Honda CRV - is petrol that bad?

[Sunnyfridge]

Hi, new to the forum. I spent a while yesterday searching for answers and there's some great stuff in here, but I think I'm over thinking this and getting confused. I'm in the market for a used CRV - lowish mileage 09/10 era I suspect. Diesel always seems to be the recommended choice and there's a huge amount online about how thirsty the petrol version is. At my budget, it seems to be petrol versions with 30-40k on the clock or diesel with 60-80 on the clock. We do about 10-12k a year, mainly on A and B roads (country lanes) with the odd motorway trip - maybe a couple a month. I've never really paid attention to mpg figures before, but all the mentions of poor fuel economy for the CRV and all the govt diesel stuff in the news got me looking. With the official mpg figures on both, it looks like a petrol version would cost £3-400pa more in the tank, but guessing it's not as simple as that. We'd plan to run the car for as many years as we can, so less worried about resale. Is all the online 'go for the diesel' stuff in the reviews correct for me? Seems to be a fairly even split of them on the second hand market, so someone is buying petrol. Also can't seem to find much on the differences between the Honda diesel engines. It looks like they changed in 2010 from the iDCI to iDTEC? All input very grateful received.

[Sunnyfridge]

Thanks. I'll try to get a drive in both and see. I'm switching from a diesel estate that returns a very good mpg, but always taken it for granted. Doing all the sums can only take you so far, I'm trying to gauge whether I'll wince every time I fill up - petrol or diesel. 10mpg difference looks a lot on paper! Any more for any more?

[Sunnyfridge]

Thanks for all the input everyone. So I've taken the plunge and picking up a 2010 manual petrol tomorrow. Drove it on Saturday and all seemed fine - the aircon worked and no strange noises from under the hood. Guessing then that there's no need to be unduly worrying about the aircon fault. It sounds like its something to be aware of should the situation arise, as opposed to something I need to go and get checked?

Looking forward to getting to know the car (although can't say it's an 'exciting' drive!). The trip computer was giving an average reading of 35mpg. Let's see how that pans out in the real world.

Thanks again.