Is 2011 the peak year for diesels?

avantra

With car manufactures pushing development to smaller turbo charged petrols units and more computer power to reduce emissions/consumption are we looking at the beginning of the end to diesels (at list at the consumer market and at list for smaller cars)?

Is diesel technology per unit of consumption and emission is more expensive than petrol?

Lum

IMO, the peak year for diesels was probably late 90s or early 2000s when they were still simple reliable lumps of iron that gave decent economy and would easily live for half a million miles without loads of fiddly expensive bits to go wrong.

I wouldn't buy a 2011 diesel car, but I'd happily have another 1994 Passat with the 1.9 umwelt block.

avantra

Lum wrote: »

IMO, the peak year for diesels was probably late 90s or early 2000s when they were still simple reliable lumps of iron that gave decent economy and would easily live for half a million miles without loads of fiddly expensive bits to go wrong.

I wouldn't buy a 2011 diesel car, but I'd happily have another 1994 Passat with the 1.9 umwelt block.

Sorry, when I say peak I meant the UK peak of sales.

newfoundglory

Probably - as there wouldn't seem to be a need for most people to buy a small diesel car any more. The small turbo charged petrols will deliver more power, less CO2 yet also fall into cheaper road tax groups too in most cases compared to a diesel.

The extra cost of buying a diesel car, plus the unreliability of a modern diesel (e.g. failures of DMF and DPF) don't seem to make it financially worth it.

Then again, the reliability of the turbocharger on these petrol cars in the long-term has yet to be determined.

Lum

Sales figures are going to be determined by the "OMG! must get a diesel, save money on fuel" mentality which will likely take a few more years to shift and result in a lot of angry customers wondering why their 3 year old school run Fiesta is broken already.

UncleZen

newfoundglory wrote: »

Probably - as there wouldn't seem to be a need for most people to buy a small diesel car any more. The small turbo charged petrols will deliver more power, less CO2 yet also fall into cheaper road tax groups too in most cases compared to a diesel.

I struggle to find a small engine turbo charged petrol that delivers the same economy & power & emissions than a similar turbo charged diesel.

I'd like you to backup that statement with evidence, if you dont mind perferably on the same model of car.

newfoundglory

Look here:

http://media.ford.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=35582

New 1.0-litre EcoBoost is Ford’s smallest petrol engine. The turbocharged, direct injection engine delivers the combinations of 125PS with 114g/km CO2 and 100PS with 109g/km CO2 in the Ford Focus

114g/km = £30 per year
109g/km = £20 per year

Obukit

I think we've probably reached a plateau - too many people who live in cities are buying diesels and never letting the engine stretch it's legs. But they will always be popular as fuel prices rise, especially as diesels will run on biofuels more easily (as soon as they perfect commercial algae oil production, this will be a big plus).

I hope to keep my 1996 1.9 VW lump on the road for as long as possible - they don't make them like it any more

vikingaero

The latest turbocharged small capacity petrols have adequate fuel consumption on paper, but really poor fuel consumption in the real world.

newfoundglory

Any evidence of this poor economy, please?

I wouldn't have imagined fuel economy would be a big factor - because a diesel is usually a few thousand £ more to buy, costs more to insure (generally speaking) and you'd have to be able to make all that back in fuel savings.

If you are doing enough miles to justify a diesel, surely you wouldn't be buying a small turbocharged petrol car in the first place?

Biglad_3

UncleZen wrote: »

I struggle to find a small engine turbo charged petrol that delivers the same economy & power & emissions than a similar turbo charged diesel.

I'd like you to backup that statement with evidence, if you dont mind perferably on the same model of car.

Well Audi is now putting 'cylinder on demand' technology into it small petrol engines as well as the larger cars.

http://www.whatcar.com/car-news/audi-a1-sportback-review/260946

With diesel being 8p a litre more expensive it's getting seriously hard to work out what is better these days.