diesel really much cheaper than petrol?

vikingaero

15k per year is borderline for a diesel v petrol benefit. Most of our reps manage at least 30k and closer to 40k is the norm. The highest annual mileage in our fleet for a passenger car is about 55k.

Don't forget that in the winter months the price of diesel is higher because supply competes with heating oil. In the summer months there's less of a disparity.

I drive petrol cars at the moment but I much prefer the surge of torque from a diesel as it suits my driving environment better.

bartman

The impression I got when I first started driving diesels about 11 years ago was that the biggest saving in fuel consumption was on short journeys, where the engine was not necessarily reaching its proper operating temperature. The mileage in the diesel didn't seem to drop off so sharply as a petrol engine; the difference on a longer run wasn't so great. Having said that, it may be that now the more modern fuel efficient petrol engines have made up some ground, and that efficiency improvements with diesels have not been as great.

The figures produced by Toasterman are interesting though......

toasterman

Woby_Tide wrote: »

we switched from petrol to diesel a few months back(1.6 to 1.6), <snip> over the 5 years we estimate dthat gives us an extra couple of grand. The petrol MPG was way off on old car, teh diesel MPG is off by a bit but not as much is the main difference

Very interesting. Thanks for that.

Vikingaero is also right that my yearly mileage isn't as big as it could be. I need a car to transport things about, but not necessarily very far. I'm an engineer so I might need to take a load of tools etc 10miles down the road where I'll spent the next 5 hours trying to fix something. Clearly sales reps are doing a lot more miles than me.

Apologies Conor - I wasn't really trying to dispute your figures.. just trying to give figures of petrol/diesel from the same source - even if they both be wrong/average - I was assuming they'd be wrong/average by a similar amount.
If I'm honest, I've never really understood/learnt about torque, bhp, etc.. was just trying to compare like for like given the figures I had - as I've not driven either to feel any difference.

If my figures showed me nothing else, it's that diesel is definitely more efficient.
By a large margin? - maybe, maybe not.. depends on the car.
Either way, on my current mileage it's not really worth me factoring fuel into the purchase of a new car as it doesn't make an awful lot of difference unless I'm buying a 1.4l diesel instead of a 2.5l petrol.

toasterman

Just hijacking my own thread while it has viewers....

My sister is a driving instructor and has a car with quite high mileage for age, but I can guarantee that its hit every service on time, as she's owned it from new.
She's on about selling me her driving school car (after she removes the dual controls) in a few months time, but several people have suggested this might be a bad idea for me to buy - because of the distress it will have been put through by so many poor drivers in such a short space of time (one of which was me, back when she first got it).

It should be cheap because of the higher-than-average mileage, and its a 1.5l diesel which not only has good fuel economy, but also something crazy like £35 a year tax because of low emissions.
It's a 5-door Renault Clio, 04 plate, air con, electric windows, sunroof, with about 120,000 on the clock.

So why shouldn't I buy it?
The fact that it's gone through several clutches shouldn't be an issue if they've been replaced, should it?
Ditto for brakes, etc.

daveyjp

My dad's a driving instructor - he swaps cars every 100,000 miles - about every three years. He has always had Fiestas (20+ years teaching) and has NEVER had a replacment clutch fitted on any he is owned!

I bought one off him, but it was only after a year and 36,000 miles and it was fine until I sold it at 75,000. I saw it twice after I sold it, once at 130,000 and the last time it was in a garage and had 182,000 on the clock.

At 120,000 the engine should have no problems, my main concern would be the interior, especially saggy seats which could cause back ache.