My opinion on modern diesels. Do you agree?

[daemon]

macky17 said:

daemon said:

With respect, your jag hasnt yet reached the age where it may have problems. Its a very complex car.

6 years old, 72k miles and been perfect other than a door lock.

Good luck for the next six

[Devil2575]

daemon said:

macky17 said:

daemon said:

With respect, your jag hasnt yet reached the age where it may have problems. Its a very complex car.

6 years old, 72k miles and been perfect other than a door lock.

Good luck for the next six

Would it really be unreasonable for a car that has done 70 to 140k and is 6 to 12 years old to throw up a biggish bill? There seems to be an expectation these days that cars should never go wrong and not require anything other than consumables.

[anonymous-user]

Devil2575 said:

Would it really be unreasonable for a car that has done 70 to 140k and is 6 to 12 years old to throw up a biggish bill? There seems to be an expectation these days that cars should never go wrong and not require anything other than consumables.

Consumables yes, turbo's, valves and the like, no.

[Devil2575]

yonex said:

Devil2575 said:

Would it really be unreasonable for a car that has done 70 to 140k and is 6 to 12 years old to throw up a biggish bill? There seems to be an expectation these days that cars should never go wrong and not require anything other than consumables.

Consumables yes, turbo's, valves and the like, no.

Do you know that the turbos on petrol cars also fail too. In fact they have ever since they've been fitting turbos to car engines. The idea that it's unreasonable of them to fail on an car that's done 100k is a bit odd considering it's not exactly rare. Back in the 1980s is was almost a good thing and an excuse to fit a hybrid turbo

Edited by Devil2575 on Wednesday 1st July 22:18

[Nickbrapp]

yonex said:

Devil2575 said:

Would it really be unreasonable for a car that has done 70 to 140k and is 6 to 12 years old to throw up a biggish bill? There seems to be an expectation these days that cars should never go wrong and not require anything other than consumables.

Consumables yes, turbo's, valves and the like, no.

Because bmw swirl flaps haven't been going wrong since the e39 and e46 generation back in the late 90s,


diesels break down, so do petrols. Ive had 2 ford focuses. Both had alternators fail, I had a diesel Bora. Nothing went wrong with 200k on it.

Everything mechanical will have problems evenutally. You don't bin your wife off after 6 years because she might go wrong at any moment

[anonymous-user]

Nickbrapp said:

You don't bin your wife off after 6 years because she might go wrong at any moment

No, but it would be pretty fking marvelous if you had Angelina Jolie in the garage for the weekend

[anonymous-user]

daemon said:

macky17 said:

daemon said:

With respect, your jag hasnt yet reached the age where it may have problems. Its a very complex car.

6 years old, 72k miles and been perfect other than a door lock.

Good luck for the next six

Yeah my diesel S-type was tip top up to about 90K and then everything expensive that goes wrong with these things did. What made it worse was that the "traditional" Jaguar engineering in all the places you couldn't see made every job a major one with rusted bolts and fasteners needing to be drilled out and impossible accessibility making simple jobs into major ones.

I expect a car like that to make it to 150K without needing anything but consumables. I do not expect it to need two turbochargers, a gearbox, torque converter and two EGR valves. It must have needed a third of it's original purchase price in repairs before it reached that mileage.

[daemon]

Devil2575 said:

daemon said:

macky17 said:

daemon said:

With respect, your jag hasnt yet reached the age where it may have problems. Its a very complex car.

6 years old, 72k miles and been perfect other than a door lock.

Good luck for the next six

Would it really be unreasonable for a car that has done 70 to 140k and is 6 to 12 years old to throw up a biggish bill? There seems to be an expectation these days that cars should never go wrong and not require anything other than consumables.

I think that has already been answered in the post above, but the danger point with modern diesels tends to start at around 80,000. After that you might not get just one "big bill" but a string of them - THATS the problem. A car like this might think nothing of munching through a couple of turbos and a DPF before it hits 100K. There again, it might not.

[skyrover]

heebeegeetee said:

skyrover said:

Diesel is far more harmful to humans than petrol, hence the reason countries like the USA and Canada essentially banned the stuff in passenger vehicle with draconian emissions laws.

The US went for a low cost, high consumption policy, unsurprisingly given that it's an oil producer. For a developed nation the US has pretty shocking pollution figures per capita, and vies with China to be one of the dirtiest nations on the planet.

by and large air quality in the US is far better than here in the UK

http://time.com/122283/china-pollution-london-beij...

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/calls-for-ac...

[Devil2575]

skyrover said:

heebeegeetee said:

skyrover said:

Diesel is far more harmful to humans than petrol, hence the reason countries like the USA and Canada essentially banned the stuff in passenger vehicle with draconian emissions laws.

The US went for a low cost, high consumption policy, unsurprisingly given that it's an oil producer. For a developed nation the US has pretty shocking pollution figures per capita, and vies with China to be one of the dirtiest nations on the planet.

by and large air quality in the US is far better than here in the UK

http://time.com/122283/china-pollution-london-beij...

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/calls-for-ac...

By and large the US has a lot lower population density than the UK.

[heebeegeetee]

skyrover said:

by and large air quality in the US is far better than here in the UK

http://time.com/122283/china-pollution-london-beij...

Yet longevity is greater in all western European countries, so the US is doing something wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by...

[skyrover]

heebeegeetee said:

skyrover said:

by and large air quality in the US is far better than here in the UK

http://time.com/122283/china-pollution-london-beij...

