Phill Update II: Replacement Unit Delivered and Installed With No Fuss.
By John O'Dell December 30, 2009
If everyone is treated as well as we have been by the new owners of the Phill home CNG fueling system, it will be a happy new year indeed.
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Technicians Jay Jones (left) and Joe Williams carry new Phill unit into garage.
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Our natural gas fuel pump, installed back in February 2008, started acting up earlier this month and we called the new service provider - fully expecting that getting it repaired would be long and tortuous process because the original manufacturer had gone out of business and the new owners had moved production to Italy and haven't even stated making new units yet.
It turned out to be a breeze, though - good news to the several hundred people who bought or leased Phills along with their natural gas Honda Civic GXs.
Two phone calls - one to report the problem to the new company, Impco Technologies, and a second to get instructions for an attempted self-fix - and a short piece of paperwork (serial number, installation date, address and phone number) was all it took.
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Hanging the new Phill.
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The third call, received Monday, was to set up a an appointment for the service crew to replace our unit with a new one from old stock acquired when Phill manufacturer Fuel Maker Corp. went under.
We expected a delay because of the holidays, but nope, the service company wanted to know if the techs could come out at 11 a.m. the next morning.
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Final step: Pressure test to ensure new Phill isn't leaking and is compressing and delivering natural gas as it is designed to do. Everything worked and our home fueling unit is up and running again.
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They not only did, they arrived 15 minutes early, at 10:45 am, and by 12:28 p.m. were driving away after having removed the old unit, installed a new one and run the requisite tests to make sure it was working properly and not leaking.
They even left the garage a little cleaner than they found it.
John O'Dell, Senior Editor
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Click here to comment on this entry.Nice!
Pilot programs tend to get exceptional service.
Those who write for Edmunds tend to get exceptional service.
Combine the two and I'm surprised they're not washing the car as well.
So I'm guessing this is a home pumping station to take natural gas from the home service and filling your Honda Civic GX. An explanation would have been nice.
But overall the unit looks nicer than hand pumping, which is what brother and I had to do for a couple of years after Dad bought a NG powered truck that he used daily.
Isn't there a simple hand pump option for when this thing breaks down?
Yup, uses gas from home service, compresses it to 3,600 psi and pumps it at nominal rate of 0.4 gasoline gallons-equivalent per hr. So it takes upwards of 20 hours to refill an empty 8-gge tank. I'm not aware of a hand pump, but imagine if it is possible then someone somewhere has one. Lotta background on Phil, installation costs, cost of operation etc. is available in our Honda Civic GX longterm blog over at Inside Line (http://blogs.insideline.com/roadtests/Vehicles/2007HondaCivicGX/) but you have to scroll through all the entries for the car.
To be fair to us, we pointed out in the previous installment of out Phill saga that they knew who we were and that being Edmunds might have been responsible for the wonderful service.
"pumps it at nominal rate of 0.4 gasoline gallons-equivalent per hr"
That's crazy. Is there an explanation as to why? My gut tells me it shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes, but I'm clearly missing something.
Because its a low-cost, low volume, wall-hung home unit that uses a 3/4" natural gas feed from the home meter and has a small compressor...they did it that way to keep the cost down. It is useful if you come home at night, hook up and don't drive again ''til morning. It's sort of like using a 110-volt line to charge an EV rather than the 220-or-more fast-charge systems that are available but cost tons of $$. If 0.4 gge/hr is too slow for you (it gives me 110-miles of fuel overnight, +/- a few miles) then several manufacturers do make bigger, faster, more powerful nat. gas pumps for people with the space- and budget - to install them; and also pumps for commercial quick fill for taxis, deliver vans etc.
I can't find where on that website you can buy a new Phill?
You can't buy a new one yet. They haven't started making them. Supposed to do so sometime in 2010. We'll keep you posted.
thanks for the updates.
Want to know if the HOV access for NGV vehicles will be extended in California!
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