[Closed] Diesel or Petrol?

Petrol at that milege. By a country mile.

Just been informed by the wife (she uses it most) that it might be between 8,000 and 10,000 miles a year. Does the same still hold? What's the break even point?

but not that much more in many cases. Parkers has a comparison for new cars - not sure if you can manually enter your purchase prices to see how things compare.

general consensus seems to be less than 12000-15000 a year - petrol, more than that and go diesel, but that's based on new cars. if you're working to a budget rather than 'a xx year old car' then it's very tricky to say.

you can almost certainly expect, for a fixed budget, to get an older/higher miles/more worn car if you go diesel.

if you aren't bothered about performance, I'd go 1.4 or 1.6 petrol for that size of car.

IIRC, 8000 miles isn't enough to offset the extra price of diesel, nor the increased purchase price. Older diesels GENERALLY require more servicing, and have the potential to be harder on consumables such as tyres, shocks etc, etc.

At 8,000 miles/annum I'd quite happily settle for a 1.8 Mondeo. You'll be spoilt for choice!

Petrol = better for the air you breathe in (Air Quality), but worse for climate change
Diesel = far worse for the air you breathe in (Air Quality), but better for climate change

And here begins the lack of direction in government policies......

That stuff aside then surely you don't need a diesel with that sort of mileage. You'd have to be doing a fair bit before diesel started to save you money.

Just been informed by the wife (she uses it most) that it might be between 8,000 and 10,000 miles a year. Does the same still hold? What's the break even point?

You've got to sit and do the sums yourself. It's different for everyone and every car. When I did the sums a year or so ago, I worked it out to be something around 15-20K IIRC. It's a bit less than that now as the fuels are closer in price, but we're about the same now with a 1.6 petrol Focus as we were on a 2.0 diesel Vectra before it, doing abour 12k a year. (Insurance, tax & servicing all cheaper)

I drove the MG into work today, reafirmed my stance that diesel is the fuel of satan hearing the exhaust burbling and poping away to itself while everyone else in the trafic jam seemd to be getting more and more wound up and stressed.

Buy a car you like to be in, makes life so much nicer.

Or you could become one of those middle class people who insist on telling everyone that they get 70mpg and can drive to the south of France on one tank.

Therre's a lot of variables that make the number crunching quite involved. Not least the fact that we have a budget and are looking for the most car at that price! Really, I'm trying to narrow down my search. Life would be easier if I just looked at petrol or just looked at diesel. Still, things seem clearly in favour of petrol by law of STW so far!

Assuming you'll get 45mpg out of a diesel and 35mpg out of a petrol (I know, big assumptions...) you'll spend £102.18 a month on fuel for your petrol and £79.47 a month for your diesel. That's @ £1.18 a litre, 8,000 miles a year. You'll save £272.47 a year on fuel going for diesel..... If the cars were the same price you'd be quids in but they're probably a lot more than a couple of hundred more for the diesels.....

CHRISSYBOY'S VERDICT = PETROL!

It'll also depend a lot on what car.

Some models have very few petrol models out there (eg the year old Mondeos I'm looking at so the diesels are relatively cheap because there are lots of them while there are fewer petrol ones) which affects the prices.

FWIW, for our other car, a Focus 1.6 Petrol doing similar mileage to you, it was way better value to get a petrol one.

I never had to replace an exhaust on any of my diesels. I have on all the petrol cars!! STRANGE!!!!

If the cars were the same price you'd be quids in but they're probably a lot more than a couple of hundred more for the diesels.....

Plus I'll bet the petrol will be cheaper to insure as well, and then there's servicing, and it'll probably be lighter on tyre wear (Less torque, less weight)

So yeah, you're more right then you thought you were. 🙂

[url= http://www.whatcar.com/car-news/petrol-versus-diesel-which-is-cheaper-/248139 ]http://www.whatcar.com/car-news/petrol-versus-diesel-which-is-cheaper-/248139[/url]

I don't care if its cheaper or not, I'm not driving a TAXI!

5+ year old modern diesels can be money pits - new enough to have lots of expensive potential failure points and a set of new injectors, a turbo or a dual-mass flywheel will seriously erode any potential savings you make in fuel. Servicing is more expensive, you'll pay a premium over an equivalent petrol too - the payback time in fuel/tax savings could be much longer than you'll keep the car for.

