It had around 63,000 miles at the time of purchase. Most trucks that work in oil and gas production end up looking, smelling, and driving somewhat differently than trucks who had a different history, but this one was an exception. The interior and exterior are in really good shape and it looks essentially like a new truck.
As a sidebar, Encana took a gigantic step as an energy producer towards putting CNG on our roads by converting many of their vehicles, running them in their fleet, then making them available for private owners to purchase. This is really the only practical way average people like me can make it make financial sense because they are able to do two things; buy alot of vehicles at a discounted price and convert alot of vehicles at a discounted price. Those savings end up getting passed on to the buyer and I paid around NADA retail price for my vehicle. There is a good interview with David Hill of Encana discussing another of their initiatives here: David Hill interview
I don't know if other production companies have adopted any of the same strategies but I do see some vehicles on the road with the "powered by natural gas" logo of Chesapeake on the tailgate. These look to be privately owned in that they are void of the lame blue flame Chesapeake logo elsewhere on the vehicle. There is no way for the production companies to convert and sell enough of their vehicles to make a real impact on most folk's car buying habits, but it does put those vehicles out there visible everyday on the road and burning our own locally produced, locally taxed and local royalty owner paid resource (that soapbox will appear at a later date).
Back to the vehicle...This truck was converted by Steelweld Incorporated right here in Shreveport in 2011. Steelweld has since closed its Shreveport operations. At the time it had about 32,000 miles on it. It has an Impco Technologies conversion and a 23 gge tank. Here is a link to Impco's website: Impco Technologies
Additional link to the Impco system owner's manual: Impco owner's manual
The bi fuel system itself is very easy to operate. Located on to the left of the instrument panel is a simple round button with LED lights. There is one LED at the top, and four at the bottom of the button. The LED at the top lets us know what mode we are operating in. Red is gasoline, green is CNG, yellow flashes briefly as it switches from one to the other and flashing red indicates a problem with the system. The four green LEDs indicate the amount of CNG left in the tank. This is affectionately known as the "smiley face gauge". Other than the tank in the bed of the truck this button is the only externally visible CNG component. The vehicle always starts up using gasoline. We know that it is set to switch to CNG by the fact that the top LED is red, but the green LEDs on the bottom are on as well. It continues to burn gasoline until the Impco system determines that the vehicle has warmed up enough to switch to CNG. When using gasoline, the LED at the top is red, while the four on the bottom are off.
A photo of the gauge when the vehicle is burning gasoline, but will switch to CNG:
Once it switches to CNG, the gauge looks like this:
The vehicle will continue to burn CNG until one of two events happen: 1. The operator pushes the BRC button which will manually switch the vehicle back to gasoline. 2. The pressure in the CNG tank nears the point of not providing enough fuel to operate the engine. As you burn the CNG in the tank, the bottom green LEDs turn off one by one until the far left is the only one lit. It then will begin to blink. When the vehicle determines that it must switch to gasoline, it makes a beep and the red LED flashes on. The vehicle will continue to operate on gasoline until the CNG tank is refilled.
The Impco system switches to gasoline only operating mode anytime that the vehicle has a "trouble code". I experienced this problem twice with an "evap code" which is related to the negative pressure of the fuel system. The second time it happened it was determined by the dealership that one of the evaporation tubes had some debris in it. This was cleaned out and I haven't had that problem again. No big tragedy, and the dealership was great with providing a loaner while this issue was addressed, but it still was a hassle that I most likely would not encounter had I bought a new gasoline only powered vehicle.
Due to the variations in pressure caused by temperature changes, we can't correctly assume that each of the green lights on the bottom represents 1/4th of the volume in the CNG tank. Usually the bottom right LED goes off within 20 or so miles of filling up. The others double and sometimes triple that distance.
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