ForumGas

Hi guys,

my name is Eric and I´m new to your board.
I´m 43 years old, and I´m living in a very small village in the northern part of Germany.
Since I unfortunately don´t speak Swedish, I hope this is the right place for my first post. "Cafè Zeppelin" sounds very inviting

I drive a CNG car for 1,5 years now. It´s not an OEM Car, it´s a reconstructioned Toyota LandCruiser.
I love this car, and I love driving with CNG even though, due to the high consumption, the range is only 160 km.

I found your board beacuse of that post
http://www.forumgas.se/forum/viewtopic. ... b346340b11

I don´t know what it says, but the German CNG board I´m doing the co-administration for, is mentioned in it.

So I hope of some interesting discussions.
Now I will "scan" your board - maybe I find some more English words so I could read a bit.

kind regards
Eric

Hi Eric, welcome to ForumGas!

Café Zeppelin is open for any discussions, but I moved your topic to "Presentationer", which translates to "Presentations"

Please let us know more about your car. How much did cost to convert? What changes did they make? etc..

Hi Johan,

thanks for the welcome and the explenations.

well my car....

It´s a 1998 Toyota LandCruiser with a 3,4 liter V6 engine.
It has 178 horsepower.
This is a very huge car, and it´s a bit unusal to convert it into a bivalent CNG car.
The usual way - at least in Germany it to convert it to a LPG car.
Well, the costs....

The over all price for this convertion was 4400 € what is about 40876 SEK
I was really lucky that my gas-provider supported the conversion with 2500 €, so my equity ratio was only 1900 € what ist 17651 SEK.
And this is a price I was willing to pay.

They build in a 95 liter gas tank and prince-gas equipment.
Prince-gas is a re-labeled bigas (Italy) equipment.
You could see some pictures from my car and the CNG convertion on my homepage. The text is in German only - sorry for that....

The consumption is about 10,6 kg/100 km what allowes a range of about 160 km.
This is not much, but enough for my daily usage.
The CNG price for L-gas in my region is about 0,72 € (6,7 SEK)

kind regards
Eric

Hi Erik!

I have some questions about CNG conversions in general and your experiences sofar :

Does the company that makes the CNG conversion generally have their own package of warrants for the whole conversion including the whole engine to replace the factory warrants? Or do you loose all warrants for the car if you do a conversion, if the car is new or almost new?

What about the emissions from a CNG converted engine, are they the same, better or worse compared to when the engine was running on petrol?

When it is time for MOT inspection (is it every 2;nd year in Germany??) are there extra checks of the CNG system and are there usually any problems?

Can any petrol engine be converted or are some types more difficult, e.g. turbo's, carburators' or old mechanical fuel injection systems (I've got a MB 280 SE - W108 - from 1971 as a summer/oldtimer car)

What are your experiences with a CNG converted car sofar, would you still recommend it?

Unfortunately it is still very expensive and difficult to do a CNG conversion in Sweden. Apparently it is not only the cost for conversion but you also need to get a complete new type approval with regard to the engine emissions that is more expensive than the conversion, unless you are so lucky that someone else has already got an approved conversion of your dream car with exactly the same engine typ...

Since the current supply of factory CNG cars is either very limited or very expensive (a Mercedes E 200 NGT would be nice... ) a CNG converted S-class, A8 or 7-series from the late nineties would have been a good alternative at a small-car budget.

Regards

/Mercedes driver

Hi s-klasse

S-klasse wrote:
Does the company that makes the CNG conversion generally have their own package of warrants for the whole conversion including the whole engine to replace the factory warrants?

In general all companies offer their own package of warrants.
Sometimes only their stuff is included, sometimes the whole engine.
This is a very important point in the convertion contract.

S-klasse wrote:
Or do you loose all warrants for the car if you do a conversion, if the car is new or almost new?

Yes, you loose all factory warrants

S-klasse wrote:
What about the emissions from a CNG converted engine, are they the same, better or worse compared to when the engine was running on petrol?

The emissions on CNG are a litte bit better than on petrol.
The CO2 emission is about 20 per cent less.
But in the actual tax discussions here in Germany they calculate with the "dirty" fuel

S-klasse wrote:
When it is time for MOT inspection (is it every 2;nd year in Germany??) are there extra checks of the CNG system and are there usually any problems?

Yes, an extra check of the CNG system is requiered every 2 years.
The CNG tank needs a special check every 10 years.
I haven´t heared of any problems so far.

S-klasse wrote:
Can any petrol engine be converted or are some types more difficult, e.g. turbo's, carburators' or old mechanical fuel injection systems (I've got a MB 280 SE - W108 - from 1971 as a summer/oldtimer car)

oh boy - you own a great car ! I love these old MBs !
I think it should be no problem to convert this car.
Only the new FSIs cause some problems.
I heared of some who should run, but I never saw a converted one.

S-klasse wrote:
What are your experiences with a CNG converted car sofar, would you still recommend it?

Well, this is not easy to answer.
I still believe in driving with CNG. But I don´t know if I would convert my next car. At the moment I lean to buy an OEM CNG car.
Don´t get me wrong, this has nothing to do with the technical stuff.
Sometimes I would use the whole trunk, but there is the big tank.
I used to love the view to the engine compartment, but there are some things they don´t belong there. I know this may sound silly, but I think an OEM looks more "complete".

S-klasse wrote:
Unfortunately it is still very expensive and difficult to do a CNG conversion in Sweden. Apparently it is not only the cost for conversion but you also need to get a complete new type approval with regard to the engine emissions that is more expensive than the conversion, unless you are so lucky that someone else has already got an approved conversion of your dream car with exactly the same engine typ...

You need the same over here. The good thing is, that a professional company would do all this stuff for you.
You only have to pay for it

S-klasse wrote:
Since the current supply of factory CNG cars is either very limited or very expensive (a Mercedes E 200 NGT would be nice... ) a CNG converted S-class, A8 or 7-series from the late nineties would have been a good alternative at a small-car budget.

Regards

/Mercedes driver

Compared with a LPG convertion, a CNG convertion is much more expensive.
Some gas-provider support the convertion - or a new CNG car - so that the cost is almost equal.


Cheers
Eric