They take much longer to warm up than petrols too (you'll especially notice it in the winter) so for short journeys they often won't warm up fully and fuel consumption (for both fuels) is quite a bit worse until they're warm.

The only reason I have a diesel is because I do 25k miles a year and have to change it by 5 years old anyway. On a budget and for low mileage, petrol all the way.

agree with everything simon_g says

So do I. Had a bill for my Pug of approx £600 not long before I sold it. Completely wiped out any savings I'd made in fuel. I'd now much sooner pay an extra tenner a week at the pumps than have to find several hundred quid at short notice.

mmmmmm, I recently bought a petrol car, but really wanted the diesel, what about servicing costs on a petrol they are marginally higher having plugs and leads etc etc to replace once in a while??

Also why are you working out the savings over 1 year instead of over the likely time you would keep the car, surely the greater MPG would be a beter bet over time rather than trying to re coup the cost of the car in 1 year?

Buy a car you like to be in, makes life so much nicer.

I would rather be in a nice diesel than a piece of crap 70s wannabe sports car any day of the week!

And why assume 45mpg for a diesel? If you get a blue/eco type model you are looking at 60-70mpg. That changes the calculations a bit. Not to mention free road tax.

Molegrips has a good point I would be looking at something that qualifies for £35 road tax, wich would also have you into a car with something like 55mpg potential..

If you get a blue/eco type model you are looking at 60-70mpg

Well,
a) Dream on! 60-70mpg my arse! 😉
b) And how much more are those over even the normal diesels then, never mind a petrol....?

Although not many of those available at 5 years old.

PP - why your arse?

Bluemotion Passat 2 on carmagazine:

Officially, combined economy improves, in the estate we tested, from 47.9mpg to 54.3mpg. That’s superb for a large family car. It is 2mpg better than a Mondeo ECOnetic. [b]What’s more, it’s realistic[/b]. The trip computer topped 60mpg in our hands on long runs. Even heavily loaded, it was doing high 50s. The saloon is even better, returning 55.4mpg. Impressive stuff, as is a sub-140g/km CO2 figure for both.

I would rather be in a nice diesel than a piece of crap 70s wannabe sports car any day of the week!

Yea, but I still like the fact random people come up and start talking about it. Never seems to happen to my housemates in their focus/3series diesels...........

Bit like my dad when he used to go motorcycle touring. Took his MT500, everyone kept coming up and wondering WTF it was (possibly because it made a noise like hell imploding into a bag of spanners) whilst everyone else on their big expensive Jap tourers didnt get a second look.

My sister recently bought a Focus similar to the OP is looking for bit newer maybe, I desperately tried to get her to put her money into something new (hold on to the depreciation remarks as I did the math) the diesels were more than she wanted to pay so bought a 1.6 petrol....

Now her previous car was a banged out Volvo v40 estate DIESEL, she now complains bitterly abou the fuel consumption on the Focus..

If it were me and I had say 5k for a car, no way would I be looking at 2nd hand petrol car, I would go new everytime and my money would go onto a Fiat Qubo, you would get 3 years warranty £35 a year tax and after 3 years it would have dropped 50% value leaving you with a 5k worth of car..

You cant buy and run a familly hatch like a focus for less than that, and wont have the comfort of the full warranty either.

Going down the avenue of small cars qualifying for £35 / free road tax, you again end up with petrol coming out very well.

Here are the basic facts to do with diesels:
Diesel engines are heavier than petrol engines.
Diesel engines are noisier than petrol engines.
Diesel engines use less fuel to produce the same output as a petrol engine.
Diesel engines are considerably more expensive to manufacture due to emissions kit.

The result of this is that for small cars, diesel engines are a bit of a waste of time - the extra weight of the engine is a significant proportion of the car's total weight, as is the extra sound deadening, and the car costs more to make in the first place. The extra weight takes a chunk out of the fuel economy, so it really becomes a waste of time to have a diesel.

The place where a diesel engine comes into its own is for the bloke buying a new, largish car and expecting to do a lot of miles. You can then get out of the really punitive company car & road tax bands, save on fuel, but still have similar same performance in a straight line.

