Re: New Car - petrol or diesel
 

Diesel car will be more expensive to buy and has a higher rate of depreciation also the insurance is higher as accident repairs cost more when a frontal impact damages the engine. Service costs can be higher as you are talking older models with 6000 mile service intervals. Take all that into the equation and you will probably find that you will get a newer low mileage petrol for the same price. Turbos cost a lot to replace and can do a lot of damage to an engine if the blades start to break up.
I am not saying that a diesel will not be cheaper to put fuel in for day to day running just that unless you intend keeping it for a minimum of 4years it is an uneconomical proposition for your intended mileage and then only worth peanuts with the mileage 60K added
The general public still have this thing about mileage when buying a car and newer petrol cars are very good on giving high mileage durability with todays modern lubricants

Re: New Car - petrol or diesel
 

Diesel cars dont depreciate anywhere near as fast as petrol cars (try selling a 2.0l+ petrol on the current market), everyone wants a diesel these days. Also i find diesel cars cheaper to insure.

My g/f's dad is a taxi driver he has a ford focus estate 1.8td (old school non common rail) and it has 350k on the clocks and the engine is still strong (even after a cam belt failure)

In terms of MPG, i have been driving for over 7 years and i have had both petrol and diesel cars, you find a petrol will state it will do 45mpg but in fact you are lucky to get half that, but when a diesel says 60mpg you tend to do slightly better

Re: New Car - petrol or diesel
 

Maybe, however i find modern Diesels just as quiet and only a hint of noise under acceleration.

I do hovever as a diesel owner appriciate the going on 600 miles from a powerful tourqey 2.0L engine and a 50L fuel tank :wink:

I also appriciate the ability to sit in 6th gear and go from 40 to a motorway cruise in one go.

Modern diesels do everything a petrol will almost better in most cases. Lets face it there is no point having a powerful pertol in the UK anymore, over £60 to go in most cases 300-400 miles from a tank if your lucky, no thanks.

Re: New Car - petrol or diesel
 

well ive been a petrol man all my life but diesel is looking more and more atractive because it does more miles per gallon, but the only problem with the new comman rail engines is if it has ever had more than eggcup of petrol put in the tank then 10000 or maybe 50000 miles down the line and pos more than one owner later, one cold winters morning a error code will come up saying low pump pressure and the best part of a grand latter you will be back on the road after getting the pump and other bits reconed bearing in mind that a modern comman rail engine pump runs at well over 100 bar and a petrol engine does not suffer from this, and if it did you just buy a new or second hand pump for a few pounds,but you cant just change a diesel pump with out haveing it calibrated as the brain of the car wont know the output of the pump,so bear this in mind when buying a used diesel

Re: New Car - petrol or diesel
 

And breath.:cheers:

Re: New Car - petrol or diesel
 

All cars are good when running right its when they go wrong they are expensive and certain models can be very expensive to repair.My wife has had several new VWs and touch wood not a lot of problems but then again her current Polo is only 50k and 11 years old with full annual services but even that has had some problems Doesn't matter whether it is petrol or diesel its when it goes wrong it costs.
On reflection my last diesel commuter was a Picasso 2.0Hdi and completely trouble free till 90k but since I sold it it has cost the new owner a small fortune so all this about high mileage trouble free motoring depends on the individual car as you hear good and bad stories about the same models.
Research a car before you buy a particular make or model is probably the only advice I would give--------------especially secondhand out of warranty

Re: New Car - petrol or diesel
 

It entirely depends on your individual circumstances, and there are factors you can't control as well.

When I bought my car the equivalent diesel was £3000 more, and at the time Diesel was 12p a litre more expensive. At the time I was doing 15-20k miles a year, and I paid for my own fuel. It was going to take me much longer to recoup that £3000 so I bought the petrol.

A year later there was a 2p per litre difference between petrol and diesel, I had changed job and was doing 35000 a year, and I had all my fuel paid by a company fuel card.

Spend some time on Autotrader, look at the cars you want to buy, and see what the difference in price is between petrol and diesel models, and then do your own maths based on your own circumstances. If you can buy the a petrol model for £1000 less you may find you're better with petrol.

You can't generalise on servicing costs anymore, many manufacturers the diesels and petrols cost the same to service, and have the same service intervals.

You can't generalise on reliability either. Diesel reliability used to be better because the engines were simpler and revved lower. Now they still rev lower, but with intercoolers, high pressure turbos & common rails, and all the electronics that goes into managing them, I don't believe diesels are any more reliable nowadays.

Re: New Car - petrol or diesel
 

Diesel Q :)

a modern-ish one atleast - I had a mondeo tdci and an audi a3 tdi (both 2.0) - both were good for 400-500 miles out of a tank of diesel which cost £50 at the time (probably around £60 now)...

I went mental before christmas and bought an audi s4 - petrol engined 2.7 v6 twin turbo with 4 wheel drive... I'm averaging around 300miles on £65 of petrol and I do around 20,000 miles a year. But then I was paying a fortune on finance for my a3 (it was a flashy s-line model) whereas I now own my s4 outright and it gives me butterflies every time I pick up the keys.

I think big performance petrol cars are the only petrol based vehicles worth buying intentionally because the run on petrol ('drivers cars' for people who want a traditional petrolhead experience), otherwise diesel is the way to go for average driving (commuting, the occaisional spirited drive, and getting around etc.)

Just my 2p :)

Re: New Car - petrol or diesel
 

simple if you want to save money get a diesel, they are no more unreliable than petrol cars, hold there value alot more and save big money on fuel costs over a year as long as your driving it. Can be slightly more expensive to service but cheaper insurance and fuel savings far outweigh these

plus if you want to save even more money you can run it on cooking oil, cheap as chips

Re: New Car - petrol or diesel
 

This is blatantly untrue in the case of modern common rail engines.