Petrol vs Diesel - advice please!

goldspanners

blued wrote: »

Is an ignition cassette a coil pack? If so I know from personal experience how expensive these can be to replace! Although theoretically they shouldnt require replacing as often as HT leads.

how often were you changing HT leads? i changed mine on my focus at 60k miles and 5 years, the originals were fine but i thought i should change them just incase. they cost me £20, ive also got a new spare coil pack aswell, that cost £35. that still doesnt cover the cost of one diesel fuel injector.

goldspanners

Viper_7 wrote: »

Big one for me too, is that the engines are difficult to thrash, where as petrol the previous owner could have revved the life out of it.

and the black smoke one sees coming out the back is due to poor maintenance and poor air-intake, not due to just being an oil burner.

some might argue a diesel engine at 3500 - 4000 rpm is thrashing a diesel engine.

the black smoke could be due to a faulty fuel injector with a bad spray pattern.

lindadykes

I have had a Ford Focus 1.8 diesel for the past 5 and a half years. I drive an avg of 22000 miles per year. The car now has 163000 miles on the clock and has given me no problems (touch wood!). I previously drove a 1.4 SEAT Ibizia petrol and when I first changed over I saved about 25% on my fuel bills. It takes about the same length of time - about 6 miles to warm up and is much faster on acceleration and overtaking. I live in an area with lots of hills and I can easily do 60mph uphill in 5th.

I intend to continue choosing diesel in the future.

Viper_7

goldspanners wrote: »

dissy cap and rotor arm? what? these went out in the 80's. these days we use coil packs and ingnition modules.

the fuel filter on a petrol car doesnt require regular changing, the mondeo your talking about (without the dissy cap) need a new fuel filter every 60k miles or 5 years. the diesel one needs one every second service, so there goes your spark plug savings.
ht leads arent really service items, they get changed when they need doing. not at every service.

i fear your talking about older diesels versus older petrols. the amount of potential faults (and expensive ones) on a modern diesel would frighten you. for an old diesel you could get fuel pump and injecotrs reconditioned for a few hundred quid. this won't even buy you one injector these days.

Doesn't need a new filter- just needs draining. and a new one is...ooohhh £5!

goldspanners

Viper_7 wrote: »

Doesn't need a new filter- just needs draining. and a new one is...ooohhh £5!

drain one service change the next service. thats what i said. and it does need a new filter, when you drain it your not cleaning out the fine micron filter paper inside thats is getting blocked up filtering your fuel.

Rolandtheroadie

Brother in law paid around £850 to get his 1.7 diesel corsa combi fuel pump refurbished.
When the wifes diesel fiesta failed on emissions I asked about getting it repaired. Was told I could spend £1200 and it might not fix it.
Right now I'm saving up for a DMF for my Mondeo (40k nearly, shouldnt be far away).

Rolandtheroadie

lindadykes wrote: »

I have had a Ford Focus 1.8 diesel for the past 5 and a half years. I drive an avg of 22000 miles per year. The car now has 163000 miles on the clock and has given me no problems (touch wood!).

Have you never had diesel fumes inside the car? and a tick tick tick from the engine bay?
Common problem apparently, what the wifes Fiesta started going wrong with (I say started, the final straw was me "fixing" it.

goldspanners

scotsman4th wrote: »

Brother in law paid around £850 to get his 1.7 diesel corsa combi fuel pump refurbished.
When the wifes diesel fiesta failed on emissions I asked about getting it repaired. Was told I could spend £1200 and it might not fix it.
Right now I'm saving up for a DMF for my Mondeo (40k nearly, shouldnt be far away).

thanks, these are common prices to repair modern diesels and should be expected sooner or later. and some folk are totally oblivious to this and just see the MPG and £35 a year road tax.
its false economy if you do low miles.

Rallydriver

Viper_7 wrote: »

Can happily sit in 5th from 30mph upwards with no strain on the engine
and sitting on the motorway at 70mph with less than 2000 rpm is a breeze, where as their counterparts are at like 4000RPM another reason why they last so much longer

Big one for me too, is that the engines are difficult to thrash, where as petrol the previous owner could have revved the life out of it.

and the black smoke one sees coming out the back is due to poor maintenance and poor air-intake, not due to just being an oil burner.

You can strain an engine by using too few revs you know. I don't know any modern petrol cars that sit at 4000rpm at 70mph, maybe an 80's 1.0 Metro 4 speed might have but not now. Besides, turning over at a constant 4k rpm an engine is putting very little power in on each stroke and that means theres not much stress at all on the components even though they are moving faster.

It is the torque that puts the strain on drivetrain components, so a thrashed diesel is as likely to fail as a thrashed petrol.

The Japanese measure emissions in a totally different way to us, whereas we concentrate on CO2, the Japs measure a range of emissions gases and particulates. Diesels don't compare well to petrols in particulate emissions, hence the lowest polluters by Japanese standards are all micro cars with small petrol turbo engines.

The black soot you see from modern high pressure diesels when they are booted isn't from poor maintenance, its caused when the combustion temperatures are too high, just a symptom of the way the engines are set up. Peak power from a diesel isn't particularly clean, but the emissions ratings aren't tested when the engines being thrashed, only when driven "normally."

Rallydriver

goldspanners wrote: »

an older diesel engine would suit you down to the ground, they were designed for low revs,economy and torque they were not noted for thier acceleration but would run all day every day without missing a beat.

a small petrol engine is much more suited to sitting in traffic these days rather than a new diesel.

i am by no means against diesels,but they have thier place and a small city car isnt thier place.

For those people who do only very short journeys, like old or lazy people going to the shops (there seem to be more of them nowadays), would a simpler non-turbo diesel not be the best solution?

I'm only thinking this because diesel is an oil and therefore a lubricant. Over very short journeys an engine doesn't get up to temperature and leaves some fuel unburnt in the cylinder. With petrol it washes away the oil coating from the cylinder walls and rots them over time - iirc this doesn't happen with diesel.

Both diesel and petrol have their place, if they didn't then we'd all use the same fuel. As it happens theres a fairly even split. I'd certainly have a diesel if I was doing a large mileage.