LPG Conversion issues

[CheshireDil]

Hi all this is my first post and i'm afraid its a bit of a whinge. I have had an LPG conversion done in Sept 08 by a reputable firm who have been doing nothing but LPG conversions for over 10 years. Unfortunately the 3 days to fit and install the system has ended up being about 3 weeks of my time in total. I have been back with the car about 5 or 6 times now due to the same fault.

The car itself runs fine with no noticeable loss of power. The amber engine warning light is on and will not go off though ( this is the funny shaped light above the rev counter). The guy at the garage said this was normal as the ecu thinks there is a problem as the LPG has less particles/things?? in it than petrol and he can reset things so that it knows the LPG is fine.

After 4 attempts at this and 4 visits to him I STILL have the amber engine warning light on . I spoke to him again this morning to get it finally sorted as i'm worried if there was a problem with the engine I wouldn't know as the light is always on. He told me that light is on due to the emissions and the sensors freaking out at how clean they are?!? and if there was a problem with say oil pressure then a seperate light would come on.

I am not technically minded ( I am a pen pusher) so I have been taking his word for this and driving normally believing that I am not doing any lasting damage to the car. Could anyone help ease my mind on whether the amber light is just telling me there is an anomoly with the emissions or whether something more sinister is going on.

Incidentally I can recommend LPG from a cost saving point of view. My donut tank holds about 48 litres and costs about £24 to fill (47.9p). I'm getting about 280 - 300 miles from it. On petrol I was getting about 400 from a tank costing about £60 - £65 to fill.

Cheers :thumbsup:

---------------------------------------------------------------
A4 (b6) 190 SLine. Remapped to 235bhp. LPG Conversion. I love my AUDI

 

[aragorn]

You need to get a fault code scan done on the car to find out WHY its unhappy. The ECU will store the reason its braught the light on in its fault memory, and you can read this off with Vagcom.

I presume you dont have vagcom, so its a choice between picking up a cheap cable off ebay and scanning it yourself with that and a laptop, or finding someone else on the forum local to you with vagcom who'd be willing to scan it for you.

 

[PetrolDave]

Second the advice above - AFAIK there's no way the check engine light will come on because the emissions are too low, IMHO that's just bullsh.t

You need to know what fault codes are being set, so you can see if the LPG conversion has been done correctly.

 

[aragorn]

well there is, if the fuelling goes lean the ECU will try to compensate by upping the fuelling, similarly if its rich it will reduce the fuelling, however there is an upper and lower bound to these adaptions, and if it reaches them it will bring on the fault code.

I think these are the most likely cases for the light being on after such a conversion.

 

[CheshireDil]

Thanks for that. The fella at the garage initially said the camshaft sensors were the problem but that made no sense to me as he should have been nowhere near the camshaft or any of the sensors when fitting the LPG system. He used a little handheld thing that plugs in under the dash on the drivers side, is this a Vagcom? He is now saying that warning has gone and that the ecu is confused due to the low emission. I can't help but feel he is taking the pish cos he knows I can't argue as I don't understand the ins and outs.

I am taking it back next week for the last time - if its not sorted i'm gonna have to get some cash back off him and take it to my local Audi dealer as I can't think of any other way to get it sorted. Is it the done thing on here to see if someone local can help out? If it is then I think i'll try to find someone with Vagcom (even if i bought the gerar I wouldn't have the first clue what to do with it ). Also, would it be sensible to keep driving as I am without any damage being done?

 

[AudiA3quattro]

Hi, Did you get this sorted? I recently had my Audi converted to LPG and I too get the engine light, I have read the ECU with my VAG-COM cable and it says the following error "17536 - Fuel Trim: Bank 1 (Mult): System too Lean". I've taken it back but the guy says it's within the +-25% so does not need to increase the injector sizes. He cleared the error but the engine light comes on again a day or two later. He says it's nothing to do with the conversion and suggests I should change the lambda sensor. I am reluctant to do this as there was never a problem pre-conversion, although I realise LPG has less emissions.

 

[technics100]

My brother has similar issues with his 1.8T toledo after a LPG conversion. The LPG ecu runs as a piggyback to the normal ecu, it follows the mixture and injector readings. His was running too lean as the petrol injectors were maxing out at 100%, in the end he put 225bhp injectors in. You need to get vag-com and do live logs while driving and monitor the injector rates and see if they are hitting 100%..

His now puts out a good 223bhp on LPG and he rarely has problems. the light would still come on after sitting in traffic. He also has the cat removed..

 

[ScottyP45]

sounds like a big old ****** waste of time that lpg if the car can't tolerate it without throwing a check light. I reckon if it was flawless and made the car cheaper to run as well as being cleaner, audi would produce cars with lpg dual fuel? but they dont......

Just my tuppence worth.