To buy a diesel car for our family of 5?

[Foxjar]

We need a gutsy car for our family of 5 which include 3 teens. Not brand new but newish.

The only cars big enough with a decent engine for what we need it to do( carry 3 teens in decent seats with space,cope with loads of luggage and long journeys)in our price range are diesel. They have Adblue which puts it in the second to top emissions band i.e. much better than many petrol cars.

When you take into account the damage electric cars do to the environment from mining of chemicals needed to make batteries,shipping it,their manufacture and then the fossil fuels burned to produce the electricity there is very little in said slightly low ec emissions grading as far as I can see between the Adblue diesel we're looking at and the top electric cars i.e. morally I see no point.There are no electric cars big enough anyway. All the petrol options have crappier engines. There is one but it is waaaay out of our price range( 60k Volvo).

Soooo what to do? Would buying diesel option be foolhardy? Our car is on its last legs. Could wait a year tops. It's a dirtier older diesel so ideally need to sort this sooner.

We won't replace our Toyota diesel (auris estate) until our teens have left home foxjar, for some of the reasons you give.

All cars with an internal combustion engine are polluting - this includes hybrids, which often have downsized engines which have to work proportionately harder and are therefore less economical/ more polluting when not running on the battery (which for the sort of extended highway driving you describe will be much of the time).

A diesel car driven carefully will give excellent fuel economy (less CO2) and a new or year old car will have both a filter for particulate emissions and a system to remove NOx. Whether diesel is better than petrol for you will depend on your driving habits, and whether it is better for the environment or not will depend on the model.

There are a couple of big camping Facebook groups where I imagine you'd have a lot of responses - transport is a big deal.

We have a 7 seater diesel. We're rural and everywhere is at least a15'minute drive on varying quality roads.

I've never seen an electric car charger, I don't think we have one nearby which is clearly another consideration if you're car shopping.

People saying smaller low engine cars will be good enough. Really? We had a smaller, lower engine car. Getting from our house to a campsite with a full car plus camping gear was ridiculous. The car was slow, overloaded and struggled to cope. We probably damaged the car, truth be told.

If you concerned about the environment and emissions have you looked at hybrid's?
The auris is very nice and economic.

Can I recommend a Skoda. Either the Octavia or the Superb. There is the Kodiak as well. Huge huge boots and we have two men children plus camping crap and all fits in plus bikes on top. Two litre diesel goes like the clappers. Good economy if you drive below 68 ishn motorways.

The Mitsubishi something or other is big and electric hybrid. We couldn't have one because we tow but is a lovely car. Also Nissan xtrail have bought out a hybrid (I think) but the xtrail was beautiful inside, gorgeous to drive but unfortunately for us didn't have enough nose weight for what we need. I've got a Jeep renegade 4 by 4 and it is roomy, lovely and drives like a dream - it loves motorways. I needed a 4b4 for my commute (go up horrible steep hills in various weather conditions) and it was ten brand off the list price so had to go with diesel but if you don't need 4b4 then petrol versions are available.

You want to fit a canoe in there??

No journeys under 20 miles RT suggests advantage to diesel.

Monthly we'd probably use it for 2x20 miles+ 2x40 alongside some 30 mile round trips to work weekly

How many are "some" 30 mile work trips. How many of those above are single occupant journeys?

some 200 and 400 mile journeys over the year as a whole on top.

Are all those journeys with 4-5 ppl in car, How many is "some"?

Then a long Europe holiday.
I'll assume that's once a year, not monthly!

If I were OP, I would need to know to have an idea on the definition of "some". If < 6 journeys per year all loaded up, then could still be more economical off with a small car owned on your drive, & hire a bigger one for the occasional big outing.

Do any of your kids have asthma?

I've found my worsening asthma has really concentrated my mind about diesel. Yes all cars pollute, making them uses stuff we can't afford out of the environment, but diesel particulates are actively making it hard for people to breathe right now.

Diesel is significantly more damaging to lungs than petrol.

52festive or drive it through a burning building!

Apart from the poor MPG, I love my Yeti!

I have specific needs for my car in that I have a large musical instrument in a particular configuration that I carry about very regularly. I can't afford to run 2 vehicles and like the OP live rurally. There are no charging points within a 20 minute drive of me and every journey from home involves getting up steep hills.

I took my instrument to every car dealer in my nearest city. Many of the staff laughed at me (saying "why not play the flute instead?" - of course, how dumb of me to think that orchestras and bands consist only of flutes!) and the instrument only fitted into a couple of cars.

I ended up with a VW Touran again but traded down from the 1.9 to 1.6 diesel. It fits 3 adults in the back (middle row of seats) and will take the 4 of us plus all our string instruments, music stands and concert clothes in comfort. I normally do around 16000 to 19000 miles per year. Yesterday I took DD back to university. The boot was about full (including her cello) to half height and on a return journey of almost 500 miles, I averaged 54 mpg.

The stories about diesels annoy me. All fossil fuels emit particulates and gases. You have to weigh up which is worse, or least bad. An electric car would be completely unsuitable for me; firstly the boot space is inadequate and secondly, our rural electricity supply is subject to outages on a regular basis (weekly). We have no public transport here and cycling with the instruments is impossible.

I completely understand where the OP is coming from. If you live in a city with a brilliant reliable public transport system, fine. However, if you do, please do not sit in judgment of the decisions of those of us who do not. I agree that in the city, the diesel engines of the buses are unpleasant. However, new diesels with good filters and Ad Blu emit nothing like that.

Anna yes. I have asthma also.
My car is six months old and has particulate filters making it cleaner than most modern petrol engines.

I would say the only reason to still buy diesel is if you are towing things or doing mega mileage.
Modern petrol engines are plenty powerful enough. You might just be used to where the torque is delivered on a diesel.

As OP is looking at a newish diesel as a potential vehicle, one that conforms to the latest Euro 6 standards isn't going to be much more polluting than a petrol engine, but will require more regular maintenance to keep emissions to a minimum.

www.theengineer.co.uk/fact-check-are-diesel-cars-really-more-polluting-than-petrol-cars/

I wouldn't buy a new diesel now as I think they will devalue quickly.
I would buy a newish second hand one though if that is what suits your current needs.
I won't be replacing mine until I have to. I do a lot of mileage and regularly have a full car with DH and adult sized DCs. I have a Volvo V50. Not a huge car but we also have room for transporting luggage to university and for camping.

We have just been through a similar exercise, we have 3 boys, 8, 14 & 16. Most weekends we are all in the car so size was everything, although I have a good car allowance we are capped on emissions. Which does cut out some of the perfect fit size wise cars for us, even though the pennies stack up. The trouble with many cars they have a big transmissions tunnel which restricts middle seat rear leg room.
Cars that fitted size wise Discovery Sport, Jaguar F pace, Nissan X Trail, BMW X1 & VW Tiguan. Also VW passat estate was OK. Didn't look at people carriers as I don't like them. Ended up going for the BMW as we got a better spec than the boys choice of the Jaguar.
I wanted a PHEV but the lease company capped the mileage at 30k per year which we do in excess of this.