Is diesel pointless?

[philoldsmobile]

interesting results..

[F Body]

It depends on several things :

1 / The difference in actual real world fuel consumption.

2 / The difference in purchase price.

3 / The amount of miles you drive

Our Diesel Panda averages 52mpg round town ( was 56mpg before I changed the low rolling resistance tyres and put on two sizes wider ) and +65mpg at 70mph and the petrol version was about 42mpg max

The difference in purchase price was +£1,800 against the petrol model ( but that was poverty spec without the toys )

It's nearly four years old and is rapidly approaching 60k miles, probably haven't saved anything apart from fewer trips to the pumps

[Cunning Plan]

Interesting Phil.

But:

No one buys new apart from people with that much money they don't care if Diesel costs more anyway. - Argument Void.

A small city car is one thing, but move that up to a useful estate / 4x4 and you would be crazy to choose petrol over diesel.

FACT:
My 1997 Mondeo 1.8 Petrol = £70 ish to fill tank, 510 mile range, working about 34-36mpg

My housemate's 1997 1.9TDi VW Passat = £70 ish to fill tank, 720/50 mile range, working out about 60/65 mpg.

SO, for every third tank I am filling up, I would be getting a 'free' tank in the diesel - EVEN if it is more expensive.

Good thread though..

[EDGE]

depends, in the USA dirty denzel trucks are hugley popular due to the massive torque for towing, not the fuel economy....

[Andy]

Quoting: Cunning Plan

FACT:
My 1997 Mondeo 1.8 Petrol = £70 ish to fill tank, 510 mile range, working about 34-36mpg

My housemate's 1997 1.9TDi VW Passat = £70 ish to fill tank, 720/50 mile range, working out about 60/65 mpg

What the feck is your house mate filling his up on?!

£60 fills up my Mondeo 1.8TD (completely unrefined engine), driving careful and not on the turbo (just under 2k on all gear changes) I've so far achieved 260miles to half a tank. A tank costs me £60 and a tank consists of 61.5 Litres not including the filler neck.

[v8mad0]

Her indoors had an e34 3.0v8 that did around 18 round town, she now has an e39 2.5 TD which is a much better car and does 30 round town

[HardRockCamaro]

Hmm...

The problem with figures is the cost of filling a tank and the ish part of mpg.
You need to be more scientific than that, and it depends on where you drive and how.

I'm impressed your mate gets 60-65 consistently out of his Passat.  My dad has a lighter Focus TDCi, drives at 55-60mph, is *very* smooth, does a lot of forward planning and mostly drives on flowing dual carriageways in fairly flat territory (ie no major hills) and he gets an *average* 57mpg out of his car according to the trip computer, peaking at 65mpg if the trip is more downhill than up and he has a tail wind etc.  This is someone sho gets 65,000 miles out of a set of tyres and more than that on a single set of brake pads...  

I have done a lot of sums on petrol vs diesel, hybrid vs diesel and so on and the cheapest to run (which means balancing off depreciation, maintenance and fuel and tax) varies depending what kind of driving you do and how much of it.

My maths showed me that long dual carriageway type runs gave the edge to a diesel *if* you do enough mileage to pay back the extra cost.  If you mostly drive around town a hybrid is far better than a diesel, but again you have to do enough miles to justify the increased cost of a hybrid over a petrol car, and if you drive around town are you really going to do that many miles?  

The problem is that people look at the headline diesel mpg figure (ideal conditions, long run etc) and don't take into account the extra purchase cost and the extra cost of the fuel itself.

It's not a simple sum.  The traditional longer lifespan of a diesel engine is not so straightforward these days with expensive turbos that will need replacing long before the petrol engine needs a rebuild and uber expensive injection systems and fuel pumps.


I think if you do a lot of A-road miles and keep your car for longer than 3 years the diesel is the way forward.  I'm not sure that everyone who buys one actually gets value out of them though.

At the moment I'm lucky enough to only be doing mileage for fun so one or two tanks per month in the Jeep are affordable.  If I was doing a 30+ mile round trip to work every day I'd have to reconsider..

[Cunning Plan]

Quoting: Andy

What the feck is your house mate filling his up on?!

£60 fills up my Mondeo 1.8TD (completely unrefined engine), driving careful and not on the turbo (just under 2k on all gear changes) I've so far achieved 260miles to half a tank. A tank costs me £60 and a tank consists of 61.5 Litres not including the filler neck.

That's rubbish even my petrol is returning better than that

[Fieldy]

It also depends on the gearing of the individual cars etc remember.

My pick-up is diesel, but is soooo low geared I can only get 30mpg on a run at 60mph.

My 2.0 petrol Mondeo has got an average of 34mpg with me driving fairly irratically and sitting at 85mph on the way to work.

However, my old C2, Diesel, 1.4 would average 67mpg around a combined run of highway and urban That car was only worth £2k

[philoldsmobile]

Quoting: Fieldy

My pick-up is diesel, but is soooo low geared I can only get 30mpg on a run at 60mph.

you'd be substantially better off with a Yank V8 running on LPG.

Dad is getting about 47mpg out of his Pug 307 1.4 petrol (8v), under mixed driving. Like HardRocks father, he is an extremely economical driver due to forward planning and general skill, also his normal driving consists of a lot of 60mph routes.

[Fieldy]

Quoting: philoldsmobile

you'd be substantially better off with a Yank V8 running on LPG.

Either or, the one I have came up when I wanted it