Diesel v Petrol on X Models, am I making sense

[Smuler]

I'm in the market for a small (ish) SUV.

I'll use the X1 as an example. It will be new, or very nearly new.

What matters to me is :-

1. Lowest running costs
2. Lowest depreciation.
3. Easiest resale.

What is of less concern is the initial purchase price.

It will be a cash purchase.

Of the two competing M Sport 20litre models, the above criteria suggests that the diesel is the better purchase.

Agree, disagree, anything I should be aware of?

The journeys will mostly be 30 mile round trips or 90 mile round trips. Car used at least 6 days a week. Annual mileage 15-20,000

Thanks, as always.
PS the M3 is staying, I'm not considering a total shift to the dark side

[GTEYE]

Despite the likely anti-diesel vitriol, I would personally still go diesel.

For that sort of mileage, the diesel should give lower running costs at probably marginal extra purchase cost (used).

I would imagine moving on a petrol one will have a possible penalty on the used market.

[iSore]

The 190 bhp 20d is the best all rounder. The 18d with 150 bhp is alright and the 25d a waste of money unless you really need 231 bhp.

Make sure it's an auto, and think about a Sport model as opposed to the M Sport. The M Sport X1 I drove had awful road noise (I mean really grim) and suspect straight line stability. Both issues may have been address by speccing smaller wheels and tyres but drive before you buy. The ride on the M Sport is alright though.

I'd get a fat discount on an X3 myself, a much better car. Under the veneer, the X1 is like something Ford or GM might produce and not really a quality item.

[Sheepshanks]

I'd be worried about using my own money to buy a diesel now. By all means lease or PCP one, but who knows where values will go as the tide increasingly turns against them.

[iSore]

Sheepshanks said:

I'd be worried about using my own money to buy a diesel now. By all means lease or PCP one, but who knows where values will go as the tide increasingly turns against them.

I honestly don't this is a worry or at least not for the short term. A mate works at JCT600 VW Audi and sales have picked up again. Petrols are alright, but folk love 50 mpg and instant torque. If I were to buy a new BMW, it would be diesel and auto.

[Sheepshanks]

In that case get the diesel then. At 20K miles per year the difference between the real-world economy figures of the petrol and diesel is likely to be financially significant.

[Smuler]

Thanks for the responses, have arranged a test drive of a diesel 20d
I drive what I believe is the petrol engine in a 220i Active Tourer; nothing special so I think for this sort of thing the diesel does make sense.

[Smuler]

For those who may be interested I enjoyed my test drive and liked the diesel engine with the auto and bear in mind N/A manual is my preference, so I'm out of my comfort zone.

I found it responded better than the 20l turbo petrol which is I think supposed to be faster.

So all things considered for this kind of car, certainly with my mileage, I think the diesel is best.

Thanks again to those who commented on my first post.

[northpolar]

There is so much political noise at the moment against diesel; even more so than the previous politics which drove the British public away from petrol; that I do fear for the medium term resale value of diesel vehicles. I looked on a couple of BMW dealer websites earlier today and the vast majority of vehicles were diesel. Not wishing to cause alarm, and I agree with others that nothing is likely to happen in the very near future, but I am concerned about the implications for diesel vehicle values in a year or two's time. I live in central London and will not be buying diesel again. For higher mileage folks like the OP, I'd be looking to PCP schemes and checking out penalty costs of the anticipated miles and consider using them as a risk mitigation measure rather than sinking cash into outright purchase. Maybe I am getting paranoid!

Peter

[iSore]

The other thing is the fairytale mpg figures quoted. A new 118d will average 48 mpg. My old one averages 43. The Montego Estate I drove over 20 years ago did that.

It's a pity BMW didn't continue with the Eta concept rather than dropping out in favour of the td. 35 years ago, a carefully driven 525e would easily do 35 mpg on a run. As much as I like diesels to drive, the 428i was an excellent thing and the outgoing F10 520i much quieter at low speeds than the 520d.

[sparks_E39]

For 20k a year diesel is better surely? Tbh if diesels could cope with lots of around town driving then I'd prefer one over a petrol.

[gizlaroc]

Be very careful here, I had the 320i xdrive for a week when my 20d xdrive x3 was in at BMW, the petrol was around 4-5mpg lower than the diesel, 36 over the week, but being lighter than the X3 lets say 34 over the week, and 500 odd miles, vs 39mpg on the X3.

I personally preferred the 320i over my 20d, took me a day to click with it, but once I realised that I didn't need to keep lifting off the gas slightly at 3000rpm to get it to change up (did it without thinking) it was actually a quicker car, smoother round town, much quieter and was more fun when having fun.

It was the week in that 320i xDrive that got me to sell the X3 20d and go back to a petrol.

I do 20k miles a year, £51 a week in the X3 vs £56 a week in the 320i.

Edited by gizlaroc on Sunday 15th January 11:52

[rayyan171]

Diesels work better in any SUV, I know that petrols will have to take some time to pick-up in any SUV (in my experience) unless its a huge V8 lump, so the diesel allows the car to move more effortlessly. The petrols may be a nicer, more pleasant experience but the diesel will allow you to just get the car moving, which is what you want on a murky, rainy Monday morning on the way to work.

[gizlaroc]

I would sort of agree with you on that, I have a 231hpNA 3.0i X3, which feels no quicker off the 180hp 20d it replaced, but the 20i is a turbo petrol, so things get a little blurred.
When we used to discuss petrol vs diesel we were really talking FI vs NA, not anymore. If it was the 20i from 4 years ago, the NA car then yeah avoid, but this new one is a peach imho.


