows for a good safety margin as LPG expands with temperature. You don't want the LPG expanding and rupturing the tank. This is for all intents and purposes impossible as there are various valves that will purge the tank, etc when the pressures reach a certain point.

Back to your question. If you really do have a 60L tank then yes this is quite small. It would mean you are only putting in 40 odd litres every fill. There should be space to fit something close to an 80L tank. These are quite expensive new and can be a pain to get installed when used. The LPG tanks also have a service life of 10yrs before they need retesting. So a secondhand tank in good condition may cost you $100, plus $100 for retesting plus maybe even another $100 or more for fitting especially if your brackets need changing, etc. A new tank maybe around $400+ but there was a 6mth wait on them a while ago (due to rebate and rush of people getting lpg, etc).

SO is it really worth say $3-400 for the inconvienience of filling up twice a week?

By the way how did your other repairs go?

cheers
Scott

Scott,

I ended up selling the car in question for 1500 and picked up a december 2001 series 3 au for 3000.00

The other car would have cost me more then buying this one to repair. I guess I was lucky because the bloke that bought this one needed cash fast and took my car with fifteen hundred.

Cheers.

To answer your question on gas tank. The car, does about 270.00 before beep sounds. It then takes about 49 ltrs of gas.

Also I have a strange sound coming from the car that sound like a whir or grating breaks when iit's driving. I don't think it's the break pads but something to do with the gas tank. Hard to explain the sound but sounds like a howl or something when the car is driving and stops a fraction "After" wheels do. Any ideas?

I noticed the tank said 375 x 860 3 valve? does this help?

A86F / A86F5 = 85 ltr tank, with 68 usable.


I am very confused then as to whether my car is running crappy if it only has 80 kms left after 48ltrs used. Am I missing something or is the gas system faulty somewhere?

Tiffany

dont believe wat your dash says your still have 20 litres left to use

delete

Last edited by clearlipstick on Sun Apr 20, 2008 10:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Hi,

What about if it's dedicated lpg. Should I fuel up at the quarter mark so the pressure does not drop to low?

Hi,

What about if it's dedicated lpg. Should I fuel up at the quarter mark so the pressure does not drop to low?

Sorry guys compute playing up and not showing the post went through.

nah u can just fill up when fuel light comes on

You will know when you are nearly out of LPG as the engine will feel really sluggish and wont want to pick up rpm. I ran mine out a while ago. Started to run out up a big hill. STill kept running but therpm just dropped. In the end I was crawling up the hill, but on a flat it would still pick up speed. Just for giggles I let it idle until completely empty. When the car would not drive anymore it still idled for a good 20mins.

I would say that if you noticed the car was running out you could probably travel another couple of k's (flatish roads) to get to a servo.

cheers
Scott

I have run mine out a few times (duel fuel) and it takes 62-63 litres to fill, my wife has the same tank and that takes 65litres...

so on that basis you have another 10-15 litres,
thats about 60-70 kays....

you must drive pretty hard I get 400 kays out of mine easy (tickford LPG) and no I dont drive like a grandpa either.

That's the trouble. I am driving it like a grandma, never using excess acceleration. I don't have a factory unit, it was installed afterwards. The dte goes well till I get to around half then tends to drop rapidly. I feel I should be getting more but dont.
Tiffany