Wow thanks all of you for your quick responses!!!
Looks like i didn't get any reply e-mail for this topic since it has been moved to parts, accessoires and mods ( strange).

But have to say it again thanks all of you, because i'm really doubting about it...

A special thanks to Luxembourg and Justin for their full response based on own (previous) car.

But i have some more questions:

Justin:

I read you installed a 67 litre tank. How much km's do you do with it and how much do you pay for a full tank?
Sorry, read on your usefull topic yet . Except if now you do more with it...

Do you still hear the nice petrol engine sound like before? (because this is really a point for me, since i didn't go for a 530xd because i LOVE the petrol sound...)

You say you have more power now, could you explain that??

Do you switch to petrol many times?

And to all of you:

What is the difference in taxes you might have to pay? Is it more than diesel? Or less...

Thanks again all of you

 

Apart from taxes on fuel, in the UK you actually get a slight reduction in taxation (annual car tax) if you use LPG, I think. No difference on purchase (e.g. VAT).

There is definitely no tax advantage in using diesel (compared to petrol or LPG) in the UK - you get penalised on both fuel taxes and (very modestly right now) on annual car tax.

 

- I drive between 340 and 400 km on one tank, and I get my gasoline in begium for 38 cents so its
50 liters(this is the max when you have a 67 liter tank) x 0.38 = 19 euro's

- The sound is exactly the same, you could not tell if its running on LPG or Gasoline.

- The guy who in stalled my LPG installation, told me that when he worked for Vialle that he installed LPG systems in thousand of BMW's on request of BMW itself in the past years. When they installed these systems, they did some power tests, and most of these engines had a slighly increased power.

But a year later, I got to drive with my 2.2 liter E60 on the german roads, and the top speed with LPG is 240 km/h and the top speed with gasoline is 248-250 km/h, so there is a decrease of power in my case,
but its not noticeble when diving normaly (we are talking about 4% power loss here)

-The system itself starts on gasoline, and switches to LPG after 3 minutes of driving.
I personaly seldomly switch to gasoline to gain more power, only when I drive at top speed ;-)

-the difference in tax, is that I have to pay 15-30 euro more per month

 

Well, i think the switch could be an advantage if you have no LPG left and can't find a tank equipped with LPG... Then you can run on gasoline for a while.

Otherwise i have an interesting question. You said it switched to LPG after 3 minutes and since my job requires a lot of short rides (ben huisarts en moet van huis naar huis), should the advantage be that much then, or can you shorten that period of switching over?

Thanks for replying

 

Of course you can switch to gasoline if you run out of LPG, If I go on a Holiday to France, the gasstations that sell LPG are not every 5 km like in the netherlands n d Belgium, so I fill up my gasoline and LPG tank to have a bigger radius.

If you drive a lot of short trips, its not worth it, but how many KM you drive every year?
Because You cant drive a lot of KM's if you drive short distances.

You cant shorten the time yourself, but I believe that its so clever that when the engine is stil hot, the switching time is shorter.

If you really what to know this, I can test it for you.

If you really consider in installing this in your E60, I would suggest that you let it install it in Tilburg "2-m Fuel systems" because that Guy over there (Marcel) worked for Vialle for years before he started his own business, and he has installed at least on E60 (mine).
He did a very good job ( except for the hoses on top of the engine but if you ask him to re-route them on the side of the engine its much pretty-er) . He is also capable of reading and resetting error messages in the E60 computer.

 

Hehe again, thanks for the write-up.

Well i drive approx. 35000 kms a year so don't really know if it would be worth it...

On which base do you decide when to pull the switch?

Concerning the installation. I know that could be a good guy, he did a fine job on yours (except like you say, the hoses, cables,... on top of the engine . But i think that might be a little bit too far and would raise my gasoline price again . Think there might be a good one too here near my place .

 

Actually, top speed increases proportionally to the cubic root of engine power, so power loss is more like 10-13%, which is the equivalent of having a 523 instead of a 525, or a 525 instead of a 530...

Having said that, if it's only peak power that's affected, it may be less noticeable in normal driving.

 

35K is a lot, just by driving small distances?
The installation costs will be covered after one year of driving, after this year you will ride almost for free ;-)your savings are 2200 euro per year, suppose that you have the car for 6 years. 5 * 2200 euro's is 11000 euro's, and in my oppinion its a lot of money.

Justin

What do you mean by "pull" the switch?

 

He means, when do you use LPG and when petrol?

 

Exactly