Lead's Last Days

Sydney Morning Herald

Friday December 24, 2004

Peter McKay

From January 1, owners of old cars won't be able to fill up on lead replacement petrol. But there are alternatives, writes Peter McKay.

Environmentalists, safety advocates and the car trade are all delighted by the end of the leaded fuel era, accelerating the demise of many of the old clunkers that have the survival instinct of a cockroach.

However, once lead replacement petrol becomes no longer available, owners of pre-1986 vehicles won't have to pension off their cherished oldie.

Motorists who use LRP will have to assess what petrol to use from January 1. LRP has a high octane rating of 96 RON and an anti-valve seat recession additive (AVSR).

Depending on the type of vehicle, they will need to use unleaded, premium unleaded or premium unleaded plus an AVSR. Be warned that the incorrect use of an AVSR could harm engines.

Check with the manufacturer of your vehicle or look for a list of cars that can run on ULP without AVSR protection on the Australian Institute of Petroleum website at www.aip.com.au/health/lead-guide

Some lead substitutes can foul spark plugs and coat valves, so they eventually stick and fail. If using lead substitute additives, you should occasionally give your car a hit-out on a highway to blow away the unwanted gunk.

Some older cars may also need to be fitted with a bigger, more powerful cooling fan because changing to newer fuel sometimes causes engines to run hotter.

The end of LRP (which replaced leaded petrol) has been a long time coming; the countdown began in 1986, when unleaded petrol became mandatory for all new cars.

Since the 1930s, lead alkyls have been used to improve petrol's octane rating and extract more power and efficiency from engines. Lead's lubricating properties also prevented the wear of exhaust valve seats in four-stroke petrol engines. Then, in the '70s, the world discovered that lead was toxic and particularly harmful to children.

Pushed by subsequent legislation in many countries, engines were re-designed to run on lead-free petrol. They were made with hardened valve seats and catalytic converters were added to prevent exhaust nasties from reaching the atmosphere.

For many owners of the more than two million vehicles on Australian roads manufactured before 1986, the demise of LRP leaves them with these choices:

* Sell their oldie (at rock-bottom prices) and buy a cleaner, safer model that happily drinks unleaded petrol.

* Find a modern high-octane fuel and a lead-replacement additive that will allow the car to keep on motoring.

* Rebuild the engine using hardened valves and valve seat inserts, allowing them to use regular unleaded petrol instead of LRP. This is an expensive option, likely to apply only to valuable collector cars.

* Drive the car on unsuitable ULP until it dies.

More than 30 per cent of cars built before 1986 can run efficiently on normal unleaded petrol. Which means nearly all Australian-made cars before February 1986 will be affected by the withdrawal of lead replacement fuels, including all Holden Kingswoods and Toranas, VB-VK Commodores, Ford Cortinas and Falcons (up to the XF mid-model upgrade), Nissan Skylines, all Chrysler Valiants and Centuras and Mitsubishi Sigmas/Magnas.

Locally produced Toyotas are OK because they run on lead-free fuel.

The end of LRP will also impact on the majority of older European cars from the '60s and early '70s and every US V8 prior to the mid-'70s. These include Ford Mustangs, Chevrolet Camaros and other cars valued as collectables today.

Most Japanese imported models from the late '70s and early '80s, including Nissans, Mazdas, Mitsubishis and Toyotas, adapt comfortably to our unleaded fuel.

Owners of older pre-1986 Porsches, Volvo, Jaguar and Rover V8 models can simply switch (or have already switched) to high-octane premium unleaded petrol. Certain models don't need special attention because they were made with hardened valve seats for export to the US and Japan. Virtually every model prior to 1985 that was not intended for export to Japan or the US (ULP pioneer markets) has to be checked for octane and valve protection requirements before switching to ULP.

One piece of positive news for owners of old cars is the increasingly broad choice of efficient 95RON and 98RON (lead-free) petrols, meaning pre-1986 models can get the high-octane stuff they often need to run properly. In their heyday, they used 97RON super or 89RON regular leaded fuel.

To ignore an older engine's requirements for a higher octane petrol and an additive to compensate for the absence of lead in the tank is to ultimately hear the expensive and terminal sounds of under-bonnet trauma - engine pinging or detonation.

The phasing out of LRP cannot come fast enough for the car trade, which is obviously banking on some owners moving to a newer model. Tony Robinson, the CEO of SurePlan Australia, a fleet risk-management company, says that, with the exception of classics, most vehicles over 10 years of age have minimal value.

Increasingly, such vehicles are given a token value when traded in and are then wholesaled or scrapped, especially leaded fuel vehicles, Robinson says.

He expects the end of the leaded era to lower the average age of Australian cars, help improve the quality of the atmosphere and provide a safer motoring environment.

Robinson believes the ailing used-car market would welcome a move by the Federal Government to copy offers in Europe, where a cash incentive (say $1200) encourages owners to scrap their old, unsafe, polluting leaded petrol machines.

Environmentalists also support the idea of incentives. Proposals to give stamp-duty relief to replace older, polluting vehicles with newer, cleaner ones have been around for some time, says the Total Environment Centre's Leigh Martin, who is also pleased that the end of LRP will hasten the scrapping of many old cars.

"An incentive for these owners is worth exploring," he says.