Jacobwitc87
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- Jul 29, 2015
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Hello all, I haven't posted in a while but my recent search for an outboard got my gears turning, and somewhat grinding. I stumbled upon the company Lehr that makes the propane outboards. My local dealer actually stocks them. I wouldn't go this route and this isn't a question about their products but simply a thought that crossed my mind. (Possibly this should be moved to a different thread but I'm not sure how to do that now, since it's not a specific topic on outboards, maybe an admin can help me with that.) I live in Northeast Pennsylvania and as many of you around me know we have seen a huge boom in the natural gas industry in the last few years. If this technology took off could you see outboard manufacturers producing CNG (compressed natural gas) engines? I have first hand experience with this brand new technology because I drive a truck from a major paper plant with product to its nearby warehouse. As far as I know we were the first to run CNG trucks and have a CNG filling station on the property, at least here in PA. A few years later there are a handful of public gas stations that sell CNG in the area. Every once in a while you will see a pickup truck going down the road powered by it. I can honestly say that in my opinion this technology is in its infancy and the bugs have definitely not been worked out yet. As we bring product from the plant to the warehouse we climb a very long steep hill which with our old diesel truck we could hit 35-40mph under a load. With the CNG trucks your lucky to hit half that. If anyone lives around northeast PA and knows where the Proctor and Gamble plant is, the one that makes Bounty, Charmin, and Pampers diapers, I'm sure you've seen a few of these trucks on the road. We have also experienced exorbitant maintenance costs on things like "spark plugs" or "glow plugs" I'm not even sure what they are classified as. Also just overall poor engine performance. One plug is just over $700 and I believe we have 16 per engine. We actually have 14 trucks, class A vehicles, by that I mean full blown tractor trailers with 18 wheels pulling 53 foot trailers and in the first year of service every one of them blew an engine. But this isn't really about trucks, again I just had a thought that maybe someday we would be running our outboards on compressed natural gas. Just something to think about, anyone with any thoughts or experiences like I had chime in. As a side note when I fueled the truck today CNG was going for $1.99 GGE which mean Gas Gallon Equivelent. Not a bad price but when you consider you get half the fuel mileage it's a null factor. Also please excuse the grammar and flow of this because I'm writing it on my iPhone.