Petrol vans - making a comeback?

[Johnnytheboy]

I'll be ordering a new small van for work soon. We mostly run little Peugeot Bippers with the 1.3 diesel in them.

Inclined to think - given the current anti-diesel climate - it might be time to consider petrol vans.

Ford are doing their littlest van, the Courier, with the 1.0 litre triple in 100 bhp spec, which sounds appealing.

Is anyone else thinking the same thing?

My biggest fear is my numpty staff filling it with diesel.

[grumpy52]

It will be interesting if the trend is to go back to petrol .
The main advantage of the oil burners was torque to haul loads about .
I await with interest how small capacity turbo petrol vans last when being thrashed by van man .

[brrapp]

I'm working for Royal Mail at the moment and all the new postie vans we've got are petrol Peugeot partners. They seem fine though the oldest is younger than six months so not had time for faults to show. The only bad thing is they are fitted with the same telematics as the diesels so show anything over 3000rpm as bad driving. Try pulling onto a busy roundabout fully laden without touching the loud pedal!!!

[Johnnytheboy]

brrapp said:

I'm working for Royal Mail at the moment and all the new postie vans we've got are petrol Peugeot partners. They seem fine though the oldest is younger than six months so not had time for faults to show. The only bad thing is they are fitted with the same telematics as the diesels so show anything over 3000rpm as bad driving. Try pulling onto a busy roundabout fully laden without touching the loud pedal!!!

I'm feet manager, and I'll be in the cold, cold ground before any kind of driver monitoring is installed on our vans.

Interested to note that I'm not the only one thinking this way.

The only bitter pill will be the fuel consumption (the Bippers return 50+ MPG driven round town!), but my reasoning is that my vans do very low mileages, and any future additional diesel tax may well be levied on RFL rather than fuel in any case.

May go and test drive a Courier then.

[bigwheel]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

You can't get a Diesel nozzle (wider than a petrol nozzle) into the smaller petrol filler hole/neck!
Aside from the truly lunatic person who might try and trickle diesel into a small petrol neck without actually having the diesel nozzle inserted into the petrol neck. But then you wouldn't be employing someone of that calibre.
Or would you?

[Jag_NE]

If it’s a lease I don’t think that petrol brings anything to the party apart from inferior fuel economy and a lot less pulling power. If you are buying the van and plan on keeping it for ten years it might make me think twice but a ten year old van will be shagged and worthless anyway unless it’s a pretty special spec.

[Johnnytheboy]

bigwheel said:

You can't get a Diesel nozzle (wider than a petrol nozzle) into the smaller petrol filler hole/neck!
Aside from the truly lunatic person who might try and trickle diesel into a small petrol neck without actually having the diesel nozzle inserted into the petrol neck. But then you wouldn't be employing someone of that calibre.
Or would you?

Army of middle aged women

Forgotten petrol necks are narrower.

[Johnnytheboy]

Jag_NE said:

If it’s a lease I don’t think that petrol brings anything to the party apart from inferior fuel economy and a lot less pulling power. If you are buying the van and plan on keeping it for ten years it might make me think twice but a ten year old van will be shagged and worthless anyway unless it’s a pretty special spec.

We buy them and treat them very well.

My main motivation is on the basis that the government is moving gently towards penalising diesel vehicle owners, and it might be best to be ahead of the game.

[brrapp]

Jag_NE said:

I don’t think that petrol brings anything to the party apart from inferior fuel economy and a lot less pulling power.

The diesels the Royal Mail use have terrible DPF problems because of the stop start nature of their work. Unless legislation is changed or someone invents something better, DPF s alone are enough to sound the death knell for light commercial diesels.

[Jag_NE]

brrapp said:

The diesels the Royal Mail use have terrible DPF problems because of the stop start nature of their work. Unless legislation is changed or someone invents something better, DPF s alone are enough to sound the death knell for light commercial diesels.

dpf’s have been in the field for ten years now and i think the problem is exaggrated, the market would have driven the oems to produce petrol alternatives otherwise. as it happens, some petrol options are now emerging but that is due to politics and the behaviour of VW as opposed to the market en masse rejecting dpf.

[vsonix]

Jag_NE said:

brrapp said:

The diesels the Royal Mail use have terrible DPF problems because of the stop start nature of their work. Unless legislation is changed or someone invents something better, DPF s alone are enough to sound the death knell for light commercial diesels.

dpf’s have been in the field for ten years now and i think the problem is exaggrated, the market would have driven the oems to produce petrol alternatives otherwise. as it happens, some petrol options are now emerging but that is due to politics and the behaviour of VW as opposed to the market en masse rejecting dpf.

The French have already been at war with diesel for a few years now, and the sales figures for cars with engines 2.0 and under have flipped from circa 70-30 in favour of derv to the other way round since 2014.
Of course the real con is that despite petrol regaining popularity, it's not getting any cheaper and increased demand from commercial fleets is only going to push prices even higher.

