Morning,

I currently drive a 1.2l petrol Corsa SXi about 5 miles a day monday to friday. I’m about to start driving about 60 miles a day of which about 50 will be on the motorway.

Am I right in assuming that I need to get a bigger engined Diesel to save money in the long run? Or would a small engined diesel be cheaper to run? Any recommendations of things that aren’t either a VRS, BMW, Audi or a T5?

I think a small engine would be cheaper – Mrs Gti has a Seat Ibiza 1.2 diesel and the gearing is extremely tall; at 70 the engine is revving so slowly that it has no acceleration and you’ve got to drop to 4th to get it moving. My only concern over small cars is that they have stiff, bouncy suspension; it was five years driving a Citroen C1 that gave Mrs Gti a lower back injury that eventually stopped her driving and hence working. A bigger car would have more mass and hence a smoother ride.

300 miles/week for say, 46 weeks of the year is almost 14k miles/yr commuting; it’s around the borderline between petrol/diesel I reckon depending on the particular cars etc.

What fuel economy do you get out of the Corsa? Can you get 50mpg? I had a 1.2 Micra as a courtesy car for a few days and could manage 56mpg out of it – not very nice to drive though.
If you can achieve anywhere approaching 50mpg I would say there would be no point swapping to a diesel; if you already drove some kind of 30mpg rocket then it would make more sense.

You need to consider the cost to swap cars….depreciation, how much you will get for your car, will you have to add any to that amount to swap etc.
If your car is almost dead & you need to change anyway, then it will make more sense but if you are gonna get rid and stump up some extra cash up front to buy a diesel then it will start to add up….

As a point of reference I bought a diesel, as my old petrol car needed replacing anyway and I was doing 100 miles/day in it. I could get a max of about 38mpg out of it and swapping to my current car lifted that to 55mpg minimum. So, I already needed a new car anyway & the hike in fuel consumption coupled with the distance I was driving made it a no-brainer.
My commute then went up to 120 miles/day and is now back down to 80 miles/day.

You need to factor in daily running costs to the equation as well.

My diesel costs a very small amount more to service (perhaps £20 more for a minor service) but costs less to tax & insure than the petrol.
Service intervals were the same between cars.
People like to point out that diesels apparently have more expensive parts to go wrong when compared to a petrol engine but in my own case I have had no ‘expensive diesel parts’ fail – and my car has 264k miles on it, of which I have put on 240k miles.

As for suggestions, what sort of age & budget are we looking at…..?

Am I right in assuming that I need to get a bigger engined Diesel to save money in the long run?

How long is a ‘long run’?

tbh It really depends on your current car, if you bought it new(ish) and have a big loan on it then probably worth just running it out.

And I’d always go bigger with a car, not much more in costs and far nicer place to be – plus safer on the whole.

Thanks for the comments so far.

The car is fully paid for and is mechanically in decent condition (8yrs old but only 30k, FSH). Due to a helpful scrote it’s value has been floored by a series of scratches across the length of the car so I doubt it’s worth that much.

I’ve no idea what the MPG is though, I guess I need to work that our first.

I’d be looking at buying something “nearly new” for about 8-10k. Ideally I’d like something that was vaguely nice to be in.

I bought a Corsa CDTi when I was commuting 90 miles a day up and down the M40, did the job fine, cheap to run (60+ mpg) and pennies to insure and tax (£30 tax, happy days 🙂 ). Perfectly adequate as a commuter hack, and big enough to get a bike in wheel out with the seats flat. 🙂

Suzuki swift or toyota yaris.

So, as a pure financial decision around the cost of commuting for this longer journey the answer is probably that it’s not worth swapping.
Your car is paid for and presumably mechanically sound but it is getting on a bit and will not be worth a lot of money – I don’t know, but perhaps £2000? Autotrader will give you a better idea.

So you’ll have to stump up £6-8k to replace with nearly new, as per your budget. You’ll have to replace it for something that does mega mpg (60mpg+) for it to be worth doing and it will still take a long time to recoup the initial outlay.

First thing to do though is get a rough idea of the fuel economy. Fill the tank, reset the trip mileage, run the tank low & then re-brim it. You can work out your mpg from this.
I would do this once onto your new commute so you get a true idea of fuel cost.
Then think about changing it.

If you just fancy a new car, then all of that is nonsense & the financial side of things doesn’t really come into it. If you want one and can afford it, then get one. 🙂

Used to get 40mpg out of one of those Corsa’s mainly town driving with a bit of A-road thrown in. Should be better on a Motorway once it’s had a few runs.

Thought the ride was a bit crashy but good handling and quick enough for a 1.2

Mine sold for £1000 with 70,000 miles and not in brilliant condition and patchy service history – similar age to the OP’s.

run what you have into the ground and then re-consider petrol v diesel when you next need to change your car

often any fuel savings are more than eclipsed by the cost of trading in

Long distance…an old Diesel Mondeo.
Much nicer place to do motorway miles in.

The car is fully paid for and is mechanically in decent condition (8yrs old but only 30k, FSH). Due to a helpful scrote it’s value has been floored by a series of scratches across the length of the car so I doubt it’s worth that much.

Keep that and run it to the ground – and chuck as much money as you can into a savings account for a new one.

Our Yaris diesel is at 110k/13 years old. It is almost worthless – a few hundred pounds – due to scratches and rubbish paintwork. But it runs. It costs me £80 to service, this year has seen a couple of bills totalling £380. I cannot find any car, no matter how fuel efficient, that could match that for running costs.

Got to agree with Stumpy, if it’s a purely financial question, there’s not point paying out thousands to save tens.

Your Corsa will probably see 50mpg if you cruise, a little diesel might to 80mpg at a push.

Your 60 mile a day commute is 1200 miles a month (for the purpose of this we’ll assume 5 day working week, 4 week month)

50mpg means you’ll need 24 gallons a month, which is 109 litres at 117p a litre = £127.53 a month in fuel.

80mpg means you’ll need 15 gallons a month, which is 68 litres at
119p a litre = £80.90 a month in fuel.

So IF your Corsa does 50mpg and IF a little little diesel does 80mpg changing will save you £50 a month – it will take 13 years to recoup the cost of buying the Diesel car. There’s depreciation to consider of course – a £8000 car will be worth more in x years than you current car, but your car is almost perfect for the task because it’s worth a lot less than it’s value (an odd thing to say I know)

On one hand it’s worth £2k cash, but as a tool it’s worth a lot more because if you don’t neglect it, and given your intended use is very light work and it’s done so little so far for a car it should do another 100k miles easy.

It’s just not worth changing for financial reasons – but on the other hand, if you want a new car for the sake of having a new car, a diesel is the way to go.

Another tip from an overly obsessive planner – I used to commute 60 miles each day by motorway too – I worked out that by driving with the agro herd in lane 3 at 80 constantly accelerating and braking so some other **** didn’t cut it took me 22 mins to cover the 30 mile one-way trip, but if I go out of the rat race and stuck myself behind a truck at 56mph listening to the radio and chilling out it took me 30 mins – I used to leave for work 10 mins earlier, it saved me £50 a month and meant far less stress in my life.

Bloody hell. That’s some of the most helpful internet based advise I’ve ever seen. Thanks very much. I really hadn’t thought about the overall costs involved enough. I guess for the time being it’s keep the old one until it can’t take the mileage.

I’d better stop looking at things like this then….

http://usedcars.bmw.co.uk/4-Series/2.0TD-184bhp-420d-M-Sport/Leigh-On-Sea/3698615-605048641-3497053.aspx?srcmdc=se_na_re_

No worries,

That’ll be £1000 please

/Consultant

😉