Changing car

Flyboy152

fivetide wrote: »

Remember you'll pay a premium for a diesel and the fuel is a lot more as well. You need to be doing a fair amount of miles to offset that with a lot of modern eco type engines. A good petrol should be able to get 40mpg and in reality the 308 diesel is not going to get close to 75mpg.

Depends on the type of driving of course but i'd say 50 to 60 is more like it.

5t.

The difference in price between petrol and diesel is about five pence per litre (or twenty-three pence per gallon), on average. About four per cent more, if the OP is doing ten thousand miles per annum and getting fifty miles to the gallon compared to say thirty-five, he is getting about thirty per cent better fuel efficiency, for four per cent of the cost.

So, 1.6 petrol at 10,000 mile pa at 35mpg £5.90 per gallon by 285 gallons of petrol:

= £1,681 pa

1.6 HDi at £6.13 per gallon at 200 gallons of diesel

=£1,226 pa

A saving of £455pa. So, after about eighteeen months, he has broken even.

Ali_J_2

Flyboy152 wrote: »

The difference in price between petrol and diesel is about five pence per litre (or twenty-three pence per gallon), on average. About four per cent more, if the OP is doing ten thousand miles per annum and getting fifty miles to the gallon compared to say thirty-five, he is getting about thirty per cent better fuel efficiency, for four per cent of the cost.

So, 1.6 petrol at 10,000 mile pa at 35mpg £5.90 per gallon by 285 gallons of petrol:

= £1,681 pa

1.6 HDi at £6.13 per gallon at 200 gallons of diesel

=£1,226 pa

A saving of £455pa. So, after about eighteeen months, he has broken even.

Thanks a lot Flyboy.

So, although a diesel is more expensive, I should be able to save something in fuel. I will also benefit from lower road tax and lower insurance meaning that such a more should, in theory, be positive in the long run.

fivetide

Flyboy152 wrote: »

The difference in price between petrol and diesel is about five pence per litre (or twenty-three pence per gallon), on average. About four per cent more, if the OP is doing ten thousand miles per annum and getting fifty miles to the gallon compared to say thirty-five, he is getting about thirty per cent better fuel efficiency, for four per cent of the cost.

So, 1.6 petrol at 10,000 mile pa at 35mpg £5.90 per gallon by 285 gallons of petrol:

= £1,681 pa

1.6 HDi at £6.13 per gallon at 200 gallons of diesel

=£1,226 pa

A saving of £455pa. So, after about eighteeen months, he has broken even.

Nope.

I have a 318i BMW touring. Average 34mpg

You are using a very high cost 1.6 petrol car there. Plus I specifically said the more eco cars, number of 1.4 units out there now.

You are also going for about 60mpg on the diesel, still potentially high.

I'd say halve the projected savings and you'd be more accurate so after 3 years, say about when you'd swap the car you might have broken even.

You need to do more miles to make the diesel pay.

5t.

rodenal

Does it have to be no older than 3 years old because of a company car allowance?

If not then either trade in or sell the insignia privately and use what's left to buy something older, stodgy and in good nick (petrol or diesel, you decide) and run it till things get better financially for you.

Alternatively take your e/o from selling privately/ to trade and use this to offset the cost of leasing (or pcp) a new, much smaller car for two years. If you can accept driving a small car something along the lines of an i20 or fiesta will come in around £200ish a month and do you at least 40mpg model dependent (take this to the extreme and drive a 107 @ £120ish per month that'll give you 50mpg minimum). You'll be paying the depreciation up front but at least you know exactly what the costs will be

Ali_J_2

rodenal wrote: »

Does it have to be no older than 3 years old because of a company car allowance?

If not then either trade in or sell the insignia privately and use what's left to buy something older, stodgy and in good nick (petrol or diesel, you decide) and run it till things get better financially for you.

Alternatively take your e/o from selling privately/ to trade and use this to offset the cost of leasing (or pcp) a new, much smaller car for two years. If you can accept driving a small car something along the lines of an i20 or fiesta will come in around £200ish a month and do you at least 40mpg model dependent (take this to the extreme and drive a 107 @ £120ish per month that'll give you 50mpg minimum). You'll be paying the depreciation up front but at least you know exactly what the costs will be

Thanks Rodenal.

No, the 3 year thing is just a preference of mine, not company car related.

This was something I considered. If I trade in the Insignia (hopefully get £8,500), the dealer pays off the finance (£4,300) and I use what's left for another car (£4,200), is there anything to stop me putting in little (maybe £2,000/£3,000) money into the deal? Would a dealer be happy with this.

I don't have a problem with the finance payments I have just now, I just can't afford the high fuel costs.

fivetide

Good chat here about real world mpg https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3356496

Remember that the 308 diesel has a sevice interval of 12,000 miles, the petrol 20,000 so worth checking out those costs too.

Not that I expect any thanks....


5t.

rodenal

There's nothing to stop you adding cash to the e/o value from trade in after finance is cleared though I'm not sure that you'll get what you ultimately want from this - looks like the car is worth £7.5-8k trade, but you want to buy a car of similar or slightly lower value, about 6k? You are going to have to keep the replacement an awfully long time or do a massive amount of miles to recover the cost of changing cars so soon.

If you work it all out would it not be better to keep hold of the insignia for another year or so and then change? Ultimately it's up to you but I don't believe you'll save anything - probably lose quite a bit of money unless you buy the next car outright.

If you go back down a finance route even if you end up paying out slightly less every month because the new finance is over a longer period of time the overall cost still wont work out.

Flyboy152

fivetide wrote: »

Nope.

I have a 318i BMW touring. Average 34mpg

You are using a very high cost 1.6 petrol car there. Plus I specifically said the more eco cars, number of 1.4 units out there now.

You are also going for about 60mpg on the diesel, still potentially high.

I'd say halve the projected savings and you'd be more accurate so after 3 years, say about when you'd swap the car you might have broken even.

You need to do more miles to make the diesel pay.

5t.

I think you have missed the point somewhat. First of all, if you see in my post, I used the assumption of fifty miles to the gallon and not sixty. The 308 1.6HDi, as the OP was considering, is listed as achieving sixty miles to the gallon, on the combined cycle, so I adkusted that by an approximate about fifteen per cent reduction, to take account of any variation in the OP's driving. I then compared it to the closest petrol equivalent for that model. If we take into account the OP's current car only achieving twenty-eight miles to the gallon, the potential savings are far greater based on what he is experiencing now.

Flyboy152

fivetide wrote: »

Good chat here about real world mpg https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3356496

Remember that the 308 diesel has a sevice interval of 12,000 miles, the petrol 20,000 so worth checking out those costs too.

Not that I expect any thanks....


5t.

That is a good point, but not necessarily one to reject the idea of owning diesel car. There are many diesels out there that have longer servicing intervals.