Ive had a 2002 audi A4 TDI 130 estate for a bout 3 years now, and all Ive changed is tyres and oil! Been the best car Ive ever had, has 150,000 on the clock, runs like a watch, loads of power, looks good, and still get 55mpg every day. I think if you get a VW/Audi diesel, you cant go wrong really

You'd easily get a 1.9TDI Ibiza 100bhp around about 5 yrs old that'll do high 50's mpg EASILY.

But for a car doing 8000-10000 miles/yr I'd go petrol.

PP, 60-70mpg is quite achieveable in one of the eco-diesel things, even if they won't fit into the 5yr old bracket. Can't remember the magazine, but read a test of the Ibiza Ecomotive & one tester got 61mpg out of it, while the other managed 71mpg.

My Ibiza diesel's done 122k miles now (it's an 03), I get about 55mpg per tank out of it and it's no slouch.
Minor services cost me between £80 and £110 and major service about £170.
It's cheaper to tax than the Ford Ka that her indoors has just got rid of, even though is has over twice the power & 3 times the torque.
The only engine related failure so far was a boost pipe becoming detached which was traced to a faulty clip used from new & cost £45 to put right.

thisisnotaspoon change the record.....I do a 120 mile commute up & down the A1 every day & for 99% of my driving the main requirements of my car aren't that it pops & burbles.
How many mpg do you get out of your car? How much would it cost me to commute for a week in your car compared to mine?
I think I'll stick to my clattery oil burner thanks with the climate set to a steady 19 deg. C, the stereo on & plenty of poke for pleasant motorway driving.
If I could afford a second car, then it probably would be a petrol (although certainly not an MGB).

I agree with PP. It seems in the last few years manufacturers have chased better figures in the official tests but the reality is rather worse than it used to be. Once a careful driver could easily get the combined figure in mixed driving, these days it seems to be fantasy. I had an Alfa 156 JTD that claimed 42mpg combined and that was what I got. Here's the last year in my Civic doing the same kinds of journeys, claimed 55.4mpg:

[img] [/img]

On servicing: compared to the petrol equivalent of my car, it takes more oil, needs a new fuel filter every 25k miles (75k petrol), engine coolant needs doing at 60k miles (120k petrol). Only thing in diesel's favour is no spark plugs and they're only needed in the petrol car at 75k miles.

agree with everything simon_g says

+1

a) its a midget not a B

b) 38-40mpg, bit (well considerably) less if I'm feeling silly, bit more on the motorways. I usualy guess it to be arround 10p/mile in fuel. A 'big' service (annual) recently cost about £30 (oil, filter, plugs, top up gearbox and dif, lube suspension and drivetrain). Small service about a tenner (6-months).

Classic cars are the future 😀

I got a diesel as I prefer the way they drive, regardless of any savings I may or may not get.

Yea, but I still like the fact random people come up and start talking about it.

Oh right, you're an attention whore. Well I'm not 🙂

On my Passat - claimed combined = 48mpg, I get on average 46-48 over a whole tank. Doesn't sound bad to me.

I'd agree petrol for small runabouts, but I don't consider a Focus/Astra to be that.

Tinas - your car may be cheap to run, but it's absolute crap - sorry 🙂

edit: you have me on the heating, mine only has 3/4 settings (on, off, heating, blowing). But seeing as I drive 90% of the time withthe roof off its a mute point 🙂

simon_g, I had heard that Honda's figures were very optimistic and the Honda diesel while being thought of as a great engine was never considered particularly economical.

And, as per my post above I haven't experienced these so-called high servicing costs. In fact, I am pretty sure that servicing my Ibiza is no more pricey than servicing my previous 1.4 Fiesta.
The only thing that it does go through quicker is tyres - they only last about 25k miles on the front as opposed to 40k miles on the Fiesta. But it does have 55bhp more power & ~140lbft more torque so that's to be expected.

I would rather be in a nice diesel than a piece of crap 70s wannabe sports car any day of the week!

😉

[s]mute point[/s] : moot point 😉

The driving experience between diesel and petrol may also need to be borne in mind. In my Golf Tdi overtaking is the simplest thing - just foot down a bit and your past, in the petrol it replaced you had to change a gear or two and get the revs up to make a safe overtake.
|Diesels are less hassle to drive 'with gusto' if that's important to you.

simon_g, I had heard that Honda's figures were very optimistic and the Honda diesel while being thought of as a great engine was never considered particularly economical.

