OK, I was reading through posts here and can't find (or maybe understand) exactly what kind of mileage increases (if any) I would see by adding propane to my truck.

Will I be able to reduce my cost per mile or not?

How much propane (%) is normally run?

The cost of diesel here is over $2.50/gal

I'm sorry if this has been covered before........

Thanks

Anybody?????:thankyou2

It all depends upon how much you can get propane for. It saves me about 1 to 1.5 cents/mile. I just bought 3000 gal of lp for $1.23/gal. If you don't buy lp in bulk, I can't see how it would save you anything/mile. Try to follow this and see if it makes sense: There are 140K btus/gal of #2 diesel, and 91.5K btus/gal of lp. Diesel is currently $2.42/gal here. That makes diesel 57,900 btus/$ and lp 74,400 btus/$. So, per btu you are getting more for your buck at that price for lp. If lp gets up to $1.58, you are at the same btu/dollar, so I don't think you would save anything/mile. However, you have some other fringe benefits of the lp. Quieter operation, cleaner oil, and more power, plus more range on a tank of diesel. I have gotten as high as 42 mpg on diesel at 70 mph. On diesel only, the truck does around 19 mpg

Makes perfect sense, thank you.

I just worked the numbers at 42 mpg on diesel. If my btus/mile hold constant, I should be getting 21 mpg on lp at the same time. That comes to about 1.8¢/mile savings. I found that 2 parts lp to 1 part diesel (66% lp, 33% diesel) seems to be about as high as I can go. Any more than that and the throttle gets touchy and the truck surges a bit, plus it will ping on heavy throttle. It is pretty cool to get over 1300 miles to a tank of diesel!

So how was Washington?

so to get 1300 miles per tank, how big of a tank of lp will you need to match that range?

Dmax Tim,
Washington was great. However, I really missed the humidity.):h Most nights got down into the low 50s, great for sleeping. I could get used to that.

Regarding the lp tank, you would need around 62 gal to do the same 1300 miles. My tank is 100 gal, so I can still do over 2000 miles. I cut the consumption back on our trip out west. I knew I would pay alot for lp so I adjusted it to use a tank going out, and filled it once while there. It ran out before I got back, but I didn't want to hunt for it since we were in a hurry to get back.

100 gallon tank roughly 400+ lbs of lp on board with you? wouldn't get my wife in that vehicle. fire department must want to know your every move

I used to have an Olds wagon with a 50 gal lp tank right behind the second seat, drove it for 12 years. It was involved in two accidents during that time w/o incident. The DOT tanks are really strong and safe. My truck tank is 6 feet from the back, 1 foot from each side and in a very safe location. I rolled a truck 10 years ago that was dualfuel gas/lp, and the only spill was 10 gal of gas that ran out of the tank when the truck was upside down. What amazes me is that people don't worry at all about having 25 gal of gas in a sheetmetal tank hanging under their rear bumper

so to get 1300 miles per tank, how big of a tank of lp will you need to match that range?

With a variable system, 4.5 gallons of LP or a 20# tank on average will net you a range of about 400-600 miles. For that 4.5 gallons or 20 lb tank you should go about 60-80+ miles further on your tank of diesel.:cool2:

What amazes me is that people don't worry at all about having 25 gal of gas in a sheetmetal tank hanging under their rear bumper

absolutely! anyone recall the pinto? an engineering fiasco.