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Diesel vs Petrol

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  • AbbieCadabra
    AbbieCadabra Posts: 1,710 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    edited 19 January 2012 at 9:11PM
    Lum wrote: »
    Yes, the newer the car the more likely it is to be a problem.



    If he's only done 9k then even if he has been abusing it with little short trips, it's not going to be clogged up... yet.
    If some other poor sod buys that car and continues to use it for short trips, they're the ones going to be shelling out Mercedes prices for a new DPF. You say you only do 7k so, unless that includes a small number of big motorway trips done regularly, I would advise you to avoid a diesel in any case, and especially that one!

    thanks, the person i know is doing low mileage in general, just more motorway driving than i'd be doing.

    every 3 months or so we should be doing a round trip of about 800 miles (half of it motorway), that wouldn't be sufficiently regular enough to regenerate the DPF?

    i wasn't expecting the info that this would be worse the newer the car would be, shouldn't things be improving the more modern the engine?
  • Lum
    Lum Posts: 6,460 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Photogenic Combo Breaker
    Unfortunately, the newer the engine the more emissions legislation it has to comply with and so the more fancy stuff it has fitted in order to do so. Long gone are the days of diesel engines being simple, reliable, bulletproof lumps of iron.

    As for whether that journey would be enough to regenerate the DPF. Not sure, probably best to ask a Mercedes engineer. Maybe go to a dealership, speak to the service department and ask for quotes for a service on both diesel and petrol versions so they think you're a prospective customer, then slip the question in at an appropriate time.
  • If you can find a well maintained mid 90s diesel with a low mileage, Id buy it and keep it for 40 years ;)
    The old fave was the 205 diesel - my mate had one with about 400k on the clock still running fine :D
  • Lum wrote: »
    Unfortunately, the newer the engine the more emissions legislation it has to comply with and so the more fancy stuff it has fitted in order to do so. Long gone are the days of diesel engines being simple, reliable, bulletproof lumps of iron.

    Ah, makes a lot of sense, thanks.

    we've purchased a new works van recently so i know a little about the euro 5 compliance on emissions (which actually worked in our favour as dealers were getting rid of older stock towards the end of 2011 & it meant that a new van was only a little bit more than something up to a year old, so great timing for us!), but when i was speaking to the mercedes sales guy last week he mentioned about this new directive that comes in in about 8 years (i think). there are small changes inbetween now & then but the biggest change will be in 2020. manufacturers have got to average a certain low level of emissions across their range so that's why you've got the likes of aston martin doing a diddy little efficiency car, to bring their average down.

    the mercedes model i'm looking at only came out 2 years ago but has had least 1, possibly 2, revisions to it already & emissions/mpg have improved on the latest models. seems good on the surface, but it's obviously causing a few issues.
    Lum wrote: »
    As for whether that journey would be enough to regenerate the DPF. Not sure, probably best to ask a Mercedes engineer. Maybe go to a dealership, speak to the service department and ask for quotes for a service on both diesel and petrol versions so they think you're a prospective customer, then slip the question in at an appropriate time.

    great idea :T, thanks

    this AA article (29.11.11) was linked to on another forum & it makes interesting reading.

    so glad i spent some time looking into this as i had no idea of any of these possible problems, all i knew was that a diesel usually costs more & is your mileage worth it to cover the cost etc. i really don't want to have to think about 'have i driven for long enough at the right rev's this week' !

    i'm not ruling a diesel out completely at the moment, but it's looking less likely.

    many thanks for the info :) (sorry for rambling on a bit :o)
  • Obukit
    Obukit Posts: 670 Forumite
    cybermatuk wrote: »
    If you can find a well maintained mid 90s diesel with a low mileage, Id buy it and keep it for 40 years ;)
    The old fave was the 205 diesel - my mate had one with about 400k on the clock still running fine :D
    Agreed. Got a 1996 1.9TDI Golf with 355k miles on the clock, sounds like a tractor but probably was the same when it drove out the showroom :). 200k miles on free old vegetable oil, hate to think how much that would have cost me in diesel.

    With the old diesel engines it tends to be the rust that kills the car rather than the engine. Luckily with the amount of miles I do some dozy sod normally rear ends me at least once a year, rustiest part of the car acts as a nice crumple zone and gets repaired on insurance... happy days :).
  • Golf Diesel is another winner - I could get one of those tomorrow and be driving it when I retire in 35 years.
    Certain cars just last forever apart from the obvious fight against rust, but heck if Moggie Minors are still on the roads (saw one this morning) then there is hope for us yet as they stopped doing them in 1970.
  • dewitts
    dewitts Posts: 11 Forumite
    so.... is it still more cost effective to buy a diesel car than a petrol car considering the price difference at the pump?
    At what point does it become not cost effective? (as in if the price of diesel is XX p more per litre than petrol)
  • almillar
    almillar Posts: 8,621 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    dewitts - it's not as simple as cost of diesel per litre vs cost of petrol per litre. Firstly, you have to buy a car, what's the cost difference petrol vs diesel there? Then you have to factor in your mileage and driving pattern. As a general rule, and I'm being conservative, under 10k miles per year is unsuitable for diesels, and so is lots of short (under 10 miles) journeys. This is bad for catalytic converters (petrol and most diesels I think) and also bad for Diesel Particulate Filters in diesels - these things collect the soot you used to see coming out of diesels, then, like a cat, when they're warm enough, burn it off at a really high temperature. If you do only short journeys, they'll never get warm enough, and could clog.
  • dewitts
    dewitts Posts: 11 Forumite
    I'm looking at getting a 2nd hand VW Passat Estate and the price difference seems marginal (around £100) so I've ruled that out.
    Most of my mileage is taking my daughter to her mothers 2 or 3 times a week around 14 miles away across country lanes.
    I probably only do around 8000 miles a year.
    I manage to get 38.7 mpg out of my 99 BMW 523i SE Petrol (manual says 31 mpg extra urban) so I think i'm doing pretty good!
    I drive to wales at least 5 or 6 times a year (500+ miles round trip) so ulitimately to me it does come down to whether it's more cost effective based on the price at the pump.
  • almillar
    almillar Posts: 8,621 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    In the case of that specific car, if you've some special reason to buy it (or to change at all!), you'll probably struggle to find many petrols anyway, so I'm not sure whether you'll get a choice! 8,000 miles a year would mean that you'd take a long time to get your money back from any extra purchase/insurance/ fuel price cost. I'd rather stuck with the Beemer - you're getting very good MPG out of it!
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