thinking about getting a diesel

garry1974

im currently thinking about getting a new car possibly either a citreon nemo of the peugot bipper tepee im seriously thinking about getting the 1.4HDi to get the fuel economy which is above 60mph on the combined. what im trying to work out is that is the extra £1000 for a diesel worth it . i would get about a 3rd more miles for my money but i only do 7000 miles a year. currently have a citreon berlingo 1.4 petrol. most of my driving is on 30/40mph roads and some dual carriage ways. people have mentioned that unless your doing loads of miles then its not worth getting diesel but if im currently spending £100 a month on fuel then with the new MPG that the 1.4HDi would offer would it mean putting about 60 quid a month in saving 40 pounds a month which would be saving of about £1440 over 3 years. i am getting that right or not currently getting about 350 miles out of a tank in my berlingo which is costing me about £60 to fill up.

jd82

7000 miles a year I would stick the petrol, too much to go wrong on modern diesels and their filters tend to clog up with lack of use. Diesels are for people that do 20k a year or need lots of torque.

garry1974

and also the £120 saving a year on the road tax.

jd82

Which is nothjing cimpared to say £2k on a fuel pump or £1000's on a new dual mass flywheel. If you go diesel make sure you do your research and get a simple one. Too many people are trying to save money but end up spending a lot more on repairs.

LandyAndy

garry1974 wrote: »

im currently thinking about getting a new car possibly either a citreon nemo of the peugot bipper tepee im seriously thinking about getting the 1.4HDi to get the fuel economy which is above 60mph on the combined. what im trying to work out is that is the extra £1000 for a diesel worth it . i would get about a 3rd more miles for my money but i only do 7000 miles a year. currently have a citreon berlingo 1.4 petrol. most of my driving is on 30/40mph roads and some dual carriage ways. people have mentioned that unless your doing loads of miles then its not worth getting diesel but if im currently spending £100 a month on fuel then with the new MPG that the 1.4HDi would offer would it mean putting about 60 quid a month in saving 40 pounds a month which would be saving of about £1440 over 3 years. i am getting that right or not currently getting about 350 miles out of a tank in my berlingo which is costing me about £60 to fill up.

That's 32 mpg. Something wrong with the vehicle or your driving.

garry1974

LandyAndy wrote: »

That's 32 mpg. Something wrong with the vehicle or your driving.

these figures arent precise just roughly i am checking it at the moment and have done about 180 miles and not down to half a tank yet. most of the journeys are only a few miles at a time as its only a 6 mile drive for me to get to work.

garry1974

jd82 wrote: »

Which is nothjing cimpared to say £2k on a fuel pump or £1000's on a new dual mass flywheel. If you go diesel make sure you do your research and get a simple one. Too many people are trying to save money but end up spending a lot more on repairs.

how and what would identify a simple diesel engine then? would a HDi not be one of these. i have been reading on here about a diesel particle filter engine which seems to be causing problems with the type of driving or milage i would do so will be checking that out also.

LandyAndy

garry1974 wrote: »

these figures arent precise just roughly i am checking it at the moment and have done about 180 miles and not down to half a tank yet. most of the journeys are only a few miles at a time as its only a 6 mile drive for me to get to work.

Your usage isn't enough to justify a diesel.

I have a Mazda2 1.3 petrol and do mostly short journeys in it. I get about 46mpg locally (recently got 56mpg on a long run). The diesel would have been more economical but the additional purchase cost would leave me taking many years to make the difference back in fuel even at the 12k miles per year I do in it.

harveybobbles

garry1974 wrote: »

how and what would identify a simple diesel engine then? would a HDi not be one of these. i have been reading on here about a diesel particle filter engine which seems to be causing problems with the type of driving or milage i would do so will be checking that out also.

Most modern diesels have this stupid DPF system. Great in theory, but a !!!!!! idea in the real world.

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Some folks have cars which should give 40+ mpg but they just don't around town. Then we see diesels which claim 60+ around town and some near 90 mpg on a run. Of course we don't believe them wholly but we don't want to buy a petrol motor and find it is only giving us 35 mpg when we could have got over 50% more on a diesel, even after being more realistic with the mpg figures quoted.

This DPF system is a potential problem. No-one seems to know just how much hard driving you need to do to clean it out. The AA says 10 minutes over 40 mph http://www.theaa.com/motoring_advice/fuels-and-environment/diesel-particulate-filters.html which seems fine as we can all do that once a week or once a month but there is no guidance. If they said doing 5 to 10 miles a day on sub 30 mph runs would screw it up then fine, we would know. But they do not.

I've potential issues on emissions and tax write offs through a company which means I'd need a sub 110 CO2 motor and that means DPF. Yet most days it will not be run hard or for long. Get a petrol and I pay much more in tax. It is an impossible call to make with the information I have right now but maybe safer is better and avoid DPF.

I make the fuel saving to be around £5 per 100 miles. You might as well call it £6 a gallon (132p a litre) so if the diesel does 60 mpg and the petrol 40 mpg you have 100/60*6=£10 versus 100/40*6=£15. 12,000 miles a year is a difference of 12000/100*5=£600 per year. Then add in any rod tax saving, maybe another £100 to £150 and you get £750 a year.

All rough and ready calculations with a few assumptions but the logic is there. If you want to be "safe" then you throw away at least hundreds of pounds a year and no-one wants to do that. Crank the numbers up to 24k miles and presumably you are running it hot enough and long enough to burn off the dust in the DPF.

I'll keep looking to try and find out what is actually going on but I'd also welcome some real data on mpg obtained from in town driving on petrol.

Hintza

OP on your sort of mileage (and I am assuming lots of short runs) then the diesel has far too many potential downsides (as covered above). But the biggest will be is you will get nowhere near the claimed figures as the car will not be operating at temperature.

Stick with the petrol.