CNG conversion

scorpion · 04-09-2011, 03:34 PM

Did you guys ever thought of converting your truck to CNG?

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thad5515 · 04-09-2011, 04:05 PM

Will be interesting to follow this one, I like the thought.

007KING · 04-09-2011, 04:10 PM

what the hell is CNG?

**bills1974** · 04-09-2011, 04:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 007KING

what the hell is CNG?

Compressed Natural Gas

Bhudda454 · 04-09-2011, 04:23 PM

Not sure if there would bean advantage to it. I know when people used to covert to LNG it was to get cheaper cleaner burn. That isn't the case now due to huge price jump. Not sure how much CNG runs, but if like propane you will lose money from the word go.

scorpion · 04-09-2011, 07:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bhudda454

Not sure if there would bean advantage to it. I know when people used to covert to LNG it was to get cheaper cleaner burn. That isn't the case now due to huge price jump. Not sure how much CNG runs, but if like propane you will lose money from the word go.

I drove today a dodge grand caravan don't ask me why the guy did it but the minivan drives perfect and it costs him something like 2$ a galon

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scorpion · 04-09-2011, 07:56 PM

I know in Europe a lot of people do it

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arcitech1 · 04-09-2011, 08:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scorpion

Did you guys ever thought of converting your truck to CNG?

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It burns cleaner, the engine may last longer, the price may be cheaper in some areas BUT...you lose 15-25% of your gas mileage, the conversion for OBDII equipped vehicles is relatively expensive and there is some loss of power reported by users.

To answer your question: No, I never thought of converting.

Bhudda454 · 04-09-2011, 08:03 PM

LPG is about 75% as efficient as gas. Your power and mileage are far worse. That is another fear I would have for CNG. Not to mention how easy is it to get? Hard to even find E-85 here, and we have the major refineries.

arcitech1 · 04-09-2011, 08:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arcitech1

It burns cleaner, the engine may last longer, the price may be cheaper in some areas BUT...you lose 15-25% of your gas mileage, the conversion for OBDII equipped vehicles is relatively expensive and there is some loss of power reported by users.

To answer your question: No, I never thought of converting.

I may be mistaken about the mileage issue, but the cost is equal to 1400 gallons of gas at my local price. If LNG was 2.00 then:

Gas: 5400/3.69=1463Gal. @ 17.2 avg MPG=25170miles driven for my $$$

LNG: 5400.00 for conversion +1400Gal. @ 2.00 = $8200.00 to drive the same distance. or approximately 5.80 a gallon for the first 25000 miles of driving.

If I kept the vehicle for 100,000 miles, then I would spend about 17000.00 in conversion and fuel costs, or 21600.00 for just gas. So long term is looking good if you like to save 1100.00 a year and deal with the hassles of finding fill up locations that are close to home and work. Of course all of this depends on the price of LNG and Gas in the States, which varies greatly and changes faster than you can read this!

NatGasCar Announces CNG Conversion Kit for Ram 1500 and Dodge Dakota - PickupTrucks.com News

chris mac · 04-09-2011, 09:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arcitech1

I may be mistaken about the mileage issue, but the cost is equal to 1400 gallons of gas at my local price. If LNG was 2.00 then:

Gas: 5400/3.69=1463Gal. @ 17.2 avg MPG=25170miles driven for my $$$

LNG: 5400.00 for conversion +1400Gal. @ 2.00 = $8200.00 to drive the same distance. or approximately 5.80 a gallon for the first 25000 miles of driving.

If I kept the vehicle for 100,000 miles, then I would spend about 17000.00 in conversion and fuel costs, or 21600.00 for just gas. So long term is looking good if you like to save 1100.00 a year and deal with the hassles of finding fill up locations that are close to home and work. Of course all of this depends on the price of LNG and Gas in the States, which varies greatly and changes faster than you can read this!

NatGasCar Announces CNG Conversion Kit for Ram 1500 and Dodge Dakota - PickupTrucks.com News

my work truck is a Chevy 2500 HD that weighs about 8,000 lbs and is bi-fuel gasoline and CNG. in my everyday driving i get 1 mpg better while running on CNG. as of right now i have about 28,000 miles on it. i drive anywhere from 130 to 220 miles per day and i always get better mileage on CNG.
at our local ONG (Oklahoma Natural Gas) offices, CNG is $.83 per gallon. most other filling stations charge around $1.30 to $1.40/ gallon.
i personally don't notice much of a loss in power while running on CNG. i'd say that power is very comparable between gasoline and CNG.
whenever i'm at the pump and another CNG vehicle pulls up i always ask them how they like it and i've honestly NEVER heard anyone say a bad word about it. i've probably talked to 20-30 people at the pump.
i'll say that the biggest drawback of converting to CNG is the initial cost. 8-12 grand is pretty steep! i believe that my state, Oklahoma, offers a tax credit of around $4,000 when someone gets their vehicle converted.
hopefully, some automakers will jump in on this and get some factory equipped CNG vehicles out on the road...

those are just my experiences with CNG...

