Rufus has a 2.5L straight 5 cylinder petrol motor and drags about 2 1/2 tonnes around, so the fuel economy could be better! I think running a vehicle for any significant distance at 20mpg or thereabouts is not financially sensible. So, having acquiried the petrol guzzling old girl it made sense to get on the LPG bandwagon as soon as possible.
I had a look around and did a bit more surfing. I also had a chat with the only other person I know with LPG and got details of his fitter. So, armed with information I went to see some polish gentlemen and also got a quote from the old landrover converter. Although cheaper, I wasn't fully sure about the polish chaps so I arranged for Ian Cavendish, from Greenflow Ltd to do the work. If Richard and Land Rover are confident in his work, then I'm happy.
The layout, quality and logistics of the westfalia meant that the only feasible option was to put a torroidal (donut) tank in place of the spare wheel, under the back of the van. This is great, but the spare wheel then has no home - a later post! The van now has two full size fuel tanks so is truly a dual-fuel vehicle. It needs a petrol tank too since the engine starts on petrol until up to temperature then automatically switches to gas. Plus there is a night heater on board which runs off the petrol tank too.
So, the van went in early November and was ready a couple of weeks later, fully kitted out. And after a bit of running in (~1800kms) the system was checked over and signed off as fit and well. Now we get 19mpg, but with LPG at just over half the price of unleaded it is the equivilent of mid/high 30's mpg. Which I think is pretty good. I reckon from brimmed with both tanks we should be able to travel about 800km / 500 miles.
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