What car should I get a diesel or a petrol?

[321fallen]

I do silly mileage per week, I cover about 250-300miles doing a mixture of motorway driving, city driving in peak times, flying down a road, silly 4 mile journeys and getting stuck in morning rush hour traffic and of course evening. I have a 1.2 16v T reg corsa at the moment, it costs me abut £60 to fill and does around 330-360mile to the tank (aprox 46L) I am looking to buy a new car in January. I have about 3k to spend, I am looking at the Astra 04-06 reg 5 door. Now do I buy a diesel or a petrol? Due to be being 21 the insurance is going to be pretty high and it will be on fully comp. Think I have covered everything...HELP! x

[80sboy]

This thread is just another argument waiting to happen!

[kieranjholland]

deisel looking at your mileage

[insert popcorn smiley here]

seriously, where's the popcorn smiley

[Vladimir]

My 2005 diesel (1.9 CDTi 150) Astra suffered swirl flap failure at 38k miles. Decent enough engine but BEWARE!!

I'd err towards petrol.

[kieranjholland]

80sboy said:

You can share mine.

opcorn:

[veevee]

you have a corsa.. ok maybe not your fault.

but youre going to buy an astra? why?

[mnkiboy]

If it's mainly motorway driving you do, then the long top gear of a diesel will save you money. However, diesels don't save you a great deal at all if you're doing 4 mile journeys and sitting in traffic.

At £3K, i'd probably stick with petrol. Especially with the price of diesel at the moment.

[frosted]

A diesel but not a GM one

[321fallen]

Haha I like kicking up a debate, but I am really stuck...I've never in my life had a diesel always petrol. Is diesel cheaper on insurance? Ive heard theyre a bum for breaking down and expensive to fix? It that just prefrence or luck? Im very unlucky with cars...

[kieranjholland]

Vladimir said:

My 2005 diesel (1.9 CDTi 150) Astra suffered swirl flap failure at 38k miles. Decent enough engine but BEWARE!!

I'd err towards petrol.

I took a 83,000 mile volvo S60 (cost £3,000) to 127,000 without any issues... the S60 inline 5 cylinder achieved around 55 mpg.

There are horror stories with every engine in every car, I'd er on the side of economy based on your requirements and do your research.

[5lab]

12,000 miles a year isn't an unreasonable number of miles on either fuel type, but at that price, some diesels start eating pricey components.

[80sboy]

Plenty to go around...

[V88Dicky]

250-300 miles per week is not really silly mileage now, is it? It sounds perfectly average to me.

For the record, I do about 280 per week, mostly dual carriageway, and I'm managing perfectly well in a 2.0 petrol, averaging 42-45mpg, about £40 per week.

I'd suggest for £3k, that a small petrol will be in better condition/lower mileage than a diesel for that price, and overall running costs very similar.

[321fallen]

I like the astra newer shape, its bigger than the corsa and I don't want a family sized car (I have a lil one) I want it to look a little sporty without the cost, and I love the look of the astra it loooks nice inside and out (to me anyway) Wanted one since they first came out...yeah corsa is just my run around car. I hate it but it does me for now.

[321fallen]

I think its silly mileage haha compared to what the OH does and my friends (they barely do 3k a year), I'm usually stuck in traffic going to Nottingham every single morning. I go through a stupid amount of fuel...i'm looking at getting a 1.4/1.6 astra or 1.7D astra...but I dunno which. The two cars i'm looking at one has 55k miles on the clock 05 1.6 reg astra 2995 and the diesel is 1.7 with 62k miles at same price.

[Monty Python]

Is there some reason why you have to change? The savings in fuel may look attractive, but it'll be a long time before you recover the cost of actually buying/insuring/servicing it.

If your current car is running okay, stick with it.

[321fallen]

I need a bigger car and better on fuel and the astra is cheaper on insurance than the corsa is....it runs okay but its on 92k miles and I just hate the car.

[kieranjholland]

kieranjholland said:

deisel looking at your mileage

didn't do the math, definitely a petrol if you're doing these miles... if you go higher and are keeping the car for 3 years+ then deisel becomes more relevant:

[veevee]

at least get a focus!

[Apache]

Modern diesels at around that price will be a bit leggy and some major cost items might give you a nasty surprise such as fuel pumps, turbos and injectors. I'd say another smally petrol should be just fine