Car Buying Advice

AdrianHi

Relevant to the diesel / petrol question, I've come across this on a car forum I frequent:

"Unfortunately, the amount of technology added to diesel cars over the past eight years has made them increasingly unreliable. Dual mass flywheels employed to dampen the excessive vibrations of common rail injection are failing regularly after only 35,000 miles and the cost of rectification is usually the wrong side of £1000. My information, gleaned from more than 400,000 emails, is that diesels are now potentially so costly to repair that any potential fuel and tax savings are wiped out."

"Honest John" in Daily Telegraph Motoring section, 3 May 2008

It's the old adage, you don't get something for nothing, with a modern diesel you get great performance, acceptable refinement and not far short of old school diesel fuel economy. But there is a price to pay, and in my case that price is a £350 extended warranty when my diesel car is 36 month old in November or it gets changed for a younger car. Warranties cover less as you climb between 60K and 100K miles on the car.
Cars seem to becoming increasingly disposable, an 8 year old BMW 530i that might last another 10 years and 100,000+ miles which monthly works out similar to new diesel Mondeo's etc. is increasingly tempting if you can take the risk of repairs hopefully less expensive and less likely than it's more expensive to buy 530d sibling.

Edit: just seen your reply, will stick sum numbers into my spreadsheet and let you know, does not take much of my time.

AdrianHi

SSHAW wrote: »

Wow, didn't realise it was so technical. It's a Ford Mondeo Zetec 2.00 TDCi. They don't do percentage discount any more just a set amount. This month it's £3405 off for the petrol model but I think the diesel is only about £500 more. Metallic paint is another £300 odd but my other half thinks this is essential as he likes it and it doesn't show the dirt up as much.

We only get discount on brand new which is £13995 for the petrol but the estate may be a bit more. Depends on what you negociate with garage. If we get a year old one which is the old shape can get for about £11250 with low mileage (10,000). Forgot to say is a Zetec we are looking at.

Don't want to go to dealers and start haggling if I don't know if I want a petrol or diesel so hence my original question.

Really appreciate your time and help. I feel relieved at being able to get some impartial advice.

Mmmm, petrol or diesel. If you were relying on costs to make your decision it's still tough going!
Assuming you pay list price as advertised on What Car minus your 3405 discount.
12,000 miles a year is pretty much smack on the break even point between the two if you believe What Car in their estimation of both the petrol and diesel will retain 39% of list at 3 years old and you believe today's fuel prices stay the same.
Increasing fuel prices by 25% and you are then better off by £9 a month in the diesel. I have a feeling the diesel will resale quicker and most likely hold it's value better than the petrol despite what What Car says, so my money would go on the diesel unless when test driving I really liked the petrol a lot better.
The longer you keep the diesel the more advantage it has right up until you hit an out of warranty failure like Honest John talks about.
It is still a tough call, but at least you have some info. to go on.
If you compare average monthly cost over 36 months of the two new cars with average monthly cost over 24 months on the 1 year old the older car saves you £56 a month. This is based on having the cars until warranty expiry and despite your big discount on the new car.
At todays fuel prices the 2 news cars I recon on being 522 a month of which 70 (diesel) 63 (petrol) is a cost associated with sinking the cash into a car instead of paying off a mortgage at my mortgage rate. I've assumed all cars here are insured at 37.50 a month.
The older car I recon on being 467 a month of which 55 is cost of cash in car.
Your "cost of cash in car" might be different, perhaps you have no mortgage.

Now 522 x 36 is 18792 for 3 years. What Car says 17489 for the petrol but I don't think they include the cost of "cash in car" which for me would be 2520 on this car. What Car have not taken your 3405 into account either.

Most people with a 6% mortgage rate who don't get a 3405 discount on a Ford doing 12,000 miles on this car would be better off leasing it. I think it is about 553 a month as a lease.

SSHAW_3

Thank you very much. Looks like it won't make much difference to us. We have still got a mortgage but luckily only a very little one and it will soon expire. Think we might stick with diesel because of the resale value but I'm going to show all this info to my other half so he can be impressed too!!

AdrianHi

SSHAW wrote: »

Thank you very much. Looks like it won't make much difference to us. We have still got a mortgage but luckily only a very little one and it will soon expire. Think we might stick with diesel because of the resale value but I'm going to show all this info to my other half so he can be impressed too!!

If you are always going to have the car under warranty, I think it is the best bet as the risk of future expensive out of warranty failures are not a risk for you. I rather like being able to go 600 miles between visits to the petrol station too
Good luck.

CanadaBound

Just wanted to say thanks to those who gave advice. We now have a new (to us) car and having run it for a week it seems that it will be running approx 2-3 times as long on the same amount of fuel as our old car which only did about 25mpg - this one seems to be doing about 60ish mpg (although this is an estimate as we haven't had to fill it up since picking it up yet so no accurate figures) so we hope it will have paid for itself in about 6 months which is a great result!

AdrianHi

CanadaBound wrote: »

Just wanted to say thanks to those who gave advice. We now have a new (to us) car and having run it for a week it seems that it will be running approx 2-3 times as long on the same amount of fuel as our old car which only did about 25mpg - this one seems to be doing about 60ish mpg (although this is an estimate as we haven't had to fill it up since picking it up yet so no accurate figures) so we hope it will have paid for itself in about 6 months which is a great result!

Good result by the sounds of it, what did you go for in the end?