[agent006]

Vans doing low mileages? Have you considered a Kangoo ZE or e-NV200? Regardless of what the petrolhead stance is on them, if the range fits your usage then they can make good economic sense.

[AdamIndy]

Johnnytheboy said:

I'm feet manager,

That's an interesting job!

[egor110]

brrapp said:

I'm working for Royal Mail at the moment and all the new postie vans we've got are petrol Peugeot partners. They seem fine though the oldest is younger than six months so not had time for faults to show. The only bad thing is they are fitted with the same telematics as the diesels so show anything over 3000rpm as bad driving. Try pulling onto a busy roundabout fully laden without touching the loud pedal!!!

The reason we have peugeot and vauxhall is they shut down a production line to just bang out red post vans unlike ford .

I'm currently using a 57 combi , it's old but also very reliable.

Last time we had a transport audit the guy was saying in London there looking into petrol vans again.

[Jag_NE]

vsonix said:

The French have already been at war with diesel for a few years now, and the sales figures for cars with engines 2.0 and under have flipped from circa 70-30 in favour of derv to the other way round since 2014.
Of course the real con is that despite petrol regaining popularity, it's not getting any cheaper and increased demand from commercial fleets is only going to push prices even higher.

good point. i had wondered what might happen to diesel and petrol prices as petrol demand increases and diesel demand drops. i presume that the vast majority of diesel is burned by the high miler cars and trucks and the low to mid users switching to petrol may not make a huge dent in it, i havent seen any data however.

[vsonix]

Jag_NE said:

vsonix said:

The French have already been at war with diesel for a few years now, and the sales figures for cars with engines 2.0 and under have flipped from circa 70-30 in favour of derv to the other way round since 2014.
Of course the real con is that despite petrol regaining popularity, it's not getting any cheaper and increased demand from commercial fleets is only going to push prices even higher.

good point. i had wondered what might happen to diesel and petrol prices as petrol demand increases and diesel demand drops. i presume that the vast majority of diesel is burned by the high miler cars and trucks and the low to mid users switching to petrol may not make a huge dent in it, i havent seen any data however.

My gut feeling is that the price of diesel will be kept artificially high at the pump for both commercial and domestic users anyway, therefore masking fluctuations in the price of petrol. The end result will be higher prices on everything as the customer will have to absorb the increased costs of bringing things to market. I imagine red diesel for agricultural use will remain exempt for the foreseeable future - I certainly can't see the farmers suddenly switching to electric tractors overnight!

Also, I think a large proportion of people will be in no hurry to get rid of their current favourite diesel long-distance car or light commercial vehicle, especially those who aren't doing much daily urban driving - the main issue with diesel is using it in town centres for lots of stop-start driving - people who aren't using their cars in that way are still saving significant money per mile using their diesels. Of course they may well choose petrol when it becomes time to replace their car - but I don't think we're seeing the used market flooded with cheap diesels going for a fraction of their regular value.

Of course now they have announced targets to be ending use of all internal combustion engines by 2040, which I think is highly unrealistic considering hybrid technology is only really getting into its stride and there is still little noise about Hydrogen Fuel Cell which I think is the next best thing after traditional internal combustion. I am really not convinced that making every single vehicle battery powered is the way forward considering the mass manufacture of batteries isn't much better for the planet, when it comes to the point, than burning fossil fuels. It just moves the problem a bit further out of sight of the average person living in the affluent West. Sure, we get cleaner streets but I can't imagine the quality of life for the villagers downstream of the lithium and cobalt mines has got any better lately.

[lucido grigio]

AdamIndy said:

Johnnytheboy said:

I'm feet manager,

That's an interesting job!

Chiropody on the side.

[Johnnytheboy]

What might change people's minds is provincial cities introducing emissions charging for diesels, as has been suggested.

[ChemicalChaos]

egor110 said:

Last time we had a transport audit the guy was saying in London there looking into petrol vans again.

London, of course, has the LEZ charge against older diesel vehicles. Consequently, if you look on eBay for vans in London, it is full of 2 litre petrol Transits running on LPG. It's a win-win AFAIC - even cleaner emissions than petrol, and half the cost too.

[hairyben]

We had a lot of 1.4 astra and combi and (Essex?) engined transits of late 90s vintage on the leccy board when I joined... They seemed up to the incessant thrashing that was dealt them.

Were so much nicer than the insipid Isuzu 1.7d vaux and ldv cr@p that replaced them... Mind I'd rather bicycle than ever drive a sherpa again.

But yeah have the same dilemma here - need to replace my 10 year old PoS Vito but want something that'll give me 10 years and the current options are diesel, diesel and diesel, which is being banned and penalised as we speak - London boroughs are even gouging diesel penalty tariffs on p&d parking now!