Diesel for low miles?

[roger.mellie]

I’m on the lookout for a mid-large size SUV or estate (I need a large boot) and I’m getting fed up looking for a petrol model. Diesels massively outnumber petrols for this type of car. Most petrols that are available have engines that I’d consider underpowered on a large car and are usually lower trim levels.

I’m in Ireland and diesel is still king here. The availability of well specced larger petrol engined models is very thin. Especially since I want an automatic. Resale is also a concern for the same reason.

My annual mileage is low enough that mpg is not a concern. I do about 6k a year. That’s regular short drives of about 3 miles each way, a regular fortnightly drive of about 80 miles and a semi regular monthly drive of about 200 miles.

Would the above driving profile lead to problems with a diesel?

I know petrol makes more sense and it is by a long way still my preference, but if diesel was a viable option it would make the search a lot easier. I haven’t ruled out hybrids or EVs either but haven’t seen any that would suit me in my price range and they often have worse boot space than the non hybrid equivalent.

For the first time in my life I’m seriously considering leasing but again large higher trim level petrols seem to cost disproportionately more than the diesel equivalent, I’m assuming that’s due to worse depreciation.

TL;DR is a regular fortnightly drive of 80 miles enough to get over the problems of using a diesel for daily short trips?

[roger.mellie]

Belle427 said:

It's hard to say really, we run our Xtrail in a similar fashion, mainly shorter trips and gets a longish run now and again and in 18 months touch wood we have not had a problem.
A work colleague has a Tdi Audi TT and he does have issues if he spends a week or two pottering around town.

Venisonpie said:

I run a fleet of 350 vehicles, all bar 12 are diesel. We have a small number of DPF issues with vehicles operating in urban environments but not enough to get excited about. I think you'll be fine and to be sure exercise the car hard every fortnight!

Thanks, it sounds like a diesel isn't out of the question then. I'd still prefer a petrol but suspect that a diesel is more likely.

Venisonpie said:

ZX10R NIN said:

If you're happy to fly over to the UK then your options open up & the prices are more competitive how much were you looking to spend?

But do check the import duty though. We did a similar exercise for the Irish operation recently and once you add shipping costs we found the local market was equal to the English option. Agree on more choice though.

I've considered that too, I agree the difference in choice is stark. But the additional effort, paperwork and costs put me off. My preferred budget was initially 12k but scope creep has pushed me up to 15K now .

[roger.mellie]

VR99 said:

It seems to be the case that some diesel engines are better than others at taking abuse from mainly short stop start journeys and overall lower annual mileages.
The Honda 2.2 diesel engines (found in the CRV?) seem to be well received and not seen much about dpf related issues but I'm well aware that a lot of VAG group and BMW diesel engines have dpf issues...that's not to say all VAG diesels are a problem but a friend's Audi had a lot of costly issues with the dpf and egr on a 2.0 tdi engine.

Thanks, that's good to know and something I'll look into. My car history is mainly Japanese and petrol so a Honda would appeal. I've nothing against the German marques but they aren't currently top of my list. My main preference so far is the Volvo range of SUVs and estates.