Looking for a new (to us) car. A medium sized estate, Focus/Astra type thing, maybe 5 years old. We do about 8000 miles a year. Any opinions as to whether we'd be better off looking at a diesel model or a petrol model? It looks like you get moe car for your money with the petrol but obviously, they'll cost more per mile to run.

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. 🙂

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

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. What’s more, it’s realistic. 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:

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!

The statement was 'Buy a car you like to be in, makes life so much nicer.' not 'Buy a car Molgrips wants to be in…'

😉

mute point : 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.