Buying a diesel car these days

Anything else to consider in petrol vs Diesel?

The old diesels' prefer to be used on longer journeys rather than fewer shorter ones still stands.

In before the inevitable 😀

DPF and ad-blue issues would worry me. I know a few people that have had ad-blue systems fail (VW-Audi)

I dont think ive much more to add beyond how and where are you planning on using it and going from that.

I'd just buy petrol if you aren't doing mega miles.

If we try hard we can get as much as 60mpg from our 2l petrol non turbo Mazda 3 but I still went and bought a diesel V40 which has turned out to be a mistake despite being about 10 to 20% more economical overall.

how and where are you planning on using it

20/40/60 mile journeys, plus occasional hoof down South (260 miles each way) - with the latter being main reason for diesel. Will be inevitable shorter journeys too, but also have a 1l petrol Polo for that.

Is Ad Blue a requirement since the 2014 engine in the Honda?

EDIT: I'm thinking this is probably the sensible approach:

I’d just buy petrol if you aren’t doing mega miles.

In different ways Petrol & Diesel both emit pollutants, morally you're best choosing the one that'll be used in the correct circumstances to minimise environmental pollution in balance with your financial circumstances.

Expect VED to creep up as we are incentivised to move to electric vehicles.

I would look at hybrid petrol, something like a corrolla estate as a mid-sized estate car. Real world av mpg is reported as 62.9 for the 1.8l . Obvs those sort of figures will be submitted by super-keen types, but useful as a comparison.

That's the sort of thing I will look into once I sell my van as I also need something ulez compliant nowadays.

1.5 petrol Passat which was less economical (using mpg as the measure)

Our 1.4tsi Leon gets same mpg's as the Volvo and Galaxy (@45mpg average, 50-54 on a long run). A smaller 1.6 diesel on a smaller car would of course do better. I think the Passat is a heavy and larger car than the Civic - may be worth looking more at a Golf sized petrol. FWIW, I would have bought the Kia Ceed estate instead of our Leon, but mrs_oab preferred the Leon.

But, what we have already noted is that servicing was cheaper and our other petrol car has also shown this AND has much less to repair than any of our diesels have.

Diesel is the same price as petrol these days, does better mpg. Just make sure its ULEZ compliant.

Modern turbo petrols can deliver pretty decent mpg these days, and all the pollution control stuff on a euro6+ diesel seem prone to issues.

As said, worth looking at hybrids, or PHEVs if you can plug in at home - your usage profile would suit it. Used to have a Golf GTE that was good for the general running about, could get 20 miles out of a charge but for something like the 100 mile round trip to the office it would do it on £1 of electric then about 70mpg equivalent (all the slow traffic that's usually bad for MPG you use the battery). Absolute worst case, long motorway trip starting on empty battery it would still do 42mpg.

The old diesels’ prefer to be used on longer journeys rather than fewer shorter ones still stands.

Not exactly accurate. Shorter journeys are ok - it's ONLY short journeys that are a problem.

The OP's usage sounds fine for diesel.

DPFs don't go wrong, they get blocked up if something else goes wrong and even then you should get a light. Ad blue systems can go wrong like anything else but aren't especially prone afaik and they actually allow the engine to run better than a non-ad blue engine as I understand it. On some cars ad blue is so effective they produce less NOx pollution than petrols.

Also, modern direct injection petrols are great to drive but they aren't without their issues, such as inlet valves gumming up.

Modern turbo petrols can deliver pretty decent mpg these days

But only if you drive like a granny keeping them out of the turbo zone / dont put much load through the engine

I got a 2 litre diesel Leon estate about 3 years ago.
I looked at electric cars, but there were a lot fewer options then, so decided against them pretty quick.
Petrol - looked into them, but seemed that a diesel would be the more sensible choice given the type of journeys I do.

I'm happy with the decision, although if making it today it would be a bit more difficult as there are many more electric cars on the road & second hand options too.
I get a long-term mpg of around 62mpg. On individual journeys it can be a lot higher than that, and obviously the shorter journey drag it down.
My Wife has a 2012 Ibiza also with a 2 litre diesel. That's on over 140k miles and we've had no issues with it. Cam belt was done in November, but apart from that....struggling to thing of anything that's needed doing besides brakes & standard servicing. Until recently, for about 3 years she worked <2 miles down the road & despite my gentle nudging that she should either walk or cycle she never did. It did worry me that the car was gonna protest, but it was never a problem. I guess there were enough longer distance journeys thrown in to keep the dpf clean & things running smoothly.

