Demonising Diesel - should I get rid of my Diesel or stick with it

OneInTheHat

I am very !!!!ed off (to put it mildly) with the government announcements around diesel cars. I have a 2014 diesel Volvo which I love. I live in London and I do drive into central London in the congestion charging zone. My congestion charge will be doubling. Though my council is yet to announce that they will penalise me - I understand Merton council is levying an extra charge on diesel cars for parking permits and I am sure my council won't be far behind them. It seems they will use every method to squeeze more money out of me. I even heard that some areas are going to ban diesels!

I only bought a diesel as at the time, the government incentivised me to do so!

I've seen they may propose some sort of scrappage scheme (the £3500 bandied around) but I'm not a low earner and if it was means tested, it's unlikely to apply to me and my car is worth around £16k!

As mentioned, I'm not a car person and a bit unsure what to do now. Apparently all these announcements are destroying the market for 2nd hand diesels so I'm unlikely to achieve a good price. Do I just suck it up and therefore pay more and hope that they don't decide to ban diesels completely from London? Or should I sell now while I can and accept that at least I will be getting something rather than a lot less should any more decisions to impact diesels be taken?

OneInTheHat

btw I know the congestion charge increase is for older diesel cars (think it's pre 2005) but it won't be long before they make it apply to newer ones - I'm just trying to think ahead

neilmcl

Why not ask yourself whether you actually needed a diesel in the first place. What's your annual mileage and what sort of journeys do you make?

I wouldn't be too concerned just yet, it'll probably take a good 5 years or more before the real pain for diesel car owners starts to hit.

Aylesbury_Duck

Stick with it. I'm a diesel owner and whilst I would probably buy petrol next time (due to my mileage patterns nowadays), I'm not going to start swapping cars on the strength of the latest concerns.

You say you bought a diesel because you were incentivised to do so. You've had the benefit of the lower tax and better economy (perhaps) that were presumably the benefits you saw when you purchased it?

I don't have much sympathy with the argument that the government is to blame for your purchasing decision. I don't know many people that slavishly buy cars of the type the government tells them to, and the knowledge and data of diesel emissions is not exactly new. Harmful emission types and levels from diesels have been known about for years and it was foreseeable that at some point, they would become a problem. We've had the economic benefit from diesel ownership (despite knowing of the environmental effects of diesel consumption), so now it's time to pay some of that back if we want to improve the air quality levels in towns and cities.

Car_54

OneInTheHat wrote: »

I am very !!!!ed off (to put it mildly) with the government announcements around diesel cars.

I only bought a diesel as at the time, the government incentivised me to do so!

Swings and roundabouts?

Strider590

OneInTheHat wrote: »

I am very !!!!ed off (to put it mildly) with the government announcements around diesel cars. I have a 2014 diesel Volvo which I love. I live in London and I do drive into central London in the congestion charging zone. My congestion charge will be doubling. Though my council is yet to announce that they will penalise me - I understand Merton council is levying an extra charge on diesel cars for parking permits and I am sure my council won't be far behind them. It seems they will use every method to squeeze more money out of me. I even heard that some areas are going to ban diesels!

I only bought a diesel as at the time, the government incentivised me to do so!

No they did not, they did this in 2008-2010, when the automotive industry was at the mercy of the recession. It was a bid to rescue an industry that generates billions of £ in VAT every year and to save jobs (which generates billions of £ in income taxes).

The Diesel thing carried on mostly because people put too much faith in car salesmen and gossip. It seems to take a long time for car myths to die out.

In truth for low mileage and/or city driving a diesel is a very costly choice, because it'll struggle to regen it's DPF, which will then block up and cost you £1000+ to fix.

As for your vehicles value, it will have taken a hit, it used to be that a diesel would sell for more than a petrol, but now they're quite even on the used market. If you sell now you can take advantage of the fact that many people still think of diesels the way you did, I would say it'll be another few years before this really starts to hit home and people start to shy away from diesel cars.

OneInTheHat

the VED is done on CO2 and the diesels are more efficient in this. And the government introduced it this way. Previous company I worked at had company cars and all were diesel. It's something that was encouraged for a number of years (whether by car salesman or whoever....).

yes it's more efficient for me etc but my driving patterns may change in the future (depending on my job) so I may have needed to sell it anyway. What I don't want is to be in a position where I can't get a reasonable selling price if they keep introducing more measures to penalise diesel owners.

Aylesbury_Duck

OneInTheHat wrote: »

the VED is done on CO2 and the diesels are more efficient in this. And the government introduced it this way. Previous company I worked at had company cars and all were diesel. It's something that was encouraged for a number of years (whether by car salesman or whoever....).

yes it's more efficient for me etc but my driving patterns may change in the future (depending on my job) so I may have needed to sell it anyway. What I don't want is to be in a position where I can't get a reasonable selling price if they keep introducing more measures to penalise diesel owners.

Sell now then. If selling price is important to you, sell now. No one can say what will definitely happen to used diesel prices, but at best they'll hold up and it's likely they'll fall. More penalising measures will come, they cannot ignore the effects of diesel pollution and miss the opportunity to tax it.

Strider590

OneInTheHat wrote: »

the VED is done on CO2 and the diesels are more efficient in this. And the government introduced it this way.

They obsoletely did during 2008-2010 (ish) and they knew exactly what they were doing.

Nasqueron

Strider590 wrote: »

No they did not, they did this in 2008-2010, when the automotive industry was at the mercy of the recession. It was a bid to rescue an industry that generates billions of £ in VAT every year and to save jobs (which generates billions of £ in income taxes).

The Diesel thing carried on mostly because people put too much faith in car salesmen and gossip. It seems to take a long time for car myths to die out.
.

The government offered incentives for diesel sales by dropping VED in 2001 for low CO2 cars which diesels are - hence the number going from around 3.45m to over 8m - while VED is done on CO2 for environmental reasons without considering NOx for health reasons it seems cheaper for your average motorist because of the higher mpg.

Agreed that the DPF issue and low mileage driving means diesels are being sold to do something they aren't supposed to. I have a 2014 diesel, I'll keep it until I run it into the ground, probably in 7-8 years. I like the £20 VED and I use it on motorways regularly with good runs so hopefully DPF will be ok

OneInTheHat

thanks everyone. I'm a single mum and it's been worrying me so all your posts have been very useful.