Which will be cheaper?

applebottomjeans

I have a Toyota Aygo - tiny 1 litre petrol engine and a
Seat Alhambra - 7 seater, 2l diesel engine with 6 gears.

My husband travels about 25 miles on the motorway to work.
I travel 2 miles round town to work.

Which one of us should drive which car to keep fuel cost as low as possible?! Very confused with all the MPG figures on the sites & hope someone can help. Please

scheming_gypsy

Fill each up.

Husband takes the Seat to work and you take the Aygo to work.
After a week, fill up again and swap cars. Then fill up again after that week, whichever has the cheapest top up worked out better for you.


Although the 6 gears in the Seat are better suited to motorway cruising.

applebottomjeans

Thanks, could be a plan!

Hintza

Although I suspect it won't work on figures. You do need to think of your husbands sanity over a 50 mile round trip and from that point of view I would keep the Aygo for the short runs.

Strider590

This is a no brainer really.......

But I ask why you have a car to drive just 2 miles? are you disabled?
The damage and costs of doing such small mileage, will really start to rack up on either vehicle.

First the battery will die, then the exhaust will rot from the inside out, increased engine wear, increased fuel consumption, it'll be running rich all the time and coking up the engine, condensation will get into the oil and turn it to mayonnaise (it's slighty more complicated than that), the oil channels in the head will get bunged up with this stuff (can cause headgasket failure) and I can think of 100 other potential problems.

For 2 miles it's probably cheaper to get a Taxi.....

applebottomjeans

Walking to work is not at all feasible! Not worried about wear and tear on car as have been makign this journey for 10 years with no adverse effects.

Husband doesn't care what he drives - wants it to be as cheap as possible too. Think the calculation won't work will it as diesel is more expensive than petrol.

scheming_gypsy

Doesn't really matter to be honest as you'll be doing the same amount of miles and topping up both cars anyway so it'll tell you how much it'll cost per week in fuel to do each trip in each car

forgotmyname

Do you need a 7 seater? If not sell it and buy another aygo.

Unless the aygo was faulty there is no way the seat will beat it on fuel consumption on any type of journey.

applebottomjeans

Is that definately right though? The Seat will not be cheaper even in 6th gear on the motorway?

The Aygo makes so much noise, sounds like the revs are huge whilst the Seat is really quiet.

Not saying you're wrong, just surprised. Thanks

daveyjp

Strider590 wrote: »

This is a no brainer really.......

But I ask why you have a car to drive just 2 miles? are you disabled?
The damage and costs of doing such small mileage, will really start to rack up on either vehicle.

First the battery will die, then the exhaust will rot from the inside out, increased engine wear, increased fuel consumption, it'll be running rich all the time and coking up the engine, condensation will get into the oil and turn it to mayonnaise (it's slighty more complicated than that), the oil channels in the head will get bunged up with this stuff (can cause headgasket failure) and I can think of 100 other potential problems.

For 2 miles it's probably cheaper to get a Taxi.....

Our Aygo is almost 5 years old and has done 15,000 miles - it does a couple of miles twice a day and local runs at the weekend.

Battery is fine, exhaust is fine, it doesn't run rich 'all the time' as it warms up very quickly - warm air through vents within half a mile, no mayo and it returns 45mpg on short trips, 60+ mpg if you stick to 50-60mpg.

A Seat Alhambra won't return 45mpg over 2 miles (my 2.0TDi Audi used to do mid 30s on a 6 mile congested commute) and short running in diesels can cause problems with blocked EGR valves etc. It will get better mpg on the motorway.

So Aygo for short trips, Alhambra for longer ones.

MX5huggy

If I was your husband in this experiment the week I had the Aygo I would rev the nuts off it all week, not using 5th ect. Then drive like a saint in the Seat.