Neither of our cars run adblue.

Pretty sure you won't need ad blue in Honda. Our hrv 2016 doesn't need it and Honda engineer rather than chuck in supplements. Well that's my theory anyway.

Adblue is engineering. Nitrous oxides are inherent to the way diesel works, because the cylinder is always full of air but under part load only some of the oxygen is used up. So when combustion happens the cylinder gets really hot and the rest of the oxygen reacts with the nitrogen. So manufacturers invented EGR which pipes some exhaust gas back to the intake under part load which reduces the amount of available oxygen. This, as we know, can cause other issues. However SCR removes NOx directly from the exhaust so in theory you can run with less EGR and it can still get rid of the NOx (well, at least the nasty kinds). Honda aren't exempt from this.

As above, wouldn't consider a diesel unless I was doing 12k+ of mostly motorway miles imo.

DPF's, EGR valves, Ad-Blue systems are all extra systems that can fail, even if it can be largely mitigated if driving mostly motorway miles. Often slighty higher servicing fees too ime.

My 1.5t Leon's engine gets 50-55 mpg in flowing traffic and 250 nm of torque makes it surprinsgly grunty at low revs for a petrol (believe as it has a supplementarty supercharger).

So yeah, can recommend a leon estate, but not too sure I'd go diesel in this climate unless I was doing large miles.

Taken from https://www.thecarexpert.co.uk/honda-civic-diesel-review/

So the engine then. Trying to keep CO2 emissions down, while also reducing the NOx particulates that are causing the current urban air quality concerns, would normally mean increased fuel consumption. So Honda put its engineers to work.

A host of technical innovations include forged steel pistons instead of aluminium to reduce cooling losses, and several friction-reducing technologies to cut friction losses to levels normally only seen in petrol engines.

All this means combined cycle fuel economy of 80.1mpg and CO2 emissions of just 93g/km – seriously impressive, and achieved without having to get involved in any additives such as AdBlue.

- I call that better engineering.

Regardless of whether it's better engineering or not, I'm happy with a 2014 MINI Cooper SD. 2ltr BMW-sourced N47 euro6-compliant diesel with no need for AdBlue. 106g/km, 170bhp/266lbft and real-world heavyish-right-foot 60mpg (official combined 70.6mpg). I'd say that's impressive given the performance on offer.

As to the OP, I don't think there's much more to consider in petrol vs diesel. I wanted/needed something with low purchase prce and low running costs, and with a bit of poke. The equivalent petrol MINI was higher for both initial (used) purchase and running costs. If I needed next car size up then a diesel Golf would be on my radar.

I call that better engineering.

I call it advertising. How exactly did they solve the problem of NOx emissions (which are not particulates) without SCR? Never mind how efficient it is.

SCR/Ad Blue isn't a bodge. The alternative, EGR, is a bodge, SCR is the proper solution to the problem.

Whats all the concern about Ad Blue? Ive done about 30k miles and had to put Ad Blue in twice, didnt even had to leave my drive to add it to the car

Just bought an Ad-Blue requiring diesel V6. The Halfords 5L bags make for an easy refill on the drive. It's not an issue. We had a brand new petrol V6 loan car from the garage. Not even close in terms of drive and performance. Our 2009 CRV diesel is not ULEZ compliant. I didn't want another diesel, nor another SUV, but after driving it, I was sold. Pleased with the decision. and the engine is since discontinued. Next one will be petrol/hybrid, probably in about 3 years time.

would look at hybrid petrol, something like a corrolla estate as a mid-sized estate car

I wouldn't. We did. Guess where they put the battery? In the boot, significantly reducing load space making dog carriage a challenge for us. And EVERYONE will think you are driving a taxi. So choose a white one 😉

This is going to be one of those unhelpful comments but:

Will be inevitable shorter journeys too, but also have a 1l petrol Polo for that.

Do you really need two cars? Having a "long distance" car and a "short distance" car can't make any financial or environmental sense, surely?

If your household needs to use two cars at the same time, then fair enough...

Do you really need two cars? Having a “long distance” car and a “short distance” car can’t make any financial or environmental sense, surely?

We've thought about this a lot. We have that situation, a long distance and a short distance car. The latter will be electric (as of tomorrow hopefully) and the long distance is diesel.

