SHOULD I BUY A DIESEL

sevenhills

I have owned a 2013 1.7 diesel for the last two years. I do around 4,000 miles per year.

I try to avoid short journies, but most of my journies are short. It did a regen when I was on the motorway around 18 months ago. I took it a little further and I haven't had any problems. I believe gentle acceleration helps create less soot.

mobileron

Gordon Brown said there ok?

AdrianC

mobileron said:

Gordon Brown said there ok?

When he was PM, Euro4 was the required standard, not the current Euro6.

For diesels, the particulate threshold was 5.5x the current one, and the NOx threshold was over 3x.

maxmycardagain

Avoid diesels for short trips and under 30,000 miles a year

why?
the car will be dearer than a petrol version to buy
dearer to service and more often
will cost a fortune to fix if it goes wrong
(recent bills £560/1 injector and £1200 for a DPF)
diesel is dearer than petrol at the pumps 

I had a petrol courtesy car in June for a day, it was nice to drive

and the "70mpg" diesel owners think they get?.......no chance

ontheroad1970

30,000 miles a year minimum, sorry that's nonsense.

BOWFER

maxmycardagain said:

Avoid diesels for short trips and under 30,000 miles a year

why?
the car will be dearer than a petrol version to buy
dearer to service and more often
will cost a fortune to fix if it goes wrong
(recent bills £560/1 injector and £1200 for a DPF)
diesel is dearer than petrol at the pumps 

I had a petrol courtesy car in June for a day, it was nice to drive

and the "70mpg" diesel owners think they get?.......no chance

No excuse for anyone paying £1200 for a DPF
There's multiple ways to clean the one you've got, or even get a whole new one, for a fraction of that.
Buyer error.

BOWFER

mobileron said:

Just sold my 7 year old skoda superb diesel,never had a single problem with it,only 60k on the clock.
I ensured it got a monthly motorway thrash, a couple of bottles of Forte and a carbon clean.
Dealer resold it in 24 hours,yes i bought another one.
Just make sure u drive in the right gears keep the revs high.

This is like the Monty Python Roman sketch.
So apart from having to go for an unnecessary motorway thrash, additional chemicals, a carbon clean and driving in an uneconomical manner, what did you have to do to keep the DPF free from problems?

maxmycardagain

BOWFER said:

maxmycardagain said:

Avoid diesels for short trips and under 30,000 miles a year

why?
the car will be dearer than a petrol version to buy
dearer to service and more often
will cost a fortune to fix if it goes wrong
(recent bills £560/1 injector and £1200 for a DPF)
diesel is dearer than petrol at the pumps 

I had a petrol courtesy car in June for a day, it was nice to drive

and the "70mpg" diesel owners think they get?.......no chance

No excuse for anyone paying £1200 for a DPF
There's multiple ways to clean the one you've got, or even get a whole new one, for a fraction of that.
Buyer error.

well after 1 on an 2014 Audi A6 went tits up, had it cleaned (£325) and it lasted a week, Audi wanted £1200 then a Peugeot 508 1.6 had a DPF fail, dealer only part (new) cost £1200 I disagree If you ring Peugeot and ask for the cost you will soon realise im right (price was fitted inc vat)............and THEN after 6 months 20,000 miles the light came on again

we sold both cars ASAP

our cars are serviced with proper oil/filters and we use branded fuel, we dont do short hops, we could have had the CPF deleted but thats illegal

our cars are our business, we dont have time park up/lose wages nor borrow cars

maxmycardagain

BOWFER said:

mobileron said:

Just sold my 7 year old skoda superb diesel,never had a single problem with it,only 60k on the clock.
I ensured it got a monthly motorway thrash, a couple of bottles of Forte and a carbon clean.
Dealer resold it in 24 hours,yes i bought another one.
Just make sure u drive in the right gears keep the revs high.

This is like the Monty Python Roman sketch.
So apart from having to go for an unnecessary motorway thrash, additional chemicals, a carbon clean and driving in an uneconomical manner, what did you have to do to keep the DPF free from problems?

BOWFER said:

mobileron said:

Just sold my 7 year old skoda superb diesel,never had a single problem with it,only 60k on the clock.
I ensured it got a monthly motorway thrash, a couple of bottles of Forte and a carbon clean.
Dealer resold it in 24 hours,yes i bought another one.
Just make sure u drive in the right gears keep the revs high.

This is like the Monty Python Roman sketch.
So apart from having to go for an unnecessary motorway thrash, additional chemicals, a carbon clean and driving in an uneconomical manner, what did you have to do to keep the DPF free from problems?

Yes, it is ironic that careful, light footed driving will get you better MPG (the main point of buying a diesel car) and screw up the DPF and EGR, and, if your really unlucky, the variable vanes of the turbo (been there, done that)

 delete it

cut it open, gut it, reweld it, program the ECU not to look for it

Jenni_D

Username03725 said:

forgotmyname said:

I do lots of short journeys and have a diesel. No issues at all.  I chose wisely and picked a diesel that can regen
at any speed not something that requires higher revs. My car will happily regen whilst sitting in traffic.

Virtually all DPF regen is done at speeds that include low speeds; it's time that matters not speed, which is why I cringe when I see advice to clear a DPF by going for a burn-up on a dual c/way or m/way in a lower gear. No - just drive somewhere that allows continuous speeds at running temp for 30 minutes or more, to give it time to burn the soot off. 

OP - if you fancy this diesel buy it and enjoy, but recognise that once in a while every few months you'll do it a favour by going for a longish drive to keep things in order if your normal usage doesn't include that, and do the same if or when the DPF light comes on. Time not speed is the key.

Actually, speed is important. If you're going too fast (e.g. motorway speeds) and the ambient temperature is low then the system may not get to a high-enough temperature (due to wind chill) to do the regen properly.

(I had this with mine. The DPF warning came on because of working from home, so only doing short journeys now and again. I then had some work at a client's location which meant 260+ miles each way, Monday and Friday, and 10 miles each way from the hotel for the other days. It was only on my third return journey, when the ambient temperature was 20°C+ that the regen finally completed).