Did consider it but no kit was available for the V5 at the time.

There have been many horror stories of shoddy work done by cowboys so you
should get a recommendation rather than picking a company out of Yellow
pages. Also unless you fit specific criteria you won't get a Powershift
grant from the goverment (UK only) so the cost will be high.

If it's done properly then there shouldn't be any adverse affect to
reliability other than having more stuff to go wrong. I believe that the
latest kits give no noticable power loss but fuel economy is worse due to
the lower energy value of LPG compared to petrol. Any loss of mpg is more
than offset by the price difference between LPG and unleaded.

One important point is that it'll invalidate any manufacturer warranty you
have. Quite a big downer really

HTH
Dave

Hi

I have a 2000 Passat 1.8SE that has LPG. The car was originally owned by
Calor Gas and they had the conversion done by and engineering company in
Brum.
There are some plus points and minus points to LPG which you should
consider.
On the plus side lpg is half the price of petrol. Fuel consumption of LPG is
not as good as petrol so you don't save as much as half of the cost. my car
does around 26-28mpg on a trip. (equates to 52-56mpg if you work on petrol
being double the cost)
engine power is not noticably different in any way. (My wife has an LPG
Focus and she recons it runs better on gas)
The oil stays cleaner and engine wear is reduced - something to do with
there being less or no carbon in the gas I thiink.
It polutes the environment less.
On the minus side
The tank needs to go somewhere in the boot, mines in the spare wheel well.
It's a 52 litre tank but will only fill to around 42 litres. For safety
reasons the fill is cut off at this point - if the tank were completely full
and it took a knock it would split - big problem, so the 80% fill is to
allow some compression space in case of an accident.
With 42 litres this does mean that the distance between fills isn't huge -
but you do have the original petrol tank aswell if you want extra range.
LPG garages are becoming more common although when I'm away from my usuall
area I have to look up where the nearest ones are.
With the tank in the spare wheel well you have to carry the spare in the
boot. Not a problem with the passats huge boot - unless you have a full
load.
There is another system on the car that potentially needs maintaining.
You can't take you car through the channel tunnel.
Some cars are excempt from London Congestion charging but check the list
very carefuly as not all cars with all makes of conversions qualify.

My view is that if you can put up with the slightly extra effort involved in
running an LPG car then it's worth doing and a real treat when you fill up
for around ?16

Conversions
There are 3 types
The first is for carb cars or cars without lambda sensors and involves a
plate sandwiched in the inlet. A jet releases the gas in a crude sort of
way.
The second is where the gas is injected through injectors in the inlet
tracts and regulated through a controlled regulatror - a bit like a single
point fuel system. This works well and links up with the lambda sensor for
more accurate fuel delivery. (as fitted on my car)
The third is where each cylinder has it's own injector that is independantly
controlled - a bit like a multi point injection system. Slightly more
accurate, should give better mpg and a smoother ride.

I'm told that the conversion on my car cost around ?1500 - You'd need to
cover a lot of miles to get a payback if you pay for the conversion
yourself - or plan to keep the car for a long time. Some grants are
available for selected new cars. Search for the powershift register on
google.

I bought mine second hand with the conversion already done, the cost of the
car was no higher for having LPG. So far it's ran trouble free and my annual
running costs are way down on the old Saab I used to have.

regards

STeve