We don't *really* need two, although it is helpful at times. Problem is that we do like to drag a shed on holidays sometimes, and EVs to do that are too expensive for our pocket. But we also want EV for the local travel because it's so much cheaper and can use renewable energy. Plus, the diesel may not like the relatively short trips which may hasten its demise. If it is only used for long jaunts and holidays then it will do 4-5k a year and probably last ages even though it's already ten years old. That said, it still has finance and we are paying a lot of money for those holidays and jaunts. But, if we were to get rid we'd have to find alternative arrangements for holidays which would cost us far more than our shed based vacations and be more stressful. Owning the diesel isn't necessarily going to result in a worse environmental footprint because if we sold it, another car would pop out of the bottom of the chain and be scrapped. By using it this way we are preserving it essentially.

The EV pays for half of itself in fuel savings too. Of course if you are not using an EV for local trips then the calculation is different but it still potentially preserves a more expensive car that would be better suited to long trips and worse suited for short ones.

Now, if having one car would force some trips to be made by bike, then it's a different story. That's not really the case for us, since I WFH and local shopping trips are done on foot.

Just get the newest Honda with the 1.6 diesel.  That engine is amazing.

Do you really need two cars?

Honestly, probably not. And despite the thread I'm trying my best not to be suckered into buying a second car. They sit on the driveway 90% of the time unused and I always wanted to sell one but someone has other ideas with the "what if we need two cars one day??!!". So I'm glad we've been forced into the situation where we can see whether we actually will need 2 rather than live in fear of it.

However, I asked because I'm trying to decide what I would buy, should it come to it.

e-bike 🙂

We were all set to go to one car, but our diesel is huge and parking is a serious issue where she works. Then the fuel cost is so much higher than EV that the extra cost of a second car becomes much lower, so then you think well it's "only" another £150/mo and so it goes.

I keep looking at PHEV petrol estates as the electric range would cover all our local usage and can charge from solar. That worked mean only needing fuel for longer trips. I can't make the numbers work though Vs a diesel. They are heavier and more expensive, less boot space and once the battery is flat seems like you loose the power/torque boost so they become slow and inefficient. None of manufacturers seem to indicate how much they regenerate while driving which suggests not much. Much as I don't want to I'm leaning towards another diesel and keeping it long term (till 10yrs oldish like the current one) then seeing how the market has changed. We already have a small EV for 90% of the local trips just weighs have been nice to not be outputting any pollution while moving around the city.

Do you really need two cars? Having a “long distance” car and a “short distance” car can’t make any financial or environmental sense, surely?

I didn't expect any scenario where it'd work out better financially and environmentally to have two vehicles rather than one, but mine comes close.

For my particular use it's financially better to run two vehicles. It's still two vehicles rather than one so not clearly environmental sense, but I consume a lot less fossil fuel by splitting my driving between a van (33mpg) and small diesel car (60mpg).

The saving in fuel by not using the van 100% of the time more than covers the running costs for the second vehicle (fuel, VED, MOT, consumables, insurance, servicing), with a comfortable surplus towards deprecation and unknowns. I didn't expect that.

The Toyota Corolla Est Phev sounds perfect for your needs, but boy are they dull. Anything with the 1.4 or 1.5TSI VAG engine will see 50+mpg on a long run, and the Golf Est in particular, is a very nice car indeed. Also the smaller output BMW petrol engines are very good on a long run.

Golf Est in particular

Other than the much hated touch screen UI on the Mk8. On this front I more tempted to see how it is improved for the incoming Mk8.5 facelift.

They are heavier and more expensive, less boot space and once the battery is flat seems like you loose the power/torque boost so they become slow and inefficient.

Hmm, not necessarily if you are aware of it. I think that some cars by default assume you want to recharge the battery from the engine once it's depleted, and some drivers don't bother to check the settings. However I think that you should be able to stop it doing that. As for slow - the Passat I was looking at has a 2.0 turbo petrol so not slow on petrol alone.

However I think that you should be able to stop it doing that. As for slow – the Passat I was looking at has a 2.0 turbo petrol so not slow on petrol alone.

I had a first generation BMW 3 series hybrid, and one of the things that really annoyed me was that you couldnt stop the engine re charging the battery which made mpg drop off a cliff. Also after 5 years of ownership the battery range went from about 20 miles to 5 miles.

I wouldnt buy a hybrid again unless it had functionality to turn re gen off. Actually I dont think I would buy a hybrid anyhow as they are being phased out.

Ive just googled and I cant even find replacement battery packs for it (new)

Do you really need two cars? Having a “long distance” car and a “short distance” car can’t make any financial or environmental sense, surely?

