How do people afford to run petrol cars? (or how nasty are courtesy cars lol)

Silent_Bob_3

If you want a powerful sports car - petrol is the way to go for more choice of cars. If you are then concerned about MPg and running costs a powerful sports car is not for you.

I drive a 200 BHP FTO and i get about 27 mpg / 330 miles a tank at about £45. I'm not bothered by the cost as its a great car to drive and great looking even though its 11 years old.

nearlyrich

Sixth, yes diesels have more torque at low speed than petrol but they are more noisy and less refined, even the latest tdci's. If anyone says they cant tell the difference between petrol and diesel they have obviously never driven a petrol car! Petrol’s are also more pleasant to drive

I have to disagree with this sweeping statement, I drive a petrol car, Audi A3 1.8 Sport, it is the noisiest thing on the road, so noisy I thought it had a fault when I first got it. It has great acceleration and can get me out of tricky situations being nippy and manoeverable.

I have to swap it in July, it's a company car and the lease is up so I have been looking around for the replacement and I have had 3 to 5 day test drives in my shortlisted cars.

I have just ordered a Seat, the 2.0 Altea DSG, all the extras which Audi and BMW charge a fortune for are included and the extras I wanted, Bluetooth pack and parking sensors cost about £150 each. Keeping the cost low makes my tax liability cheaper and the emmissions are 50 points below my currrent Audi.

It has at least as good acceleration as the Audi, it is quiet even on start up and it is really easy to drive, like driving an armchair. Can't wait for July:j

paulie558

I drive a Peugeot 406 1.9 LXDT(1997)
It had 106k on the clock when we bought it,and now 4 years and 100000 miles later,it's time to trade it in(probably for next to nowt).(Before that,a 306 1.9 td also with no problems and similar milege.)
A shame really,because apart from a leaking radiator and the usual wear and tear items it has had naff all go wrong with it.
Any petrol car I have ever driven has been a catalog of problems.
I'm now looking for a Skoda Octavia Elegance with the 110bhp 1.9 td engine.
Milege is not a problem.I would never buy a petrol car again.

ArsenalFC

Modern day diesel last very long indeed. If one do high mileage then the wise option is to have a diesel car. I dont have a diesel because they dont have an engine for 2door coupe, I also drive in automatic. It doesn't bother me a great deal as I dont use my 1.8i bmw for travelling to work, so I do very low mileage on it, about 3k miles per year.

With a new job coming, I'll be doing about 10k miles per year. I'll be looking to buy another car, nissan micra 1.0i or 1.3i for obvious reasons, company car (have been given a budget of £2k by my new employer). I wont be selling the bmw because I really like the car and will use it on my days off.

The petrol and diesel thing is similar to manual and automatic car, once you own an automatic you wont want to get back to a manual again. Same for diesel.

Luis, my apology. For some reason I thought you are a male, nevermind! 206cc is absolutely fine for you. If you think about getting a 2 seater - mx5, depending on your budget, u really should consider looking an the bmw M roadster, Z3 or as u've already consider the merc SL series. These cars are so, so much classier than the mx5 in terms of looks, performance, prestige and statue. I would love to own a merc SL350 - 500 sometime in the next 5years.

bunking_off

Well for all the logical reasons around running costs and even driving sensations (if you're not an enthusiastic driver), a diesel may well be the way forward. This probably applies whatever class of vehicle, with the possible exception of the smallest car (Ka etc) segment. Indeed, there are highly refined 6-cylinder diesels out there which could fool you into believing you're not driving anything other than petrol...the Jaguar 2.7 as used in the S-Type is a good example.

However, for me choice of car is with the heart as well as the brain. Diesels may be refined when you're in them.....they're certainly not to anyone stood outside them. The din of a diesel - even a Jaguar, M-B or BMW - is something I just couldn't live with....unless I needed a tractor. When my neighbours go out in a morning, it isn't immediately obvious whether it's the Vauxhall Vectra diesel on one side, or Ford Transit van on the other. The thought of replacing my Jag with one that made that din, to save a few quid in petrol, makes my stomach churn.

carl310166

My last car was an Audi A3 Quattro which used to do approx 28mpg.

I now drive a VW Golf GT TDI 130 and have never looked back!

This car will do 54mpg @ 80-85mph....up to 650 miles per tank on a run,but over 500 every time at least.

2000rpm=70mph in 6th,so an excellent motorway car,especially with cruise control.

Plus whoever does 0-60 runs anyway? i think the 50-70 in top is much more important for every day driving e.g motorway.

Diesels are superb,they can do mega mileages if looked after,put it this way,i would not consider a petrol car with 100k plus on the clock,but i would buy a diesel with the same,lower revs and more lubricant in the fuel=less wear.

The price of diesel would have to increase dramatically for me to be worse off.

I also prefer driving a diesel,you don't have to rev them much to get the performance (if you want it) they are very easy to drive,lots of torque.

There is an old saying,which goes something like?

"You buy on horse power but drive on Torque"

Cheap Tax!

Dave_G_5

I must be the one that doesn't fit the 'norm' because I have tried diesels and auto's but gone back to a petrol manual!!

Had a Citroen ZX TD Volcane which was reasonably nippy and economical and only cost me £35 to service, but I got bored so I bought a BMW 325 TDS SE Auto but this used to average 33mpg which I thought was crap for a diesel, especially with the difference in price at the pumps, and the performance was nothing special neither. Then I had a drive of my Dad's Alfa 156 2.4 JTD and just had to have one. I managed to get a Y plate 2001 Sportwagen for £4000 which was a bargain. I also had it tuned to nearly 200bhp!! It was very quick, but still only managed about 39mpg (My Dad's averages 55-60mpg) so after 10k miles I sold it for £4000. I then bought a Honda CRX Delsol SiR, 168bhp from a 1.6 petrol, averages about 33mpg and is brilliant value for money, and I also can't see it depreciating much since it is already 13 years old!! I'm going to convert it to lpg soon, but that is only costing me about £300 and then I will be enjoying paying 36.9p a litre at the pumps!! And I do 300 miles a week commuting to work in it.

Just to answer a couple of lpg questions other people asked. The older types of conversion will lose a little bit of performance, but it isn't really noticable in the modern injection systems. You will also probably lose a couple of mpg, but the price difference soon makes that up.

Altarf

Luis wrote:

My normal journey to work costs about £7. In the ka yesterday, I worked out it cost about £10.

The difference is possibly down to the way you drove the Ka, being used to a larger more powerful car.

In the Ka I used to own, I averaged about 48mpg on the commute to work (a 30 mile journey which is a combination of town and fast country roads), this increased on longer runs up the motorway.

As for Ka's being slow, they may take a while to get there, but you can happily trundle along at 85+ on the motorway.

italiastar

"my car's better than yours"........."no my car's better than yours"........"No No My cars better than yours"

Up until 5 years ago I detested diesels, now I own two. What diffrence does it make, we're all individuals.

ArsenalFC

I dont think this is about someone's car is better than the other person's car. This is about economics, performance and preference.

Dave G - Where how can you get LPG converted for a merely £300? Im dying to know!