Diesel as a first car?

warpig

the insurance is very cheap compared to my other quotes, and it's very cheap for the price. What do you mean running costs? What extra is there apart from the fuel (which dieselhead said roughly balances to petrol) and oiling (how much is that, btw?)

Lum

The other running costs depend on the specific car, ideally you should try to find the service schedule for the car, but a typical service schedule may be:

Every 10,000 miles
Oil, Oil Filter
Spark Plugs (petrol engines only, cheap though)
Air filter

Every 30,000 miles
Antifreeze

Every 60,000 miles
Timing belt, timing belt tensioner and ancilliary belts (expensive)

These costs will vary for each model of car, both in terms of when they need to be done and how much it costs to do them, but are worth taking into consideration.

Don't forget to consider all the other things that will need replacing on a regular basis on your new car such as tyres and brakes, and then there's the things that will eventually fail and need replacing such as wheelbearings and the exhaust pipe.

The cost of these also varies depending on how much work you're prepared to do yourself. As a minimum I'd suggest that everyone should be able to change their own bloody air filter, it's a 5 minute job that isn't much harder than changing one in a vaccum cleaner, spark plugs are easy enough to do too. oil and oil filter can be messy if you don't know what you're doing but since it's something you have to do fairly regularly (and it's not actually that hard) it's worth learning to do. I find getting one of these helps if you can't be bothered dealing with the mess.

tomstickland

120,000 is nothing. Petrol engines are capable of 250,000 easily, as long as oil changes are kept up. Diesel engines at 120,00 wouldn't worry about it.

The TDi engines are great. I've got a battered MK3 Golf Estate 1.9TDi and I'm really impressed with. 48mpg all the time.

goldspanners

these engines are good engines,not the fastest but they do give good economy when driven how they were intended,they were never meant to be fast engines,this is the main reason taxi drivers loved the first skoda octavia,the engine is cheap and easy to repair if it ever needs it and fuel economy when driven normally is good.

but bear in mind the rest of the car has done 120k aswell not just the engine.

the price difference between the diesel and petrol equivelent at this age shouldnt be too much of a defference.

Lum

goldspanners wrote: »

these engines are good engines,not the fastest but they do give good economy when driven how they were intended,they were never meant to be fast engines

And this is why the SDI engine tends to deliver worse economy than the TDI. Most folk don't drive it like that.

The most extreme example was when the SDI engined works VW Caddy van was replaced with a courtesy Caddy TDI, the fuel economy was loads better as the van drivers were thrashing that SDI engine to death trying to get it up to motorway speeds in a timely manner.

I suspect if you were just pootling around the suburbs the SDI would do rather well.

goldspanners

Lum wrote: »

And this is why the SDI engine tends to deliver worse economy than the TDI. Most folk don't drive it like that.

The most extreme example was when the SDI engined works VW Caddy van was replaced with a courtesy Caddy TDI, the fuel economy was loads better as the van drivers were thrashing that SDI engine to death trying to get it up to motorway speeds in a timely manner.

I suspect if you were just pootling around the suburbs the SDI would do rather well.

but this isnt the works van,its the ops first car,pride and joy to be. as they stated in post 7, it doesnt have to be fast.
this is a traditional diesel engine where low revs suit it best. gear changes before 2500 revs will be sufficent to acheive good fuel economy.

flyingscotno1

Lum wrote: »

The SDI is not only terrible, it's not exactly the most efficient engine either since the job of a turbo in a diesel is to improve efficiency as well as performance.

Also you are looking at a 1.9 litre engine in your first car, this may not go down terribly well with the insurance even though that engine only puts out about 60-70bhp

How many miles are you planning to do. It's worth noting that right now secondhand diesel cars are selling at a premium, so for somewhat less outlay you could get a petrol car of a similar standard, and it would take a lot of miles before the running costs ate up the difference.

Diesel only really makes sense if you're going to be up and down the motorway every day.

Your right, the SDi is not a good engine- seriously slow, and underpowered, however if you like it go for it by all means. The TDi engine is more powerful and much better fun.

It is nonsense to suggest that because it has a 1.9 litre engine the insurance companies look at it unfavourably. When I was a new driver, it was virtually the same cost for a 1.9 diesel and a 1.4 petrol, because horsepower and speed were the same. Insurers look a lot more than simply engine size- otherwise you'd have loads of kids in 1.3l Mazda RX8s! Insurance grouping will tell you which way to head.

Diesel cars do (sometimes) go at a premium, but. I disagree that diesels are solely for the motorway. In town, my diesel gets a vastly better than the petrol version we tried. It is very difficult to tie down who diesels are best for, but ultimately for the longer distance motorway commuter they make more sense.

Lum

flyingscotno1 wrote: »

It is nonsense to suggest that because it has a 1.9 litre engine the insurance companies look at it unfavourably. When I was a new driver, it was virtually the same cost for a 1.9 diesel and a 1.4 petrol, because horsepower and speed were the same. Insurers look a lot more than simply engine size- otherwise you'd have loads of kids in 1.3l Mazda RX8s! Insurance grouping will tell you which way to head.

I guess the insurance companies have improved a lot since I was that age then. When I was trying to get insurance on a variety of cars, it seemed that young person with an engine size over 1.4 litres == big money even on low insurance group cars.

Oh and the RX cars are a special case and you know it! In some countries if the car is a rotary you multiply the engine size by 1.5 for tax purposes and I guess this would also be valid for insurance purposes.

Insurance grouping is only a rough guide anyway since the insurance companies collect risk statistics for individual car models too. I guess because of this Skoda is a good choice since the chavs are unlikely to buy Skodas and thus they don't get crashed as often, though I do wonder if the number of Skoda minicabs may affect the statistics negatively?

cpdc1030

If you're not doing many miles (under 8,000 per year) then I'd say there's no point going with a Diesel. You're unlikely to recoup the increased purchase and maintenance costs through fuel savings.

The basic Fabia comes with a 1.2 petrol but also has a 1.4 which would probably be preferable . However at your age as many say insurance is very high - so try and get into a car with a low grouping (below 4 ideally). Then again it does depend on where you live - moving in Manchester from Warrington doubled my insurance premium a few years ago (about 15 miles away). The 1.2 is in group 1 so you can't get any lower than that

Lum

Actually the insurance groupings have changed a lot recently according to my brokers. The 1-20 system is now pretty much obsolete and is only kept around because most customers stand it. The new groupings run something like 21-71 with 21 being the lowers.

And you still have the stats for individual vehicles to take into account, so you might still get it a little lower in a different car.

At best the insurance group is a rough guide to cost, nothing more.