We have exactly this - Electric Mini used for most journeys, diesel Camper Van for long trips and things like ikea trips! Looked at if hiring was a better option but it made no sense financially to us. Van costs us very little in the big scheme of things.

All this means combined cycle fuel economy of 80.1mpg and CO2 emissions of just 93g/km – seriously impressive, and achieved without having to get involved in any additives such as AdBlue.

– I call that better engineering.

It's good engineering, but still doesn't 100% solve the problem in the real world. Customers don't drive like the emissions cycle. SCR works all the time, whether you are on cycle or off. Honda's system doesn't. So Honda solves something like 75% of the emissions solution, SCR is better (90% Maybe?). It's not a robust solution, but it probably is cheaper and definitely easier to look after.

They are heavier and more expensive, less boot space and once the battery is flat seems like you loose the power/torque boost so they become slow and inefficient.

Tell me you've not driven a hybrid without... you know the rest. The extra torque and power is there all the time, the battery is never "empty" in a PHEV. It might not have enough leccy in it to drive on electrical power, but unless it's broken, old or incredibly outdated (or designed by an idiot), the electrical drive will *almost* always provide power.

None of manufacturers seem to indicate how much they regenerate while driving which suggests not much.

Depends on the car architecture. And the battery chemistry, and how new it is.

Old ones don't regenerate much, new ones might turn well over 50% of the braking energy into electricity. The limiting factor in current/latest gen cars is either stability control (as the electric motor is on the rear axle, so you're limited by that) or that the battery physically cannot be charged any faster so you have to switch over to friction brakes.

some cars by default assume you want to recharge the battery from the engine once it’s depleted

On longer trips I'd absolutely want to do that. Given the performance figures will be quoted including (in VAG's case the 70ish BHP) electric motor. Ideally would want to recharge it using regenerative braking unless it got very low.

Passat I was looking at has a 2.0 turbo petrol so not slow on petrol alone.

As a PHEV? I've been looking lots at Passats and only seen the 1.4TSI as a PHEV. The wiki page does not list a 2 TSI hybrid. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Passat_(B8)). The GTE is a 148BHP 1.4TSI + 85Kw elec motor. Tdis model kind of proves the point, when the battery is dead you are left with 148Bhp in a 2 tonne car. Slow may be unfair but sluggish certainly isn't.

The extra torque and power is there all the time, the battery is never “empty” in a PHEV. It might not have enough leccy in it to drive on electrical power, but unless it’s broken, old or incredibly outdated, the electrical drive will *almost* always provide power.

That is what I'd hope. Getting confirmation it is the case however not so easy, my experience so far is the sales people have not got a clue.

I've not driven a hybrid with the hybrid parts not there as it were. Not a easy situation to manufacture on a short test drive :D. I have driven estates with the same power to weight ratio as the ones I'm looking at would be if electrical power was exhausted and that is not somewhere I'd like to be.

FunkyDunc
Free Member

Ive done about 30k miles and had to put Ad Blue in twice

Presumably a pre-dieselgate car?

Ideally would want to recharge it using regenerative braking unless it got very low.

But regen braking isnt 'free' energy you have spent energy and then can just recover a fraction of that energy so its not going to ever re charge a battery in any shape or form, just recoup some otherwise energy lost through heat friction.

Presumably a pre-dieselgate car?

Dunno - its a 2019 diesel Merc E Class

Yes I get that. I think there is a fair amount to reclaim, a decent slowing/braking event event at motorway speeds in our Zoe can add several miles to the guessometer.

As a PHEV? I’ve been looking lots at Passats and only seen the 1.4TSI as a PHEV. The wiki page does not list a 2 TSI hybrid.

Ok my mistake, the 1.4, but point stands it has plenty of power.  Are they really 2 tonnes? My diesel Passat was 1,520kg I am not sure they are carrying 500kg of batteries for a 30 mile range.  Internet says 1635kg for Passat GTE.

But as above if you floor it it will find some power from the battery.  The issue is if it tries to reclaim range from the engine, which is normal in a non-plugin hybrid. But you don't want it to refill the entire battery using the engine.

FunkyDunc

Dunno – its a 2019 diesel Merc E Class

Probably is then. Reason I mentioned it, is your usage is roughly 5 times lower than the expected amount for a VW for example.

Hmm must have misread the weights table and remembered the max loaded weight, even the Arteon GTE shooting brake is well under 2 tonnes at 1.800 kg. Going off for another look :D.