good luck

scorpion · 04-09-2011, 11:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chris mac

my work truck is a Chevy 2500 HD that weighs about 8,000 lbs and is bi-fuel gasoline and CNG. in my everyday driving i get 1 mpg better while running on CNG. as of right now i have about 28,000 miles on it. i drive anywhere from 130 to 220 miles per day and i always get better mileage on CNG.
at our local ONG (Oklahoma Natural Gas) offices, CNG is $.83 per gallon. most other filling stations charge around $1.30 to $1.40/ gallon.
i personally don't notice much of a loss in power while running on CNG. i'd say that power is very comparable between gasoline and CNG.
whenever i'm at the pump and another CNG vehicle pulls up i always ask them how they like it and i've honestly NEVER heard anyone say a bad word about it. i've probably talked to 20-30 people at the pump.
i'll say that the biggest drawback of converting to CNG is the initial cost. 8-12 grand is pretty steep! i believe that my state, Oklahoma, offers a tax credit of around $4,000 when someone gets their vehicle converted.
hopefully, some automakers will jump in on this and get some factory equipped CNG vehicles out on the road...

those are just my experiences with CNG...

good luck

The guy with the caravan said that he paid 2k for the conversion that's why I was thinking about it

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chris mac · 04-10-2011, 06:10 AM

From what I've been told, some kits aren't DOT certified. They perform just as good, but if you're in a wreck and the fuel tank fails then you could potentially be held accountable ... not sure if that info is totally accurate.

**Scottysize** · 04-10-2011, 10:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chris mac

my work truck is a Chevy 2500 HD that weighs about 8,000 lbs and is bi-fuel gasoline and CNG. in my everyday driving i get 1 mpg better while running on CNG. as of right now i have about 28,000 miles on it. i drive anywhere from 130 to 220 miles per day and i always get better mileage on CNG.
at our local ONG (Oklahoma Natural Gas) offices, CNG is $.83 per gallon. most other filling stations charge around $1.30 to $1.40/ gallon.
i personally don't notice much of a loss in power while running on CNG. i'd say that power is very comparable between gasoline and CNG.
whenever i'm at the pump and another CNG vehicle pulls up i always ask them how they like it and i've honestly NEVER heard anyone say a bad word about it. i've probably talked to 20-30 people at the pump.
i'll say that the biggest drawback of converting to CNG is the initial cost. 8-12 grand is pretty steep! i believe that my state, Oklahoma, offers a tax credit of around $4,000 when someone gets their vehicle converted.
hopefully, some automakers will jump in on this and get some factory equipped CNG vehicles out on the road...

those are just my experiences with CNG...

good luck

^^^ Really? ^^^

We had CNG bi-fueled vehicles for the last 10 years at DFW. I can say that the F150's lost a lot of power when running on CNG and the gas mileage was not as good. All of the DPS cars ran on CNG only and they switched back to gas a few years ago because of the loss of power. Driving the F150's during an 8 hour shift, we'd run out of a 10 gallon equivalent CNG by the 7 hour mark. Ford quit offering the CNG upgrade on their vehicles, so we have since moved back to straight gas. After an 8 hour shift, it takes 8 gallons of gas to fill it. I can buy CNG for $2.35/gallon right now, and gas is $3.73. Also, the CNG vehicles ran through spark plugs like crazy. The CNG is notorious for fowling spark plugs. Having said all of that, if I could find a cheap conversion kit, I wouldn't mind having the option, but I don't think it'd be worth spending a bunch of cash on. The upfront costs could negate any savings you'd see from the cheaper CNG, if the conversion kit is too much.

chris mac · 04-10-2011, 01:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scottysize

^^^ Really? ^^^

We had CNG bi-fueled vehicles for the last 10 years at DFW. I can say that the F150's lost a lot of power when running on CNG and the gas mileage was not as good. All of the DPS cars ran on CNG only and they switched back to gas a few years ago because of the loss of power. Driving the F150's during an 8 hour shift, we'd run out of a 10 gallon equivalent CNG by the 7 hour mark. Ford quit offering the CNG upgrade on their vehicles, so we have since moved back to straight gas. After an 8 hour shift, it takes 8 gallons of gas to fill it. I can buy CNG for $2.35/gallon right now, and gas is $3.73. Also, the CNG vehicles ran through spark plugs like crazy. The CNG is notorious for fowling spark plugs. Having said all of that, if I could find a cheap conversion kit, I wouldn't mind having the option, but I don't think it'd be worth spending a bunch of cash on. The upfront costs could negate any savings you'd see from the cheaper CNG, if the conversion kit is too much.

yep, that's the honest truth... my guess would be that the Fords themselves or maybe the tuning on those trucks could have been the issue. just a guess... i can only speak of what i deal with...
our company is strictly Chevrolet and they all seem to run very well.
our managers send out a breakdown of our whole office's fleet showing mpg on gas & CNG. i'd say that 90-99% of our entire fleet (60 + trucks) is showing better mileage while on CNG.
as far as the cost of the kits that we run, i was told that the actual fuel cylinder makes up about 75% of the cost of the kit!!!