Petrol or Diesel - Big Deal -So what?

motorguy

Have to agree with others here - DPF failure is a great scare story for petrol advocates to put about to suit their arguement. As is turbo failure.

In all my years in or around the motor trade i came across my first DPF failure yesterday, and have it sorted out for £300 - and it was on a car with 180,000 miles on it.

Neither DPF failure or Turbo failure are terminal, and neither should cost more than a fraction of the £1500 the O/P is quoting.

Dave101t

ive had a diesel mondeo for 4 years (new one this year), i always average 48-52mpg, and often reset the gauge to check.

davidjwest

You quote £3,000 more for a diesel, I assume you are talking about new car prices. My diesel cost me £3k second hand, very little premium for such cars once they get to 5 years or so old and it does then make sense if you do enough miles. Why on Earth anyone apart from the rich would want to waste thousands on the depreciation that comes with a new car is beyond me.

I've been driving diesels since 2002 and covered around 120k miles and never had an engine related problem.

By comparison, in the previous 10 years (similar mileage) I had a CHG failure and a couple of cam belts snap on different vehicles, so personally I find diesels are much more reliable than petrol engines.

Hammyman

blacksta wrote: »

I drive a 1.6 auto focus zetec and on the motorway i get an average of 43 Miles to the Gallon. Although i do 138 miles round trip daily - Some posters says i am driving the wrong car. Please tell me why i should shell out an equivalent of almost 3k for the same car in diesel. I have read here that MPGs are a false economy especially on diesel ( How much does it cost to deal with DPFs and turbo's going wrong) A friend's Audi a3 turbo diesel went wrong the other day and cost £1500 to rectify and a year later turbo broke again - who needs that stress. definitely not me :rotfl:

I have a 04 plate Mondeo TDCi. I get an average of 55MPG out of it and as much as 70MPG. I bought it as ex-fleet at 90,000 miles. It is now knocking on the door of 158,000 miles. It is still on the original clutch, DMF, turbo and injectors. Other than being serviced every 12,500 miles, I just put in diesel and drive it. Even at 158k, it doesn't use any oil or water inbetween services and the only "diesel specific" fault it has had over the petrol version of my Mondeo is a split turbo to intercooler pipe which cost me a whole £80 including fitting at my local Ford main dealer

You do the type of journey that is OK for modern diesels with DMF and DPF. Its ones that do mostly short round town ones that kill them.

As regarding your friends car, if the turbo broke again a year later there was something else wrong with the car (probably worn engine with low oil pressure) and the same actual primary cause fault on a turbo charged petrol would have given exactly the same problem and it would have cost the same to fix and the turbo would have failed again 12 months down the line just the same.

grizzly1911

I have been driving diesels since 1995.

Turbo/Non Turbo, Citroen, Vauxhall, Ford and Toyota.

No diesel problems at all on any of them.

The Citroens were particularly high mileage and it wasn't the engines that made me change them.

Are DPFs mandatory on all Diesels these days. I know when I last changed car 2 years ago it only seemed to be super economy diesels.

As other posters have said lower Tax like for like cars.

I wouldn't go back to a normal petrol out of choice. Diesels are much more relaxed to drive, not so much gear changing.

As for reliability I would be more worried about the auto box.

Flearoy

To be honest, even if you bought a diesel and the dual mass flywheel and clutch went, you can get it done for £750. You are spending so much money on fuel that even if this went every year, you'd still be better off buying a diesel model!

My old Mondeo, a 1.8L 51 plate estate, would have done 40mpg with mega-careful driving. At my current mileage of 22,000 per year, that'd use 550gallons or 2497 litres of unleaded. At 132.9 p/L that's £3318. My diesel Mondeo (a 53 plate 115bhp TDCi) is doing 65 mpg (honest). That's just 338 gallons or 1537 litres of diesel. At 135.9 p/litre, that's £2088 a year on fuel, a saving of £1230.

In truth, I was using a Toyota Corolla petrol for the bulk of my driving, which was returning 50mpg. That's 440g/1198 litres/£2654 a year, still some £566 less in fuel.

At your mileage, by a diesel and buy a manual.

macman

The premium for a typical new diesel (5 door hatchback say) is around £1,000-1,250. Nothing like £3,000.
And much of that premium will be recovered in lower depreciation when you come to sell it in 3 or 4 years time.
So the true cost of ownership must take that into account. For someone doing your mileage, it has to be a diesel,, assuming that the fuel price differential remains at only 4 or 5p per litre.
Having said that, the new breed of small capacity turbo petrol engines are giving much improved economy, so in a few years time diesels may have lost some of the advantage.

camaj

Call me a cynic but it looks like the OP is trying to convince diesel owners rather than be convinced himself. I can't think why, perhaps they feel they made a mistake and want reassurance that they haven't

Anyone who uses anecdotal evidence, or believes that anecdotal evidence is evidence is either fooling themselves or trying to fool others. I don't know much about diesel cars but I do know that we can all find a friend that's spent a lot of money repairing their petrol car. That doesn't mean petrol cars are more problematic than diesel cars any more than winning the lottery means it isn't a waste of money.

As the OP says, "So what?". Maybe they want to waste money? If not then it's pretty easy to find the benefits of diesel and work out whether it's a better choice. For most people it's a question of whether or not they drive enough mileage to make the savings outweigh the initial cost, assuming they're not worried about the environmental benefits.

thegirlintheattic

Have a Pug 206 1.4 diesel, never had an engine issue at 90,000 miles.

I get above 60 MPG always and have managed nearly 70 MPG depending on driving style.

I do a lot of mileage on high-speed roads so diesel is perfect for me.

Engines are supposed to last longer too.

motorguy

another thread that didnt go quite how the o/p was expecting...

:rotfl: