Manufacture of Home Natural Gas Fuelers to Resume in 2010

Manufacture of Home Natural Gas Fuelers to Resume in 2010

By John O'Dell December 16, 2009

Meantime, We Find It Easy to Arrange Repair of Phill Unit Sold by Defunct Fuel Maker Corp.

Impco Technologies, the natural gas flex-fuel systems manufacturer that acquired assets of the defunct FuelMaker Corp. earlier this year, says it will be sometime in 2010 before a replacement for the Phill home CNG fueling system is back on the market.

Meantime, the Southern California-based company has begun servicing existing FuelMaker units - home and commercial - through a network of suppliers, a company spokesman said.

Impco, which has moved production of CNG fueling units to its Italian subsidiary (there's a bigger market for them in Europe, where natural gas is a popular alternative fuel), said that it will begin manufacturing new commercial systems using FuelMaker technology early in the year,with home systems to follow.

FuelMaker provided fuelers that were purchased or leased by some buyers of Honda's natural-gas powered Civic GX, and its liquidation this summer left several hundred owners of the "Phill" home CNG fueling unit hanging.

Edmunds was one of those customers and our Phill, installed in my garage, has started acting up.

We called Impco's service number - provided to Phill owners in a letter the company sent out this fall - and got a return call within 24 hours from David Stubbings, who is heading up FuelMaker system servicing operations for Impco.

Our reading of the error codes for the Phill indicated that the problem we're experiencing is called a "blowdown failure" and might be corrected by cleaning the Phill's nozzle and break-away valve and the fuel intake valve on our longterm 2007 Honda Civic GX.

We told Stubbings that we'd cleaned the nozzle and the car's intake valve to no avail, but hadn't wanted to pull apart the breakaway valve without first talking to someone like him - the valve is a safety mechanism to prevent drivers from pulling the Phill off the wall by driving away with the filler hose still attached to the car.

He told us how to do it safely, adding  that he thinks our problem is more likely a malfunctioning internal safety switch but that the valve cleaning needs to be tried first.

We're on our way home on a few minutes to try it, and will report back on the result.

If it doesn't fix the problem, Stubbings said, our Phill - installed on Feb. 28, 2008 - still is under warranty and will be replaced.

Finally, a possible use for the bulky, fitted and cushioned packing box the Phill came in and thhat we were told to save so we could send back the unit if it broke.

Stay tuned.

John O'Dell, Senior Editor

John O'Dell:  is an AutoObserver Senior Editor. Follow @AutoObserver on Twitter.