And yet under the standardised EU tests that's what it's supposedly capable of. I only ever crack 50 if it's a long motorway run - I stick roughly to the limit, keep tyre pressures right, don't use roofbars or anything like that. What's the point of mpg figures these days if they have seemingly no link to reality?

All that's happening is that new car sales are getting driven by these supposedly more economical cars while real-world fuel economy seems to have barely changed.

EDIT: simon_g - no idea why the Honda doesn't achieve it. I think the combined figure for my car is 53.6mpg & I get 55mpg so I'm pretty chuffed with that.

thisisnotaspoon -

a) apologies for the MGB slur.

b) so your service costs are doing them yourself....hmmm.
In that case - the parts for mine are about the same.

c)so if I drove your car to work instead of mine it would cost me £81.72/week in fuel as opposed to £59.43 in mine (assuming 600 miles @ 120p/litre fuel & 40mpg in yours & 55mpg in mine), which is a difference of about £1047 over 47 weeks of the year (assuming 5 weeks holiday). And that's just commuting mileage.
That's too much of a difference to make it worth me driving a 'classic' just for a bit of pop/burble and the odd conversation with random MG fans. And how many days would I spend stood at the side of the road waiting for my 'classic' car to be repaired?

Fine for a weekend car - I get that. But an everyday proposition for me....? No thanks. Have fun with it though - I wish I could get away with a lesser commute.

I found the opposite. Diesels had a usable rev range of about 500rpm from arround 1500 to 2000. Below that there was no turbo (so great economy, but no power), above that nothing really happpened as the turbo was already blowing as much air as it could.

That's the old VAG PD engines that are like that, only the pwoer band was more like 1500 to 3000 rpm not 2000.

Modern CR diesels are a lot better, with a torque curve more like a petrol.

Don't make me get the graphs out again please.

Molgrips - I already know that you luuurv your Passat. Hats off to you, and all that. Nobody needs to see your graphs.

Simon_g - the reason that the 'standardised EU tests' have no bearing on reality is because they're not real. They'll give you a comparison between cars if you're looking at the figures but they won't tell you what your car's going to get to the gallon. They're not real world figures - they're calculated from the CO2 emissions. I've got a pal with a Peugeot 207 van with their 1.6HDi90 engine and he's getting 67mpg off his trip and the official combined is closer to 50. He just drives extremely economically. I don't, so I get slightly worse figures than the offical list.........

in the petrol it replaced you had to change a gear or two and get the revs up to make a safe overtake.

Can someone explain the price difference thing please?

Petrol is 1p a litre cheaper than diesel at the moment, so where are people getting their figures from about 'don't buy a diesel car unless you're doing over 12000 miles a year'? By my reckoning if you do more than 5 miles a year, get a diesel.

Can someone explain the price difference thing please?

usually, a car with a diesel engine costs more than the same car with a petrol engine.

It's cos diesels are more expensive to buy.

Then factor in additional oil needed and additional servicing costs.

And additional costs to wash all the clothes that get covered in diesel every time you fill up.

They're not real world figures - they're calculated from the CO2 emissions

No they're not - they calculate the CO2 figures from the fuel economy tests. The fuel economy tests however are unrealistic - they drive something like 2 miles on a rolling road with a set pattern. And the manufacturers do them, so they can do various things to fudge the results.

Molgrips - I already know that you luuurv your Passat. Hats off to you, and all that. Nobody needs to see your graphs.

I just get pissed off with people saying diesels have only a 500rpm power band. It just isn't true!

aah right ta. I think you might want to review those figures though. I agree our audi probably cost more than a petrol to buy and maybe more than a petrol to service but our honda, no way. A full service was less than 200 quid (which included a full valet) and it won't need another one now for a year.

And all petrol stations have plastic gloves on the bins nowadays.

I'll race you in my 2.0l petrol against your diesel Molgrips - we'll soon see whose has the best power band 😈

Interesting reading this discussion as someone who is involved in the pollution/health field. Does anyone consider anything other than MPG or running cost when purchasing a car?

It might interest people to know that PM/NOx pollution, largely attributable to diesel vehicles, is responsible for more deaths than passive smoking and road traffic accidents combined. In fact in London your life expectancy is 7 - 8 years less largely due to diesel vehicle pollution, and 7-8 months less UK wide (but this does include people living in the sticks as well as cities).

