New car - diesel or petrol?

edde

Goudy wrote: »

Once out of warranty, there are plenty of specialist that'll look after it a lot more cheaply than the dealer, even specialists that'll refurbish clapped out hybrid batteries for a couple of hundred quid.

I wouldn't be too tempted by a diesel these days, only the latest Euro spec cars will be allowed in London next year (other cities will follow) and it'll be soon out of date when they move the target on to the next spec, you'll soon end up with something that is a liability and has little resale value as everyone now "knows" diesels are the work of the devil.

The emission control devices are perhaps their downfall, they over complicate the engine and aren't really reliable or have decent service life, they are also quite expensive when they go wrong.
Even if a DPF has chance to regenerate properly, it still burns the soot into ash and the ash eventually fills the filter.

They can be more expensive to service and are certainly more expensive to repair, nearly all are fitted with dual mass flywheels (not the most reliable things in the world) and that can add an extra couple of hundred to the price of a clutch.

For economy, there's just no need for them any more, even the good old London Taxi's are changing to petrol hybrids.

Just a few points ok battery's can be replaced cheap but you need to compare with prices to fix normal petrol or diesels Imo.

Diesels maybe banned from cities but by the time they do you'll have sold and changed cars. Diesel regardless of there reputation will be popular as they cost less to run than the petrol models so ok you may loose city drivers but not everyone lives in big cities or needs to drive into them.

As for reliability of emmisions systems they are often very reliable if driven as they should. Regards them blocking up in the end that's not true there's loads of very high milage diesel with original dpf.

Taxis are hybrid as they need to to drive round in cities plus the economics are different than private cars they do much higher milage per year so higher list price etc is easier to justify.

TheMoonandBack wrote: »

I drive a 1.4 tsi Skoda Octavia on a 75 mile round trip commute. It gets 43mpg real world.
Previously I had a 1.9 tdi Octavia which did 49mpg but that was outweighed by dual mass flywheel, turbo and egr failures.

Comparing a old 1.9 diesel to a newer petrol isn't really fair.