Yet longevity is greater in all western European countries, so the US is doing something wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by...

Simple... they are all fat b*astards who don't walk anywhere

[macky17]

daemon said:

I think that has already been answered in the post above, but the danger point with modern diesels tends to start at around 80,000. After that you might not get just one "big bill" but a string of them - THATS the problem. A car like this might think nothing of munching through a couple of turbos and a DPF before it hits 100K. There again, it might not.

Agreed in principle but are you speaking with specific knowledge of the XF or just big turbo diesels in general? Jags seem a lot less prone to these issues than German rubbish from all the research I've done and conversations I've had...

[Depthhoar]

Getting back to the OP's original question, I won't be buying another diesel vehicle.

Running 5 cars at the moment with only one of them is remotely modern and it's a petrol (Polo), which is used pretty much exclusively for local trips and shopping etc.. My M5 is quite elderly now and can in now way be described as a 'daily' so doesn't really count in this diesel/petrol argument.

The remaining 3 vehicles are all diesel and rack up considerable mileages doing what they were designed for: open throttle, high mileage work.

The E39 530d's engine (Euro 3, I think) has been relatively reliable and required nothing more than (not including servicing) a MAF, cam sensor and a low pressure fuel pump in its 148k miles. Had to fix a minor fuel leak but that was sorted by nipping up a fuel rail union nut. Being a manual there are no swirl flaps to worry about. Averages 48mpg.

......But I won't be buying a diesel replacement for it when it dies.

Also have a Skoda with a 1.9Tdi PD engine (Euro 4 & without a DPF). Fortunately not one of the PD variants that tends to grenade itself. Noisy but very reliable (needing only a cam sensor + regular servicing in its 75k miles). 55mpg all day long.

.....But won't be replacing it with a diesel.

Vauxhall Combo 1.3Cdti van (I know...I hang my head in shame!). Euro 4 but with a DPF. The most modern diesel in my 'fleet' and it needed a new DPF and EGR valve & glow plugs 100k miles at significant cost. It had spent its early life running up and down motorways yet the DPF had to be replaced because it was simply full of ash (the by-product of countless regenerations). Utilitarian motoring and 50mpg...

..... but never again.

Even though I do a fair amount of high mileage work, I just can't see that more recent generations of diesels (Euro 5 onwards) offer cost effective motoring to the private motorist buying used vehicles that are 3 years old with 60k miles on the clock. There's just too much bolt-on emissions technology & high pressure pumps/injectors/turbos to crap out from 60k miles onwards possibly (probably?) resulting in individual repair bills each approaching 4 figures. That buys an awful lot of petrol!

Petrol cars are also more complicated now too, of course, (my nephew has a new VAG 1.4Tsi with a turbo AND a supercharger) so there may be big bills for him at high mileage.

So I'll probably be buying normally aspirated multi-valve petrol engined cars in future. For my particular car buying profile (normally buy used cars 3-4yrs old), diesel has less and less appeal.

[Devil2575]

skyrover said:

heebeegeetee said:

skyrover said:

by and large air quality in the US is far better than here in the UK

http://time.com/122283/china-pollution-london-beij...

Yet longevity is greater in all western European countries, so the US is doing something wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by...

Simple... they are all fat b*astards who don't walk anywhere

They also don't have an NHS so poor people don't have adequate access to healthcare.

What they do have is problems with air quality in heavily populated areas though.

http://www.latimes.com/science/la-me-0430-air-poll...

[heebeegeetee]

Devil2575 said:

They also don't have an NHS so poor people don't have adequate access to healthcare.

Similar applies to Australia who are in an obesity epidemic apparently, yet they're second in the rankings.

The US appears to be doing something seriously wrong, so I'm not sure what aspect of their we should be following.

[otolith]

Devil2575 said:

Burning any hydrocarbon produces crap you don't want. The answer is to move to EVs which in the short term shifts the combustion process to a power station where greater efficiency can be achieved and emissions better controlled. Also burning natural gas is far better than both Petrol or diesel in terms of pollution. Longer term power generation will move away from combustion processes.

There is that, although part of me says that if city dwellers want to generate pollution, they should keep it where they live.

[otolith]

With respect to international longevity comparisons, I don't think your experiment is well enough controlled to really draw any conclusions beyond actual air quality measurements.

I think it is likely that in retrospect we will look upon the push for diesel as a public health disaster. But let's see where it goes. It was probably difficult to make the case for diesel being a bad idea at the same time that we were pushing everyone to get on (diesel) public transport.

[Devil2575]

otolith said:

With respect to international longevity comparisons, I don't think your experiment is well enough controlled to really draw any conclusions beyond actual air quality measurements.

I think it is likely that in retrospect we will look upon the push for diesel as a public health disaster. But let's see where it goes. It was probably difficult to make the case for diesel being a bad idea at the same time that we were pushing everyone to get on (diesel) public transport.

I think "public health disaster" is a bit strong.

The consequences of pushing diesel were not considered enough though.

The real issue is having large numbers of internal combustion engines spending large amounts of time stationary in overcrowded urban areas.

[Devil2575]

heebeegeetee said:

Devil2575 said:

They also don't have an NHS so poor people don't have adequate access to healthcare.

Similar applies to Australia who are in an obesity epidemic apparently, yet they're second in the rankings.

The US appears to be doing something seriously wrong, so I'm not sure what aspect of their we should be following.

I wouldn't follow many aspects of US policy.