Fellow LPG drivers. At what price does it not make a difference which fuel you use?

JackieChang · 19-12-2022 9:03pm #1

My local LPG station has gone from 85cent to 99cent recently. I notice some places around the country are selling LPG at 1.40 a litre.

And Petrol has gone down to 1.59 a litre.

Surely there's a point where it doesn't make a difference which fuel you use in terms of miles per euro or whatever the best calculation is. I understand LPG is about 80% as efficient as petrol.

Has anybody done the math? Let's assume petrol stays at 1.59 a litre - what LPG price makes it not worth using?

User1998 · 19-12-2022 11:34pm

LPG savings calculator here:

https://www.mylpg.eu/autogas-calculator/

zg3409 · 20-12-2022 3:30pm

I know off topic but full electric running costs tend to be lower again, if you have a long commute, if you can charge at home, especially if you have a non smart night rate meter. I saved about 80% compared to petrol, but electricity doubled in cost, while petrol shot up and is going down. I expect electricity prices to drop next year, but even at high prices today it's 20-50% savings and even more if you can charge your car for free on solar. There are downsides of EV, but worthy savings so much so it may make financial sense to buy brand new as it may be cheaper than fuelling a banger.

Arnout · 22-12-2022 2:32pm

Another problem with LPG is availability. I'm smack bang in the middle of three places where I can get it: all 20 minutes away according to Google (not 19, not 21, exactly 20). Now I can take a detour on my way to work for instance, but even then it takes up extra time (especially in rush hour) and half the time they're only open at times that suit the unemployed. And the extra fuel that you burn just to get there.

Whereas petrol I can get everywhere, without a detour or even just around the corner from where I live.

I've been living here now for a few months (brought my LPG car with me from the Netherlands) and so far I've been driving on LPG most of the time, but there probably will be times that I'm running on petrol more than just because I ran out of LPG on the way to the LPG station.

If LPG has 80% efficiency compared to petrol (I've heard different percentages over the years, never bother to properly test it out myself), then a price of € 1.28 for LPG balances out with € 1.60 for petrol, because 80% of € 1.60 is € 1.28.

But with the issues above taken into consideration, even at € 1.15 vs. € 1.60 for example, it might be worthwhile to look at petrol.

Ubbquittious · 22-12-2022 6:10pm

Anything over 1.15 a litre probably not worth it at the moment

There seems to be a decent lag in LPG prices going up after petrol which makes me think there is now a period of suckage ahead where it will be barely worth it to fill with LPG until they flush all the expensive LPG out of the storage tanks. The LPG heating and bottled gas crowd will soak up the lions share of this though

wotzgoingon · 22-12-2022 7:59pm

I was always LPG since I bought my car one and a half years ago. I also have to drive up to outside Galway to get it. I live in Mayo and there are no LPG in Mayo but anyway the price is now €1.25 so it is not worth my while making the drive up. There probably is a small bit of saving to continue using LPG but atm I'm all petrol. I also like how my car tells you your current MPG(well 100km a litre) while running on petrol as it doesn't do that while running on gas.

My car is pretty economical on petrol. I put €40 of petrol in one night before I made a trip to Dublin and I drove up and back on that and had some left over. I done the same trip with LPG and the whole tank would be gone before I arrived home. But the tank of LPG would have cost back then just under €30.

CiniO · 22-12-2022 10:15pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058276381/fellow-lpg-drivers-at-what-price-does-it-not-make-a-difference-which-fuel-you-use

With LPG at €1.40 and petrol €1.59 I actually think it comes cheaper to drive only on petrol.

Generally speaking, properly adjusted LPG conversion should run at about 20% higher LPG consumption than petrol.

So i.e if car is using 10 litres/100km of petrol, then properly adjusted LPG conversion should use about 12 litres of LPG per 100km.

Also worth remembering is that normally most conversion make car start on petrol and run on petrol for first few miles until engine reaches heats up a bit.

I'm using LPG, but that's in Poland where currenly petrol is for about €1.40, and LPG for €0.56. This makes very reasonable savings here.

Arnout · 23-12-2022 10:08am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120026514#Comment_120026514

I was wondering about that, I use an app called mylpg to find LPG stations, and I noticed that the one in Castlebar that I used when I was here on holiday in 2018 doesn't exist anymore? Or at least the petrol station is still there, but without LPG? It's a Circle K now, can't remember what it was 4 years ago, near a roundabout on the N5.

I haven't been anywhere near Mayo since I moved here six months ago, so I haven't been able to check for myself, but the owner of the mylpg app confirmed that he was advised that that LPG station had gone.

JackieChang · 23-12-2022 2:42pm

By the way I just checked LPG prices in Cork and one place is selling it for TWO EURO AND TWENTY FECKING CENT. How is that even possible? Is it just pure gouging? I think that's more expensive than petrol ever was during the height of the Ukraine war. My usual station sells it for 99 cent. What could be the cause of such a massive difference if it's not gouging?

wotzgoingon · 23-12-2022 2:52pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120028839#Comment_120028839

I seen that last night and was wondering why it's so dear. All I know is I used to also get LPG in Roscommon in a garage but stopped after it shot up to in and around €1.40-1.50 and this was back before any other place raised theirs. That's a massive profit for them if someone was foolish enough to pay that price.

Arnout · 23-12-2022 3:42pm

Apparently the average price for LPG right now is € 1.13 and it's the highest it's been this year (and ever): https://www.mylpg.eu/stations/ireland/prices/

Some of them from a while ago (depends on when a user confirms/updates the prices of a given location), but still.

https://www.mylpg.eu/stations/ireland/list/ says there's one in Tipperary where it was € 1.45 two weeks ago, there's a € 1.46 in Meath, 2 with € 1.40 but Cork definitely takes the cake with the € 2.20 mentioned above and another one € 2.08!

Would almost even make it worthwhile to bring over our old Skoda Octavia diesel from the Netherlands (nobody's buying a diesel there these days, so we have difficulty getting rid of it).

Ubbquittious · 24-12-2022 7:33pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120028839#Comment_120028839

That place used to be my regular filling haunt but have avoided it with about a year since he started gougin' big time. It is such a shame because he used to be reasonable. Maybe the wife of the fella that owns that place ran off with the lad who used to fill the LPG tank but he has some contract where he agrees to keep selling LPG for a certain number of years

CiniO · 25-12-2022 11:41pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120028018#Comment_120028018

I asked about 3 months ago about LPG on that exact station in Castlebar you mentioned near N5 roundabout, as I remembered that used to be only station supplying LPG in Mayo.

Some younger staff didn't know what LPG was, so they asked other guy who worked there bit longer, and he confirmed that indeed they used to supply LPG, but not anymore.

Ubbquittious · 26-12-2022 3:37pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120033897#Comment_120033897

This is a common enough occurrence. Happened to one near me as well that used to be a tiny old fashioned shop and they modernised the absolute feck out of it and brought in Spar.

The crowd working there now are all young and I found myself explaining the very concept of LPG to a bunch of youngsters who thought I was completely mad

Wishbone Ash · 27-12-2022 10:45am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120028839#Comment_120028839

Some businesses take that approach to eliminate a product or service that they do not wish to continue selling as it's too much hassle, not profitable, takes up valuable space etc. They can then claim that the resulting poor sales forced them to discontinue the sale of the product or service.

Ubbquittious · 29-12-2022 10:22pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120037225#Comment_120037225

That would be the Irish Rail business model

Fellow LPG drivers. At what price does it not make a difference which fuel you use?

Comments