Diesel car, worth considering?

Goudy

It's not easy these days to decide, technology seems to move quicker the older I get!

Something else to watch out for is that some manufacturers tried different things to reduce friction of their engines in both diesel and petrols. One disastrous trick was to encase the timing/cam belt in a bath of oil.

It causes the belt to break up and send bits of belt around the oil system. Some just ruin the engine when they finally break, others starve the engine of oil and others send the debris into the brake vacuum pump and you lose brake assistance (and get a ruined engine).

Ford had trouble with the 1.0 Ecoboost petrol engine and their 2.0 EcoBlue diesel engine. Stellantis (Vauxhall. Peug, Citroen) had major trouble with their 1.2 Pure-tech engines. Even Honda suffers with their 1.0 Vtec.

As for Low Emission Zones. I don't see any creep related to the newer Euro emissions regulations but I do think there will be a point where all ICE cars will be chargeable to enter these zones.

We've had plenty of carrot to swap to zero emission vehicles, now we're getting a bit of carrot and stick, plus the government are preparing a way to generate more taxation from zero emission vehicles, so it's a safe bet that once that is sorted, ICE owners that are left with just get stick.