Just looking for some advice here.
Car is a 2005 Vauxhall Corsa 1.2 with 67,000 miles on the clock, factory fit
LPG system. A few weeks ago when I started it on a cold morning it was not
running well and the "Exhaust Emission" warning light flashed a few times
and then stayed on, I had managed to cover about 1/4 mile, thought it might
be dual fuelling so switched over to petrol. Restarted engine and the same
again, limping back home, car did not have enough power to pull up a small
incline. Managed to switch it over to LPG where it picked up and ran fine.
Travelled to work switching between petrol and LPG and no problems at all.
The problem raised its head again on Tuesday after being parked all day, it
was very cold, around freezing, again after re-starting engine and all fine.
Car has been into the garage who reported back 7 error codes, mainly to do
with ignition/misfires varying across all the cylinders and one of the O2
sensors. They are blaming the LPG system but I thought that because it is
running fine on LPG and the problem only shows when on petrol it must be
something else. Anyone got any ideas?
Thanks
Ian

On Feb 21, 11:33 pm, "Ian Hatten"
wrote:
Just looking for some advice here.
Car is a 2005 Vauxhall Corsa 1.2 with 67,000 miles on the clock, factory fit
LPG system. A few weeks ago when I started it on a cold morning it was not
running well and the "Exhaust Emission" warning light flashed a few times
and then stayed on, I had managed to cover about 1/4 mile, thought it might
be dual fuelling so switched over to petrol. Restarted engine and the same
again, limping back home, car did not have enough power to pull up a small
incline. Managed to switch it over to LPG where it picked up and ran fine.
Travelled to work switching between petrol and LPG and no problems at all.
The problem raised its head again on Tuesday after being parked all day, it
was very cold, around freezing, again after re-starting engine and all fine.
Car has been into the garage who reported back 7 error codes, mainly to do
with ignition/misfires varying across all the cylinders and one of the O2
sensors. They are blaming the LPG system but I thought that because it is
running fine on LPG and the problem only shows when on petrol it must be
something else. Anyone got any ideas?
Thanks
Ian

With my my very short experience of owning a corsa LPG so far I have
decided it is best to always start on petrol, and only swap to gas
when it is warmed up a bit. If I switch to LPG too early as soon as I
change gear the engine stutters and switches over to petrol itself
(flashing LPG light) - because of this I wait until I am on the open
road in 5th gear before changing to LPG.

When I read what you wrote it looks as though you start it on LPG even
on a cold day. Do you know if the problem still occurs if you start
on petrol and only switch to gas when the engine is warm?

Hi Freepo

My Corsa has always had the LPG switch set to LPG. When cold the car
automatically starts on petrol and only once it has warmed up to a certain
degree does it change to gas. For the first few seconds, up to a couple of
minutes if it is really cold, the light is flashing to indicate that,
although switched for gas, it is running on petrol.

It seems to have cleared the problem, or at least [touch wood] it has not
re-occurred.

I read what you wrote on your emissions and the DVLA.
My Corsa, 2005 1.2 SXi, has the low level of VED of £15, and this is
confirmed at www.parkers.co.uk/road-tax . When I first tried the site I was
getting a return of £55 for 6 months and £100 for 12 months, after a bit of
investigating I found that I was entering the details wrong, I had quoted
the date of registration from 9 June 2003 - 30 June 2004. A bit of further
checking and entering the car as a 2003 - 2006 with the model as 1.2 16V SXi
(80ps) Bi-fuel then it came back with the level of £15 per year. I know
that when I ordered my car, August 2004, Vauxhall were in the process of
introducing a new engine and the LPG option was suspended and not available
to order until December 2004. It may be that your car has the older engine
and as such the higher emissions.

My experience with the fuel economy is kind of like yours although filling
it seems to be a bit temperamental, sometimes taking only 32 litres when it
has run out and other times, when not totally empty, will take around 45
litres so fuel economy varies wildly between 21 and 69 mpg averaging around
38mpg over the 69,000 miles it has done. LPG used to be 29.9 a litre, at
the cheapest station I use, when I bought it and now is 48.9 there.

A good forum for help/information is http://www.lpgforum.co.uk/.