There are impending EU emissions targets which the UK is currently struggling to meet, and again this can be attributed to the diesel fleet. In order to meet these targets one of the things being discussed is diesel fuel pricing, so the fuel prices might not be as similar as they are now. Petrol and diesel prices are only going to go one way, but I think that diesel will incur the greatest rise. Another thing is more Low Emission Zones, where driving a diesel will be expensive. Also there is talk of forcing diesel vehicles to retrofit further emissions control, again that is not going to be cheap.

Not trying to come across holier than thou as I have a (petrol) car that I use for weekend biking so I'm doing my bit for pollution as everyone else is. However what I would say is that petrol driving costs for the future look pretty stable, whereas diesel may increase quite a lot relative to now - if all we're interested in is running costs

Theres a lot more to it, as we run out of nice light oils, diesel is going to become cheeper (than petrol) as its easier to turn heavy oils into diesel than petrol.

Fuel is going to get very expensive very quickly regardless. Within the decade I reckon the question will be hydrocarbons or XYZ, whatever XYZ turns out to be, hydrogen generated by some form of nuclear power would be a good bet. Although we still haven't worked out how to make it or store it yet.

Maybe in terms of production price, but the government aren't simply going to let diesel get cheaper than petrol I don't think, whether it be through increased taxation or other means such as retrofit emissions technologies etc. Poor health due to Air Quality costs £8.5 - 20.2 billion a year in the UK, not to mention the £300 millions worth of fines that we'll probably have to pay as well.

We do definitely need to think about a cleaner fuel though, but with the rate of progression as it is I can't see any major shift or uptake in the next 10 years.

As with all these things there are various angles you can take. It would have been useful if UK government had thought about this though some time ago rather than panicking now they know how much AQ is costing them and the fines are going to come in! The result is we'll all end up paying more to do what we do now.

just for all the diesel PM10 moaners - how about petrol PM2.5s? Probably even more health affecting?
Anyway in London anyone that lives east of Heathrow is heavily affected by the partially burnt jetfuel off of landing planes and particularly those in the Richmond/ Hounslow area are very affected by overweight planes dumping fuel on final approach.
We have a diesel Focus partly because we got 40% off RRP from new, it'll do over 600 [oops] miles on a single tank and even in town driving gets just under 40mpg (which is quite a disappointment TBH). Oh, and it goes, stops and goes round corners which is all we want it to do. What is this "driver enjoyment" you folks from the shires are going on about?

aP I think is still open to interpretation with regard to PM2.5. Not measured much in comparison yet, partly due to cost and availability of equipment to do so. This will change in the near future though as suitable equipment is becoming more commercially available.

In summary in London you're shafted!

LOL - but it has been lovely and quiet the last few days, and no nasty rainbow colours on the top of my pint either.

The ironic thing is that a lot of AQ people get jobs in London, where the AQ is the worst in Europe, for that very reason. Yet they know all about the impact upon them and everyone else. A strange situation to be in.

To try and go back to cars a bit one of the main reasons against the Heathrow expansion is not the increase in flight traffic/plane pollution but the impact on AQ due to the increased vehicle traffic that it would bring.

so why are diesels more expensive to produce?

Less demand so higher unit cost?

Oh right, you're an attention whore.

molgrips, why do you insist on throwing these insults around about people you don't know? It's getting very tiresome now

[i]And additional costs to wash all the clothes that get covered in diesel every time you fill up.[/i]

messy bugger 😉

I'd love to know where these people live & work that get remotely near the manufacturers' claimed MPG. perhaps they live 2 minutes from 1 motorway junction and work at a motorway service station...

Then again the case for H3 was based on 80% emmissions reduction for both planes and cars by 2020.
I'm always amused by those that require a 'drivers car' to go shopping in Feltham at the weekend.

aP the government can always juggle up the figures it wants to support whatever idea it has it seems. I don't believe them on H3 and a prominent member from my department is on the record saying a lot of their H3 justification is bull.

Another vote here for preferring driving diesels.

As long is the power is there, the torque is up there with far more powerful petrol engined cars. Less need to change gear is a plus too.

The only reason to buy a diesel with the sort of mileage you're doing is if you're going to be towing stuff or doing a lot of fully loaded trips.

