Date: Fri, 04 Oct 2002 17:52:20 GMT From: Paul Halliday <pjghnopsamyonder.co.uk> Subject: Re: higher octane is good
in article ank7t302gfbnopsams1.newsguy.com, Walt Kienzle at wkienzlenopsam.net wrote on 04/10/2002 15:17: [SNIP] > Too bad Saab doesn't make > any of these clean-fuel cars that run on ethanol (E-85), compressed natural > gas, or electricity. [SNIP] I'm not ignoring the important points that you made, but I thought an entire re-post was not necessary since I would only like to make comment about this one point. LPG is taking off in the UK. I had been led to understand that turbo-charged and fuel injected cars were a little difficult to convert to dual-fuel, but they actually are not. This was just some FUD around LPG. Conversion costs around 1000 UKP (for the equipment) and makes a good selling point afterwards. Certainly, the classic 900 models with Bosch CIS would be *very* straightforward. I have noticed that my local police force LPG all their cars - they have a fleet of mostly Vauxhall Astra & Vectra (think Saab 9-3) models, Skoda (!) and I have seen one Hirsch modified 9-5 (no doubt bought for pulling down the "big boys" in my county) converted to dual-fuel - Petrol and LPG. It can be done on Saabs, but it is an aftermarket fitting and might invalidate warranties and cause problems with insurers. That said, LPG does around 60 MPG on a 2ish L car and is half the cost of normal (95 RON) petrol in the UK. Environmentally conscious, or just high daily mileage Saabers could look into this. I see that Volvo produce dual-fuel cars for the UK (and European?) market, so I don't think it will be too long before Saab feel the need to follow suit. Regards, Paul 1985 Saab 900i 16V 1989 Saab 900 Turbo S http://pjgh.go.dyndns.org/saab/index.html 1992 Hyundai S Coupe MVi http://pjgh.go.dyndns.org/hyundai/index.html