Petrol or Diesel - Big Deal -So what?

motorguy

blacksta wrote: »

Lol

My point remains - gaining 10 or 15 miles per gallon is still not a sufficient reason to totally abandon petrol cars. For example my focus cost 5k to get, an equivalent in diesel would have required at least a minimum of 3k more - hence i would have drive 25k miles over 4 years to recoup the extra i paid on diesel car - Is that not what we class as a false economy

Sorry, but you're deluding yourself if you think a diesel variant of a focus commands £3K more.

Tell me the spec, miles and year, no of doors of yours and i'll have a look?

Hammyman

blacksta wrote: »

Lol

My point remains - gaining 10 or 15 miles per gallon is still not a sufficient reason to totally abandon petrol cars. For example my focus cost 5k to get, an equivalent in diesel would have required at least a minimum of 3k more

No it wouldn't. When I went to buy my Mondeo, it was 3 years old and £6k. Next to it was exactly the same year and within a few thousand miles petrol version. It was £5k.

So no, you wouldn't pay £8k for the diesel version, you'd pay around £6k.

So as you'd already made your mind up. Other than for trolling, why did you bother asking the question.

Biglad_3

macman wrote: »

But the petrol model being £1K less is completely irrelevant if it's worth £1K more when it comes to resale time-we are discussing running costs, not capital outlay.

Well if you buy the car outright, the 1k becomes a factor if you finance the vehicle, then it becomes a running cost. Beside this when trading the vehicle in you will find that the dealers trade in price between the petrol/diesel will be closer than you think, the '1k' will be on his forecourt price, therefore his profit.

motorguy

Biglad wrote: »

Well if you buy the car outright, the 1k becomes a factor if you finance the vehicle, then it becomes a running cost. Beside this when trading the vehicle in you will find that the dealers trade in price between the petrol/diesel will be closer than you think, the '1k' will be on his forecourt price, therefore his profit.

Firstly, if you finance the car then still at the end of the finance period you're left with a car thats worth more than its petrol equivalent.

Also, there will always be a significant price differential between a petrol and diesel car until it gets down being worth a few hundred pounds. Any dealer who doesnt value a diesel variant at more than a petrol one simply wont get the deal.

motorguy

pgilc1 wrote: »

Sorry, but you're deluding yourself if you think a diesel variant of a focus commands £3K more.

Tell me the spec, miles and year, no of doors of yours and i'll have a look?

Had a look around. You have an 08 Focus Zetec 1.6 Automatic.

I stand corrected. If you specifically wanted an Auto, then an Auto diesel would probably have cost you £3K more. The auto seems to only come with the 2.0 TDCI + Powershift box.

Had you not went for an Auto the difference would have been around £1200-£1500.

jase1

macman wrote: »

But the petrol model being £1K less is completely irrelevant if it's worth £1K more when it comes to resale time-we are discussing running costs, not capital outlay.

Nonsense.

We're talking about used cars here*. You buy at 4 years old, and keep the car for another 4 years. At 8 years old, all bets are off. The car may not even last that long. This is a completely bogus argument as an older car's value is a function of its condition.

You're taking a punt that the car will be worth £1000 more when reselling, but this needs to be offset against the punt that the car won't need an expensive repair -- and a more complex design has more expensive parts which may need replacing.

This isn't to say that you won't make that £1000 back again, but your argument is a gross oversimplification.

In any case, I have explained before that depreciation is not linear. Most cars have an average lifespan of more or less the same amount -- about 13 years or so. At the end of those 13 years, the car will be worth scrap value regardless of its initial depreciation. Buying a car with low *initial* depreciation simply means that the final depreciation is higher. The older the car gets, the worse depreciation becomes for the "low" depreciating model. The "high" depreciator has lost most of the value it's ever going to lose, so won't lose any more.

Take the extreme case. A six year old Korean car is worth about 15% of its new value, whereas a six year old VW is worth perhaps 30%. If you buy at six years old, you stand to lose more with the VW simply because it has further to fall (and it will fall to zero about six or seven years later just as surely as the Korean will).

Going back to the petrol vs diesel debate, yes diesels are more economical than petrols, but the difference is not as great as some suggest. Yes, if you run a 1.6TDCI at 55mph on the motorway all day it will achieve 65-70mpg. But the inconvenient truth for the diesel fans out there is that if you run a 1.6 petrol in the same conditions, it will achieve 55mpg, and the petrol costs at least 4% less, so this is an effective 57mpg. All this talk of 70mpg vs 35mpg is hogwash -- you must compare like for like.

A diesel will save some money. But anyone who replaces a petrol with a diesel without fully calculating out the relative costs is a fool, and anyone who blindly says that "diesel=good, petrol=bad" is an even bigger fool.

And that's before we start talking about the relative potential costs of petrol engine wear vs injector failure, DMFs, DPFs, turbos and intercoolers on some engine designs etc etc.

OP, keep your petrol car until it breaks. I would say this to anyone who owns a viable car with broadly reasonable fuel consumption, whatever it may be. That's how you save money, not !!!!ing about replacing cars because you might save on fuel.

(* and if we are talking about new cars, may I respectfully suggest that this is where you're going wrong. Buying new and replacing every three years is the single most un-MSE thing anyone can do).

missile

pgilc1 wrote: »

Had a look around. You have an 08 Focus Zetec 1.6 Automatic.
.......

You would have to pay me to drive one of those :eek:

eamon

Diesel or petrol. I would have thought that it boils down to the numbers. I have a Mondeo 1.8lx petrol, its not particulary fuel efficient but I drive less than 7k per annum. Thus the fuel efficiency is less of an issue for me. On the other hand if my self funded mileage was in excess of 12-15k pa then I would be doing the number crunching and probably changing to diesel.

Biglad_3

pgilc1 wrote: »

Firstly, if you finance the car then still at the end of the finance period you're left with a car thats worth more than its petrol equivalent.

Also, there will always be a significant price differential between a petrol and diesel car until it gets down being worth a few hundred pounds. Any dealer who doesnt value a diesel variant at more than a petrol one simply wont get the deal.

Secondly, do you not understand if you finance a car costing an extra 1k then that is going to cost you more in interest? So I would call that an extra running cost that no diesel owner factors in ?

Also, the price differential between what a dealer offers on a trade in with a similar petrol/diesel model is a LOT smaller than the difference between the models when he retails them.......so do you understand, HE is taking the nice diesel/petrol profit difference

thegirlintheattic

OP do you have to drive an auto? They are much more expensive to buy to start with.