20d vs 20i on the X1 has been done to death on the German BMW forums, loads of threads, all have said the only reason to buy the 20d is the consumption figures.
Just looking through it seems most are averaging 8L/100km, which is about 35mpg on the 20i, and around 7 litres for the diesel, which s about 41mpg. Which is what I would have expected having lived with the 20d in the X3 and having that 320i xdrive touring as a loaner.


A new M-Sport auto with nav pack, metallic and leather comes in at around £33k for the 20i and £34k for the 20d. Be interesting to see residuals. When I was looking for a 328i Sport Touring (I really did like that 320i loaner) the petrol seemed to command a premium over the diesel as there was so many less available, whether that is the same with the X1 and the 20i I have no idea?


Having said all that, I would look at a 2015 facelift X3....

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/2016...

Something like that will hold its value far better.

[Smuler]

I always like it when threads, asking for advice, are concluded; so not to be a hypocrite:-

I went for the diesel. I preferred the engine, felt it was smoother and picked up better. I did briefly consider the more powerful 25d but won't be driving this vehicle on for example long demanding, motorway journeys where I might want that extra, extra surge and although I'm impressed with this X1's handling and ride, I'm hardly going to take it on a b road blast as I do the M3, so I really wouldn't get the value.

Thanks a lot to this forum I've learnt about Broadspeed, Coast to Coast and TRL. I got their best quotes and found a local dealer to beat that price, to the extent of 10% of their discount.

Options I considered but discounted, pano sunroof seemed a nice idea but really expensive and the excellent visibility in the X1 gave plenty of light even considering my two test drives were in vehicles with the horrible privacy glass.
Reversing camera, I'd been recommended but I found too much information and a bit confusing, rear visibility is good and parking sensors with graphics is sufficient.

I went for driver comfort pack, because I did fancy the front parking sensors.
Folding mirrors because I drive down such tight streets, it's really handy
Lumbar support and elect adjustable seats, bad back meaning extra support and because I like to make minor adjustments to driving position on the go.
Sport Auto, as discussed so many times here, it really suits the engine and the sort of driving I'll do in the X1.
I hated RFTs in my 335i, so going non RFTs added space saver, as I won't use that much of the storage space, so it can use up the underfloor storage
Finally, as it was only 150£ I went for EDC a bit of a punt but it supposedly sharpens things up; though I did feel there was more weight with the standard steering than I'd found on other similar BMWs

Car is the M Sport so anything else I wanted was standard.

Thanks again.

[Fox-]

Sheepshanks said:

I'd be worried about using my own money to buy a diesel now. By all means lease or PCP one, but who knows where values will go as the tide increasingly turns against them.

The tide is turning against the older ones - just look at the proposed London 2020 low emissions zone for a taste of exactly how cities will tackle diesel. You'll see they are effectively pricing out pre Euro 6 diesels and pre Euro 4 petrol cars.

Logically this is the only realistic way to achieve this with any semblance of public support.

[335d]

I wouldn't be too concerned about buying a Euro 6 diesel at the moment. I note that BMW have said that they expect 95% of UK new 5 Series (G30) sales to be diesel. I think there is a media bandwagon thing going on where anti-diesel stories get lots of clicks/views, so the press go with it. Much the same happened with SUVs in 2006-9 where the death of the SUV was widely predicted, and of course quite the opposite has happened. The media then got bored and moved on to the next dreaded threat.

I imagine that as new emissions regulations get tighter, we will see fewer small diesel cars, but there is no real sign of larger/premium cars shifting towards petrol yet.

Ultimately cities will probably ban all non-electric cars, but by then any BMW bought today would be on its fifth owner and fitted with a set of 22" chrome wheels, blacked-out windows and a couple of spoilers for good measure...

[Sheepshanks]

335d said:

Ultimately cities will probably ban all non-electric cars, but by then any BMW bought today would be on its fifth owner and fitted with a set of 22" chrome wheels, blacked-out windows and a couple of spoilers for good measure...

In all seriousness an EU6 diesel bought today won't be around by then. The emissions stuff is very complicated and it's unlikely to be economical, even assuming it's feasible, to maintain it as the cars get older.

[T16OLE]

The only real way to do it is increasing the price of diesel at the pumps.

To remove the benefits

Hopefully that'll not happen though

[335d]

T16OLE said:

The only real way to do it is increasing the price of diesel at the pumps.

To remove the benefits

Hopefully that'll not happen though

It is political suicide with about half the voting population driving diesel. Governments seem to prefer to raid pension funds or add an insurance levy, which which are less obvious ways of extracting cash. In the 2006 Budget, when CO2 was the dreaded evil, the government of the day decided to massively hike VED for all cars over 225 g/km. Cue a public outcry about 'retrospective taxation' and a rapid climbdown so that the VED changes only affected cars registered after the Budget.

They haven't even dared to use the April 2017 VED changes to discourage diesel cars. Weirdly post April 2017, diesel cars even benefit from a lower first year rate than their petrol equivalents, although future years are the same. At some point they may have to discourage diesel cars, but after the 2006 Budget shambles, I expect it will only apply to new cars registered after some future date. UK sales of Jaguar Land Rover must be about 95% diesel these days, so it will be no easy task...