The cost of runing a Diesel.

[Devil2575]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/mar/02/turbo-...

Following on from comments in another thread.

I'm starting to wonder if it's worth risking a diesel unless it's under warranty ?

Unless you drive high mileages – 18,000-plus annually – you will probably be better off buying a petrol vehicle, is the general view – unless you know its history. One of the problems is that diesel cars are now so sophisticated that many dealer mechanics don't know what they are doing.

So I guess my next car will be a petrol then!

Edited by Devil2575 on Sunday 4th March 17:47

[Devil2575]

Lol, not a reader of any paper to ne honest but I found this when looking for info on something else.

To be honest it does just confirm what I already knew.

I recently talked my dad out of getting one.

[Devil2575]

Panda, I guess you'd consider me a fool then. I'm not a mechanic and I don't as a rule buy warranties. Mind you I can do general servicing myself and have been known to troubleshoot a problem or 10 with the aid of the internet.

[Devil2575]

Rawwr said:

black1 said:

as for petrol never in a millon years would i touch one

HiSpeedGas said:

I'll never buy another Ford as long as I live

jbi said:

I would not touch a modern diesel with a BARGE POLE

PMSL

[Devil2575]

Nick1point9 said:

Only difference is that the diesel will depreciate more

Are you sure?

Diesels tend to cost more to be used but depreciate less due to the much larger public demand for diesel cars.

Of course I guess that depends on what car you have.

[Devil2575]

off_again said:

Its recon'ed to be around effectively around 2 MPG difference due to the cost of diesel being more, so factor that in but then include the increased road fund license and then you get to the costs from there.

A couple of years back my wife had a 2001 1.8 Focus Zetec Hatch. When I used it on my daily commute it got 32 mpg. About a year back I bought a 2003 1.8 TDCI Focus estate. It gets on average 42 mpg on my commute.

So I get 10 mpg more, 30% better than the roughly equivalent petrol car.

I do about 12k a year so at 135.9 p for petrol that would work out as £2319
Same but in the diesel at 143.9p that works out as £1871

So that's an annual saving of £448 or a 19% saving over the petrol.

The increased cost of diesel means the effectively the TDCI is getting the equivalent of about 40 mpg. So that's still an 8mpg difference, not 2 mpg.

It's also a 3.8 ppm saving not 1.5 as someone else said.

[Devil2575]

Lucas Ayde said:

How much more did the Diesel Focus cost than an equivalent (age, form factor, options) petrol engined model?

That's a difficult question to answer.

When i was looking I viewed and test drove both petrol and diesel models but as I was after an estate and had a limited budget I never really looked at two equivalent spec/age/milage cars.

I reckon I probably paid an extra £500 for the diesel model over an equivalent petrol. I never set out to buy a diesel specifically, I bought on condition/history and the fact that the petrol engines felt lethargic in comparison to the diesel. Had the 1.6 petrol zetec I'd seen before been better I may well have bought it there and then and never even looked at the TDCi though.

When you have a budget of £3.5k you can't get too fussy about which model you go for.

[Devil2575]

Matt UK said:

And how much will it be worth when moved on? (assuming of course that we don't all buy new cars and keep them until scrap)

I plan to keep it for another three years and as long as I look after it I expect to get at least some of my extra £500 outlay back.

A Diesel estate Focus will always be an easyish car to sell on.

[Devil2575]

SuperHangOn said:

I would much rather buy an old W124 for a bag and spend another refreshing it.

I know what you mean.

I keep looking at old E39s and E36s.

[Devil2575]

Harji said:

All this talk about Passats , TDI , Audi diesels, focus tdci. Not exactly riveting cars , all serve there purpose but you're all beginning to sound like Alan Partridge.

Sadly a car that serves a purpose is all i can afford to run at the moment

[Devil2575]

Fun to drive car = petrol

Rep mobile/family car with big engine = petrol

Rep mobile/family car with small engine = diesel

Smallish i.e. 2 litre petrol engines in cars like Mondeo, espcially the new one, and especially if you do a lot of motorway work and just a waste of Time IMHO.