Ian

"freepo" wrote in message
...
On Feb 21, 11:33 pm, "Ian Hatten"
wrote:
Just looking for some advice here.
Car is a 2005 Vauxhall Corsa 1.2 with 67,000 miles on the clock, factory
fit
LPG system. A few weeks ago when I started it on a cold morning it was
not
running well and the "Exhaust Emission" warning light flashed a few times
and then stayed on, I had managed to cover about 1/4 mile, thought it
might
be dual fuelling so switched over to petrol. Restarted engine and the
same
again, limping back home, car did not have enough power to pull up a
small
incline. Managed to switch it over to LPG where it picked up and ran
fine.
Travelled to work switching between petrol and LPG and no problems at
all.
The problem raised its head again on Tuesday after being parked all day,
it
was very cold, around freezing, again after re-starting engine and all
fine.
Car has been into the garage who reported back 7 error codes, mainly to
do
with ignition/misfires varying across all the cylinders and one of the O2
sensors. They are blaming the LPG system but I thought that because it
is
running fine on LPG and the problem only shows when on petrol it must be
something else. Anyone got any ideas?
Thanks
Ian

With my my very short experience of owning a corsa LPG so far I have
decided it is best to always start on petrol, and only swap to gas
when it is warmed up a bit. If I switch to LPG too early as soon as I
change gear the engine stutters and switches over to petrol itself
(flashing LPG light) - because of this I wait until I am on the open
road in 5th gear before changing to LPG.

When I read what you wrote it looks as though you start it on LPG even
on a cold day. Do you know if the problem still occurs if you start
on petrol and only switch to gas when the engine is warm?

On Mar 13, 7:26 pm, "Ian Hatten" wrote:
Hi Freepo

My Corsa has always had the LPG switch set to LPG. When cold the car
automatically starts on petrol and only once it has warmed up to a certain
degree does it change to gas. For the first few seconds, up to a couple of
minutes if it is really cold, the light is flashing to indicate that,
although switched for gas, it is running on petrol.

Yeah, mine has the same system, On a very cold night a few weeks ago
It was still flashing even after about 5 miles, I thought the system
was broken for not having change it to LPG, I switched to petrol then
back to LPG and it ran fine on LPG from then on. It was then that I
decided to always start on petrol and flick the switch myself. I
found that flicking to LPG too soon caused the engine to stutter when
changing gear, but it can be changed to LPG as soon as the car is on
an open road in top gear No matter how soon after starting the car it
is. and because there are no more gear changes it will run fine on
LPG onwards.

I guess I should have waited on that cold night to see if it did
eventually change to LPG (stop flashing) itself. I might try it
sometime.

Basically what I'm saying is you can be waiting quite some time for
the system to automatically change to LPG, and doing it manually
(starting on petrol) you can do it sooner thus save petrol.

I read what you wrote on your emissions and the DVLA.
My Corsa, 2005 1.2 SXi, has the low level of VED of £15, and this is
confirmed atwww.parkers.co.uk/road-tax. It may be that your car has the older engine
and as such the higher emissions.

Can you tell me what your V5 states is your CO2 g/km please?
My car is the older version and does have higher emmissions, the
problem is it is registered with the DVLA as having the petrol rated
emmissions of 146g/km when it should be 138 g/km the LPG rate.

Your car is LPG rated 119 g/km
The petrol version of your car is rated 139 g/km

that's a difference of 20 g/km between the two which is surprising as
mine is only a difference of 8 g/km between the two.

I did not know that Vauxhall had improved the engines. I'm quite
annoyed I only just found this out from you. Had I realised, I would
have bought a 2005 model. Maybe I'll look for one and then sell my
one.

BTW what does the exhaust emmission warning light look like? Not sure
if I have that on my car.

V5 states emissions of 119g/km.
The exhaust emissions warning light is on the left hand bank of lights,
third one down. First is oil pressure, then airbag warning light and then
the exhaust emissions, symbol is like an engine, page 30 of my handbook has
it displayed.
I don't know how many cars were made with the new engine and the LPG option.
They did not make it available as an option until December 2004 and the
grant system stopped in March 2005. My car was ordered as soon as the
option was available and that was without a price, I just had to hope it was
not much more than the previous option price, but not delivered to me until
June 2005. As it was, the price had been increased by around £300 but
Vauxhall honoured the old price because I had originally tried to place the
order in August 2004 so mine was around the £1800. Excluding road tax
savings, I work out I am saving around £400 every 10,000 miles so will soon
be around £10,00 better off.

Ian

"freepo" wrote in message
...
On Mar 13, 7:26 pm, "Ian Hatten" wrote:
Hi Freepo

My Corsa has always had the LPG switch set to LPG. When cold the car
automatically starts on petrol and only once it has warmed up to a certain
degree does it change to gas. For the first few seconds, up to a couple
of
minutes if it is really cold, the light is flashing to indicate that,
although switched for gas, it is running on petrol.

Yeah, mine has the same system, On a very cold night a few weeks ago
It was still flashing even after about 5 miles, I thought the system
was broken for not having change it to LPG, I switched to petrol then
back to LPG and it ran fine on LPG from then on. It was then that I
decided to always start on petrol and flick the switch myself. I
found that flicking to LPG too soon caused the engine to stutter when
changing gear, but it can be changed to LPG as soon as the car is on
an open road in top gear No matter how soon after starting the car it
is. and because there are no more gear changes it will run fine on
LPG onwards.

