Diesel vs Petrol

Chris_VRS

diesel over petrol for me everytime!

tomstickland

Re long service intervals. There's nothing clever about them at all.
Best advice out there is to change the oil more frequently than recommended. It doesn't matter how advanced the oil is, it will fill up with partially combusted particles and this then turns into a grinding paste that causes engine wear. High mileage engines with regular oil changes have less wear than low mileage engines run on old oil.

Economy wise there is a reasonable argument for Diesel.

Performance wise, the outright acceleration performance only depends on power to weight ratio. Peak torque figure doesn't make any difference, except for delivery style. I'm not making this up, I've spent many hours looking into the physics of it. Diesel owners are always going on about the torque output of their engines.

Due to an accident I was forced to change from a 1.8 Auto using £3120 of petrol per year. My fuel costs alone have been reduced by a massive £2080 per year as I have changed to a Diesel vehicle.

You've saved 2/3 by going to Diesel. I doubt that that's due to fuel change alone. Auto boxes are inefficient; it also depends on vehicle size, weight and condition.

roswell

Just to clear up some strange beliefs about diesel.

Using Veg oil is illegal expect a £500 on ths spot fine unless your registered with H&M Customs and excise.

Service is between 10000 miles and 20000. mines had 3 services its one 50 000 i challenge a petrol car to do that.

to me the less trips to the petrol stations sold me on the economy and driven very carefully you can get miles and miles and miles out of one tank.

The other thing with a TD is put your foot down and you still get good miles to gallon ratio :-) Sold

tomstickland

Service is between 10000 miles and 20000. mines had 3 services its one 50 000 i challenge a petrol car to do that.

I don't see any reason why a petrol engine requires more servicing than a diesel. I'm DIY anyway so I don't care.
The retention of mpg even with right foot down is a very good argument for Diesel.

IvanOpinion

roswell wrote:

Service is between 10000 miles and 20000. mines had 3 services its one 50 000 i challenge a petrol car to do that.

I may be a diesel devotee but most modern engines with modern oils seem to cope OK with being abused. I got my old Montego petrol with 24K on the clock and sold it several years later with 84K on the clock (I think) and it only got serviced once (just before I sold it) ... never gave me a days problem.

Ivan

tomstickland

That really is awful! Just goes to show why low mileage is meaningless.

speedtwin

ive got a 406 diesel and use to do about 35miles a day, i have now changed job and work 1 mile from home. would it be better to change to petrol or is it just as bad for a diesel as petrol for short distance driving?

steve!_10

1 mile? You should walk.

speedtwin

Yeah I Know Should But I`m A Letting Agent But I Have To Go To Bank Once A Day And View Houses Sometimes (all In A 3 Miles Radius)

Jorgan_2

Diesels are usually better for shortertrips, start/stop driving, on of the reasons the taxi boys use them.

You need to look at the whole picture before deciding whether to change. Servicing costs may be more expensive on a diesel than a comaprative diesel to petrol engined vehicle. Purchase price of petrol cars tend to be lower than their equivilant diesel model.

A friend of mine was selling a BMW X5 3.0 petrol recently, had loads of people turn up to view, all liked it but were put off by the fuel consumption. He was having a whine about being left with a lemon he couldn't sell, did a quick check on a comparable 3.0d and they were about £3000 more expensive. Pointed out to my mate that at the moment that buys 3000 litres of petrol, he used this with the viewer & they bought the car, once they worked out they would take about 4 years to use this amount of fuel.