Hybrid vs diesel vs petrol

motorguy

Your "problem" is you're running a big heavy SUV vehicle on short runs.

You're going to be up against the following if you change it to a new car :-

• The depreciation you will suffer selling your own car after a year - the steepest part of the depreciation curve
• The depreciation you will suffer on the next car over the next year

Running costs is not just about fuel. Its about depreciation, servicing, maintenance and road tax too, so changing your car to "save" money isnt necessarily a good idea.

You could change your car now to get an extra 15mpg but it could cost your £10,000 to do so in depreciation on your own car and upcoming depreciation on your new car, plus, as a small aside, road tax will cost more too.

To give a sense of perspective, the difference in getting 35mpg and 55mpg is approx £700 a year.

How much are you going to have to spend to "save" £700 a year?

Personally, i'd drive on at it until you are due to change the car then look more closely at your needs then. Knee jerking into a change now IMHO is a very expensive solution....

MrBrindle

motorguy wrote: »

Your "problem" is you're running a big heavy SUV vehicle on short runs.

You're going to be up against the following if you change it to a new car :-

• The depreciation you will suffer selling your own car after a year - the steepest part of the depreciation curve
• The depreciation you will suffer on the next car over the next year

Running costs is not just about fuel. Its about depreciation, servicing, maintenance and road tax too, so changing your car to "save" money isnt necessarily a good idea.

You could change your car now to get an extra 15mpg but it could cost your £10,000 to do so in depreciation on your own car and upcoming depreciation on your new car, plus, as a small aside, road tax will cost more too.

To give a sense of perspective, the difference in getting 35mpg and 55mpg is approx £700 a year.

How much are you going to have to spend to "save" £700 a year?

Personally, i'd drive on at it until you are due to change the car then look more closely at your needs then. Knee jerking into a change now IMHO is a very expensive solution....

Yeah that's all true, good advice, and something we have thought about. We are currently looking at spending £3-4k on top of part exchanging the car for something more efficient.

We bought the car for £8000 around 20 months ago, and recently had it valued for £5000-£5500 part exing it. So obviously looking at a £3k loss straight away. We've looked at a few 2nd hand kia cee'd and dacia logan estates which are around the 8k mark, cheaper to tax and running at better mpg. Does that sound reasonable?

Based on your logic of saving, I've just done a rough calculation and it will probably take 5 years to make back the money in fuel savings based on changing cars to something more efficient. Food for thought.

GunJack

Something else to consider...

Buy your next car for under £1000, then depreciation doesn't even come into the equation....you could pick up a diesel suitable for your needs for that much easily, keep it for 3 years and rinse & repeat..

diesel economy and no depreciation loss...check out the Bangernomics thread for more info

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3803929/your-bangernomics-successes

it's a long thread, start around page 64 for last couple of years of experience

Arklight

MrBrindle wrote: »

Fair enough. We bought the Hyundai from a small garage and he advised against buying petrol at the time because they lose value! Needles to say we feel a bit caught out now.

What would be the next best thing after a hybrid? We're looking for a reasonably sized car. An estate possibly. The Dacia Logans have caught my eye, the 0.9L petrol engine looks like a decent option. I'm presuming something like that would be much cheaper to run than a heavy 1.7 diesel SUV?

Unless you are only doing stop start city driving I'm not very convinced by hybrid vehicles, especially if you are buying them well used.

If you want to get something SUV like, I just bought a 1.6 petrol Suzuki SX4 Cross and I absolutely love it. It's a really nice drive without the deadness of steering Hyundais have, does everything the Qashqais we were looking at do, but for less momey, and actually returns the stated 50 mpg mileage. A bit more on motorway runs.

It has a decent amount of poke too. I've had no trouble keeping up with traffic and even being heavy on the throttle it's not dropped below 49 mpg.

MrBrindle

Arklight wrote: »

Unless you are only doing stop start city driving I'm not very convinced by hybrid vehicles, especially if you are buying them well used.

If you want to get something SUV like, I just bought a 1.6 petrol Suzuki SX4 Cross and I absolutely love it. It's a really nice drive without the deadness of steering Hyundais have, does everything the Qashqais we were looking at do, but for less momey, and actually returns the stated 50 mpg mileage. A bit more on motorway runs.

It has a decent amount of poke too. I've had no trouble keeping up with traffic and even being heavy on the throttle it's not dropped below 49 mpg.

Yeah I'm not sold on them either, but the salesman in Toyota was pretty convincing, and lots of websites are pretty pro-hybrid now regarding mpg performance.

Surprised that Suzuki returns 50mpg with a 1.6 petrol engine! What sort of driving do you do?

Doesn't have to be an SUV, like mentioned above, I've been looking at estates as well, as you get great value for boot and interior space. Also my own car is a Peugeot 207sw, which is nearly 10 years old and does 55-50mpg.

agrinnall

hollie.weimeraner wrote: »

If you look at Fords then please check out Facebook Ford EcoBoost Nightmare and draw your own conclusions.

Bear in mind that there are some very shouty people moaning about a very small number of engines with Ecoboost problems, and many more silently getting in with running their cars with absolutely no problems at all (I'm one of the latter, and I don't personally know any other Ecoboost owner who has any complaint about their engine).

alan_d

davetrousers wrote: »

If I am reading this right, you want to by something that you can't afford in order to save money.

Is that correct?

This.
Also the age and type of diesel are factors.
My old Euro 3 diesel (2004) returned waaaay better MPG than my Euro 4 (2008) version of the same engine. The extra emissions rubbish reduces the MPG, and adds a whole load more stuff to go wrong. I suspect Euro 5 is worse still, but i'm not going to find out.
Also, work out how many miles you'd need to do to break even over the cost of changing car, then factor in the faster depreciation of the newer car.
I'll bet it'll take years, if at all.
If saving money is your main object, sell it and buy something with a GOOD Euro 3 diesel for about £1000, or a petrol for it's simplicity - and accept although it drinks more you saved a fortune buying it so it doesn't matter.

eamon

Another thing to add to the mix is the roads that your partner uses. Most of my driving is on 30mph urban routes and littered with speed cameras. People, me included have learned that 3rd gear is your friend.Traffic is rarely quiet, rush hour is now three hours and the same in the afternoon. Most days its rare to get into 4th gear never mind 5th. Fuel economy is bound to suffer.

silverwhistle

If it weren't for the dogs I'd suggest a S/H electric car and hire a big estate if you want to do a long summer road trip. Your average daily mileage would easily be within the range of a second hand Leaf, for example. Go to one of the dedicated EV online forums to get a better idea of what is available.


Changing cars doesn't make sense, as has been pointed out, and it might be cheaper for you to go on an economical driving course! That would help even when your economic situation improves. Are there any of the journeys for which you could substitute a different mode of transport? Walking, cycling? I'm old enough to remember when there wasn't such a thing as the 'school run'!

ChrisK....._3

I have a Peugeot 3008 2.0 diesel Hybrid
They claim averages 70 mpg even on urban which is the reason I bought it
I'm lucky to get 48 mpg on average and often wonder what qualifies as mis representation