If you not doing these things then petrol is your default fuel for overall economy.

molgrips, why do you insist on throwing these insults around about people you don't know? It's getting very tiresome now

It's meant to be humour. I enjoy ribbing TINAS about his car, that's all. I was hoping it'd be taken in the spirit which it's intended, but thorough apologies if it's not 🙂

As for the air quality thing, that's an interesting point. I'm aware of NOx pollution and so on after having had endless discussions with my American father in law as to why diesels are so unpopular over there - NOx is one of the reasons. If you think our emissions control systems are complex, you should read about how VW made their diesels comply with the stringent new California regulations. They have a NOx trap as well as a DPF which is quite a piece of engineering I think.

I can afford to pay to fill a nice beefy petrol sports car, but I choose at least some semblance of economy with my diesel Passat. To be honest I do wish I'd bought something smaller, less powerful or at least with a manual gearbox, but it was a snap decision under pressure. Although I'm sure it'll come in handy when towing.

I decided that, because I don't live in London or say Los Angeles, NOx is less of an issue than CO2 for me.

In all honesty I'd rather have another petrol hybrid as a second car, but they're not designed for towing unfortunately. Petrol hybrids are the way forward in terms of emissions, both at the tailpipe and when refining the fuel, so I'm told. Now all I need is one with plug in capability and that can run on UK grown bio-ethanol and I'm good to go 🙂

I recommend an Astra 1.9CDTi 150 Estate - sold one last year that we had for four years from new. Comfy, good on fuel, handled well, usefully quick (especially for overtaking and up hill), well specced and because it's a Vauxhall, can be picked up for very little money.

Now got a 335d Touring that really is rather nippy. Also got (well wife has got) a little Jimny (!) for towing a dinky boat, parking anywhere and a bit of off roading - both cars cover all angles. The BMW is utterly useless off tarmac for example.

Well, we were looking at the 1.7 diesel Astra and after anti diesel comments yesterday, we started looking at the 1.4 petrol Astra estates. Certainly seem to get more car for your money. Would loev a hybrid but I'm not aware of any estate versions and certainly not on the second hand market withn out £5k budget.

I can afford to pay to fill a nice beefy petrol sports car, but I choose at least some semblance of economy with my diesel Passat.

So what engine did the old Golf it replaced have?

Not a Golf, 2.3 Turbo (Volvo V70 T5) > Golf GT (2.0 diesel)

Yes but can you fit any people or shopping in it?

I get 33ish mpg round town, 40ish out of town and can carry five people and loads of gear then hit 60 in under 6s, 100 in 13.3 and get to over 160 in my [b]family estate[/b] car 😉

Shame it has a whiff of "hearse" about it.

Would loev a hybrid but I'm not aware of any estate versions and certainly not on the second hand market withn out £5k budget.

Well Prius boot is estate big (almost) with seats down, but small with seats up. And I used to ride past one with full equippment and leather in Bristol that was a 56 plate for £6k last year.

I thought the green footprint of the Prius was worse than most other cars out there due to the batteries.

Yep - 2.5 times worse than a V8 Range Rover due to being made all over the World and using nasty stuff in the batteries. Not good. The Prius makes me angry.

I thought the green footprint of the Prius was worse than most other cars out there due to the batteries.

Only if you believe the sheer b*llocks put about by an American so-called research company being paid by the US oil industry.

It's not true folks. That report made out that the total energy cost of a Prius was half a million dollars. So Toyota make $470,000 loss on each one then? Okay.

Edit: a Landrover weighs almost double what a Prius weighs. So you're saying that 28kg of NiMH battery (made mostly from recycled nickel) takes more energy to produce than 1200kg of steel, engine, gearbox and associated plastic crap?

Yes but can you fit any people or shopping in it?

I can get two bikes in the boot with the back seats down. Just.

🙂

Not a Golf, 2.3 Turbo (Volvo V70 T5) > Golf GT (2.0 diesel)

I get a LOT of Audi A3/A4 and Golf/Passat 2.0 diesels up my backside being lairy for no reason. They have less than half the bhp and over 200lbs-ft less torque but still think they are in something "sporty." I usually ignore it but occasionally I open the sunroof, stomp on the throttle and wave politely as they are left choking in my soot fumes 😉