I guess I should have waited on that cold night to see if it did
eventually change to LPG (stop flashing) itself. I might try it
sometime.

Basically what I'm saying is you can be waiting quite some time for
the system to automatically change to LPG, and doing it manually
(starting on petrol) you can do it sooner thus save petrol.

I read what you wrote on your emissions and the DVLA.
My Corsa, 2005 1.2 SXi, has the low level of VED of £15, and this is
confirmed atwww.parkers.co.uk/road-tax. It may be that your car has the
older engine
and as such the higher emissions.

Can you tell me what your V5 states is your CO2 g/km please?
My car is the older version and does have higher emmissions, the
problem is it is registered with the DVLA as having the petrol rated
emmissions of 146g/km when it should be 138 g/km the LPG rate.

Your car is LPG rated 119 g/km
The petrol version of your car is rated 139 g/km

that's a difference of 20 g/km between the two which is surprising as
mine is only a difference of 8 g/km between the two.

I did not know that Vauxhall had improved the engines. I'm quite
annoyed I only just found this out from you. Had I realised, I would
have bought a 2005 model. Maybe I'll look for one and then sell my
one.

BTW what does the exhaust emmission warning light look like? Not sure
if I have that on my car.

I should have said that if you don't have a handbook for your car you can
download it in pdf version from the Vauxhall website.

Ian

"freepo" wrote in message
...
On Mar 13, 7:26 pm, "Ian Hatten" wrote:
Hi Freepo

My Corsa has always had the LPG switch set to LPG. When cold the car
automatically starts on petrol and only once it has warmed up to a certain
degree does it change to gas. For the first few seconds, up to a couple
of
minutes if it is really cold, the light is flashing to indicate that,
although switched for gas, it is running on petrol.

Yeah, mine has the same system, On a very cold night a few weeks ago
It was still flashing even after about 5 miles, I thought the system
was broken for not having change it to LPG, I switched to petrol then
back to LPG and it ran fine on LPG from then on. It was then that I
decided to always start on petrol and flick the switch myself. I
found that flicking to LPG too soon caused the engine to stutter when
changing gear, but it can be changed to LPG as soon as the car is on
an open road in top gear No matter how soon after starting the car it
is. and because there are no more gear changes it will run fine on
LPG onwards.

I guess I should have waited on that cold night to see if it did
eventually change to LPG (stop flashing) itself. I might try it
sometime.

Basically what I'm saying is you can be waiting quite some time for
the system to automatically change to LPG, and doing it manually
(starting on petrol) you can do it sooner thus save petrol.

I read what you wrote on your emissions and the DVLA.
My Corsa, 2005 1.2 SXi, has the low level of VED of £15, and this is
confirmed atwww.parkers.co.uk/road-tax. It may be that your car has the
older engine
and as such the higher emissions.

Can you tell me what your V5 states is your CO2 g/km please?
My car is the older version and does have higher emmissions, the
problem is it is registered with the DVLA as having the petrol rated
emmissions of 146g/km when it should be 138 g/km the LPG rate.

Your car is LPG rated 119 g/km
The petrol version of your car is rated 139 g/km

that's a difference of 20 g/km between the two which is surprising as
mine is only a difference of 8 g/km between the two.

I did not know that Vauxhall had improved the engines. I'm quite
annoyed I only just found this out from you. Had I realised, I would
have bought a 2005 model. Maybe I'll look for one and then sell my
one.

BTW what does the exhaust emmission warning light look like? Not sure
if I have that on my car.

On Mar 14, 6:35 pm, "Ian Hatten" wrote:
I should have said that if you don't have a handbook for your car you can
download it in pdf version from the Vauxhall website.

That's ok, I have the handbook, thanks.

I am also quite annoyed that Vauxhall were charging so much for the
LPG version £2000 - £2,300 above the petrol version. What you said
indicated why they stopped making them - the grants stopped, I was
wondering why they stopped doing it.

I'm annoyed because the cost to Vauxhall of fitting the system in the
factory would have been nowhere near £2000. You can get aftermarket
conversions done for £600 - £850 so a company like Vauxhall should
have been able to do it on the production line for around £300 at the
most.

I think it's pretty shameful that they only did it while the
government were dishing out the dosh, and they did not continue to do
it at a price which really reflected the actual cost involved.

Oh, and as your car has the LPG emmissions on the V5, I don't see why
mine is listed with the petrol emmissions. I think I will write a
letter to both Vauxhall & DVLA.