Petrol vs Diesel - advice please!

olly300

Viper_7 wrote: »

Diesel.

Better MPG in general. (although diesel is a little more expensive now so...not much gained these days)

.

Where I live diesel has been the same price or cheaper than petrol since about May this year.

lindadykes

scotsman4th wrote: »

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.

No - not yet! Only real problems have not been engine related, i.e when it rains sometimes leaks into passenger footwell, have had to replace CD/Radio, and a few suspension issues - though I have put these down to it being an estate.

goldspanners

Rallydriver wrote: »

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?



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.

a non turbo diesel would be a good alternative to a petrol for small journeys,but not so common these days.

your agreeing with me that they both have thier place,as i said im not anti diesel, i use a diesel aswell as a petrol.

ahillsy

There's quite a bit of misplaced belief still that you should only buy a diesel if you're doing high mileage. I don't agree with that - the important thing is you need to fully work out over the period of time you'll keep the car, what will work out best based for you.

For the past 3 years I've been doing on average 8k miles per year in my diesel (Ibiza FR TDi). Only 4 miles each way to work, mostly urban driving and this works out cheaper than an equivalent petrol - lower tax, lower insurance by 3-4 groups, 40mpg on work runs (up to 69mpg max on long motorway runs).

I am now switching to petrol, but only because the diesel version of the car I'm getting would not suit the type of driving I do as it has a DPF (as somone said earlier, google it and you'll see more info) and I'd be quite likely to have problems with it not being able to do it's job on my small runs. DPF is becoming quite common on new diesels.

Otherwise, I would have stuck with diesels even for my low mileage - within a couple of years I worked out I would be saving money having a diesel.Yes they cost more up front, but they hold their value better so when you sell it you'll see some of the difference still over the petrol.

goldspanners

ahillsy wrote: »

There's quite a bit of misplaced belief still that you should only buy a diesel if you're doing high mileage. I don't agree with that - the important thing is you need to fully work out over the period of time you'll keep the car, what will work out best based for you.

For the past 3 years I've been doing on average 8k miles per year in my diesel (Ibiza FR TDi). Only 4 miles each way to work, mostly urban driving and this works out cheaper than an equivalent petrol - lower tax, lower insurance by 3-4 groups, 40mpg on work runs (up to 69mpg max on long motorway runs).

I am now switching to petrol, but only because the diesel version of the car I'm getting would not suit the type of driving I do as it has a DPF (as somone said earlier, google it and you'll see more info) and I'd be quite likely to have problems with it not being able to do it's job on my small runs. DPF is becoming quite common on new diesels.

Otherwise, I would have stuck with diesels even for my low mileage - within a couple of years I worked out I would be saving money having a diesel.Yes they cost more up front, but they hold their value better so when you sell it you'll see some of the difference still over the petrol.

im not quite sure what your trying to say here, you don't think that its necessary to do high miles to justify buying a diesel,but your changing from a diesel to a petrol because you don't do enough miles.

ahillsy

goldspanners wrote: »

im not quite sure what your trying to say here, you don't think that its necessary to do high miles to justify buying a diesel,but your changing from a diesel to a petrol because you don't do enough miles.

I'm not changing from a petrol to a diesel because I don't do enough miles, I'm changing because of the type of driving I do. Buying a diesel with a DPF means you need have a certain type of driving whereby you can run the car for long enough at reasonable revs/speed for the regeneration process to start and do it's job (has to get high temperature to burn off all the soot that's been collected basically). The guidelines for the car I was looking at, were that you need to maintain a speed above 37mph and that the car would not suit someone with mainly stop-start urban driving.

So it's not the mileage I'm doing, it's the type of driving that's making me change. If I did 20k miles a year, but it was all urban stop-start, averaging 20mph then that would still be the same. If my 8k miles per year included frequent A-road/motorway journeys, then I'd be fine.

Hope that makes sense.

Rallydriver

goldspanners wrote: »

your agreeing with me that they both have thier place,as i said im not anti diesel, i use a diesel aswell as a petrol.

Absolutely, I'm agreeing with you. :-)

Thats the thing, most people swear by one or the other and will argue that way. Its difficult to counter one argument without coming across as being for the opposite side. We're both only trying to balance the argument.

Rolandtheroadie

I probably like my (first) diesel more because I was on around 15 MPG in my shed of a Range Rover.
But to be honest, I buy the car I want at the time without considering fuel type.