Petrol or Diesel

AdrianHi

photome wrote: »

In todays paper they are forecasting the gap between petrol and diesel to keep on growing over the next three years.

If you are buying new, it now takes at least 45000 miles before you start to make savings....papers words not mine.

Sloppy journalism making such a sweeping statement since the case for and against depends so greatly on the car in question, how it's used, how many miles it's doing a month or year and even to a small degree, the financial circumstances of the person paying for it.

inspector_monkfish

AdrianHi wrote: »

Sloppy journalism making such a sweeping statement since the case for and against depends so greatly on the car in question, how it's used, how many miles it's doing a month or year and even to a small degree, the financial circumstances of the person paying for it.

yep, sounds like Daily Mail or Guardian journalism to me....

MJI1962

How about LPG and convert your own car?

A professional install can pay within two years a DIY within months.

anewman

MJI1962 wrote: »

How about LPG and convert your own car?

A professional install can pay within two years a DIY within months.

Not when it comes to insurance

AdrianHi

For LPG conversions you are also looking at giving up a large chunk of bot space for the tank to get enough LPG fuel capacity to give a worthwhile range. The wheel well tanks are small. Then you have to have an LPG supply available close by otherwise your just running on petrol too often.
It's a bit of a mine field, bit if you are really determined to cut the cost of fuelling a much loved thirsty petrol car it can work out.
I think this web site http://www.lpginfo.co.uk/ has a great story to tell which should allow you to approach an LPG conversion with your eyes open so to speak.

Hintza

Looking at the way fuel prices are going I think the jury is out on this currently. The perceived wisdom was that if you did a reasonably high mileage dioesel would soon pay for itself.

The way prices are going the savings would have to be pretty hefty.

I must say I would be more inclined to stick with petrol for low to medium mileage. But who knoww where we will be in a year or twos time.

AdrianHi

The more fuel prices rise the greater advantage there is to using diesel, diesel has to go up a lot more relative to petrol to change this.
I don't have any more recent figures, but for January 2005 to January 2006 unleaded went up in price by 9.8p per litre, diesel went up by 8.7p.
http://www.petrolprices.com/why-diesel-costs-more-than-petrol.html is interesting.
This trend has changed since 2006 and no one is sure why http://www.rte.ie/business/2008/0516/petrol.html
I cannot see it being down to more diesel cars being purchased.

photome

AdrianHi wrote: »

The more fuel prices rise the greater advantage there is to using diesel, diesel has to go up a lot more relative to petrol to change this.
I don't have any more recent figures, but for January 2005 to January 2006 unleaded went up in price by 9.8p per litre, diesel went up by 8.7p.
http://www.petrolprices.com/why-diesel-costs-more-than-petrol.html is interesting.
This trend has changed since 2006 and no one is sure why http://www.rte.ie/business/2008/0516/petrol.html
I cannot see it being down to more diesel cars being purchased.

I dont understand your logic the more fuel goes up the bigger the gap between unleaded and diesel therfore the advantage swings towards petrol. the reason is there is a shortage of diesel (apparentley) In the USA the difference in price is bigger than here

AdrianHi

photome wrote: »

I dont understand your logic the more fuel goes up the bigger the gap between unleaded and diesel therfore the advantage swings towards petrol. the reason is there is a shortage of diesel (apparentley) In the USA the difference in price is bigger than here

Because the % better fuel economy you get with the diesel translates into an ever larger amount of cash as prices rise. Diesel will have to be something like 23% more per litre than unleaded to close the gap for the following two cars, one is petrol, the other is the equivalent diesel:

A 46.3 mpg petrol car on 112p per litre costs £109.97 in fuel over 1000 miles
A 57 mpg diesel car on 125p per litre costs £99.69 in fuel for 1000 miles
£10.28 per 1000 mile advantage to the diesel

Increase both fuel prices by 25%
A 46.3 mpg petrol car on 140p per litre costs £137.46 in fuel over 1000 miles
A 57 mpg diesel car on 156p per litre costs £124.62 in fuel for 1000 miles
£12.84 per 1000 mile advantage to the diesel
In the second example diesel has to be approx. 172.5p to be the same fuel cost compared to petrol.


Yes there is a shortage of diesel, but why has this shortage come about faster than the increase in numbers of diesel cars?
I've heard ships might be converted to diesel because it's cleaner than the fuel oil they use now, which is going to make things worse, but does anyone know why the shortage is so acute right now?

eamon

A friend drives a Focus TDCi and his driving is mostly urban i.e. rarely getting to 40mph and lots of stop starts etc. Additionally his annual mileage is low <6k Using the on board computer as a guide he doesn't get much more than 35-38mpg. Of course on long drives via M-ways etc this improves vastly. Is his experience typical? If so I would suggest that calculating a break even point is more complex for short commute/low mileage drivers than if you drive long distances as part of your job or have a long distance daily commute.

Eamon