Small -Economical Diesel

Lum

Not all modern second hand cars, but you are looking for a small diesel car and modern diesels just aren't designed for the kind of use to which small cars are put.

I'd be a lot more comfortable buying, say, a 10 year old diesel Mondeo with 300,000 miles on the clock and a bonnet full of stonechips suggesting a lifetime on the motorway, but if you bought a car like that you'd likely see worse MPG than your Rover.

I know a lot of people, me included, like to joke about Rovers being unreliable but really that's just the K-series petrol engine.

If you were to spend a bit more money and get a somewhat newer diesel, that might be a good buy in that it might last a lot longer, but then you have to consider that for the sake of £150 a year in tax and a bit of a saving in fuel, you will be spending an awful lot in the initial purchase that may well take 5 years to recover. In this situation I'd say that if you were looking to upgrade because you want some modern luxuries then fine but if you were looking to upgrade purely to save money, stick with the Rover.

Lindopski

No it pretty much is to save a bit of money.
I do 60 miles a day to work so was hoping to cut down on fuel a bit with the added bonus of cheaper insurance and tax - with these great MPG's I see advertised now on these little diesels - by the sound of things its a pack of lies though and my old 2 litre wreck is still a better option.
I find that bizarre but there are plenty of people saying the same thing here and elsewhere.

citykid5

you could easily be saveing on fuel tax and insurance,and not buying an old dog for your 2k budget. i drive a seat arosa 1.4tdi.on a regular weekly basis i get 400miles from £40 of diesel,from mixed use driving.insurance costs me £190ish road tax £30.on my longer trips to france camping i have got 80mpg brim to brim avoiding toll roads.bullet proof vw engineering too.and as fuel prices rise so does the saleabilty/price of the car

Obukit

Convert the Rover to run on veg oil, it needs twin tanking but Bosch pump so should otherwise be ideal. That way you will save far more than your £215 a year car tax, even just buying oil from the supermarket, plus save your £2000.

The reason why 1990's diesels are good is because they have mechanical, or basic computer, control, thus with regular servicing will happily go on for 500k miles, if the car around it doesn't rust by then. Too early to tell whether common rail will be as long lasting but they certainly need a lot more spent on them to keep them going.

worried_jim

Obukit wrote: »

Convert the Rover to run on veg oil, it needs twin tanking but Bosch pump so should otherwise be ideal. That way you will save far more than your £215 a year car tax, even just buying oil from the supermarket, plus save your £2000.

The reason why 1990's diesels are good is because they have mechanical, or basic computer, control, thus with regular servicing will happily go on for 500k miles, if the car around it doesn't rust by then. Too early to tell whether common rail will be as long lasting but they certainly need a lot more spent on them to keep them going.

If it has a Bosch fuel pump it won't need twin tanking- you can pour it in and off you go. I believe the engine used may be a Peugeot block and is quite likely that it will come with a Bosch pump as standard, but make sure before you try it. If it is a Lucas pump then straight oil will kill it and it will need twin tanking.

Check here-
http://www.biomotors.co.uk/CarsVansN.html#Rover
Find your model, if it states "1 tank kit" then you are good to go now, if it is "twin tank" then you will need to do some mods.

Lum

Ok with a longer distance commute, you might see closer to the advertised MPG figures and thus get your money back a fair bit sooner, but it's risky if something were to go wrong with the car.

My commute is only 15 miles each way but it's pretty much entirely motorway, with less than a mile of non-motorway. My works 2010 Mondeo "econetic" gets 41MPG on average, despite claiming much higher figures.

The problem with looking for a small diesel though, you may well be using it for a long commute which will be good, but you have no way of knowing if the previous owner(s) all but killed it with nothing but school runs. A larger diesel is a safer buy but then you're back in 40-ish MPG territory.

cyclonebri1

I have to refute the negativety about fuel claims for lower annual mileage diesels, although with a 60miles per day comute you are well into the acepted "sensible" zone for a diesel.

I'm not pushing Renault it's just that they are the only diesels that we have owned as a family and feel strongly about only commenting from experience not hearsay or read information.

We bought a 53plte clio diesel as an ex demo car with only 198 miles on the clock, ie the newest car we have ever owned. It did 63 mpg on it's 1st tank and never dropped below inspite of a daily comute of only 12 miles per day and clocking about 8k miles per year and being a shopping/family taxi car.

We replaced it as the grandkids came along and needed a 4dr. The diesel megane she complains about, only averages about 50mpg. But it's sometimes 45 but often approaching 70mpg.

We have a couple of others, again Renaults. All are equally frugal, only noticeable downside being thirsty on cold winter start ups, but then a gain what isn't.

It also bugs me when people say don't go diesel unless you do 20k per annum. Well I find the servicing costs similar, and if you buy the darn thing at the right price in the 1st place there's little difference. Plus I think with the differencial between diesel and petrol costs ever widening, there might just be a surplus or drop in price of 2nd hand diesel cars, although smaller ones will always be disproportionately more expensive.;)

Lum

The 20K per annum thing is a rule of thumb and in principle I'd agree with you about it being a bit misleading. If that 12 mile commute of yours is mostly motorway or dual carriageway then the car will be fine.

However if you 12 mile commute was stop/start then whoever owns your old Clio now is probably regretting their purchase and cursing your name. This could be someone just like the OP for all we know.

This is not your problem mind, you got to own a nice new car (hopefully at a decent purchase price due to it being ex demo) and punted it on before anything went wrong with it, which is a very sensible way of doing things once you've decided you want to own a car from new.

cyclonebri1

Lum wrote: »

The 20K per annum thing is a rule of thumb and in principle I'd agree with you about it being a bit misleading. If that 12 mile commute of yours is mostly motorway or dual carriageway then the car will be fine.

However if you 12 mile commute was stop/start then whoever owns your old Clio now is probably regretting their purchase and cursing your name. This could be someone just like the OP for all we know.

This is not your problem mind, you got to own a nice new car (hopefully at a decent purchase price due to it being ex demo) and punted it on before anything went wrong with it, which is a very sensible way of doing things once you've decided you want to own a car from new.

It was an unbelievable buy, 6 months old, full electrics pack and 5k off the 12k new price, we kept looking for the catch but there wasn't 1 that we found.

But it's not just a diesel thing. I was the "resident mechanic" for all our friends and family over the years. My hobby and covered a few costs
A good mate bought a VX Astra gte 8v. It was 5 years old and had done 16000 miles. It was an old mans car, strange choice but it was his.
I don't think it had hardly been out of the village, just shopping, ferrying kids about etc. I was outwardly mint.
But he brought it to me a week later, "the things using more oil than petrol and smokes like popeye" were his words.
Anyway, no compression to speak of, and a strip down revealed all rings either seized or broken, and valve seals totally gummed.
It was a cheap fix to be honest, no bore damage, (very luckily), just rings and decoke set, but that above any other car stuck in my mind as to how cold running can affect both petrol and diesel engines,

Lindopski

Every man and his dog has been putting me off small diesels to be honest, the man on the forum and the man in the street all say the same pretty much.
I'm thinking about keeping the Rover now to be honest it needs a cambelt asap and lots of tidying but other than that its fairly bulletproof.
The amount of negativity I have heard about small diesels has put me off for life to be honest.
It sounds as though anything below 1.9 is a total dog, no matter how new.