Petrol V Diesel cars, which to go for, need advice

[sweetkitty]

This is for DP really, he is about to get his own car, he will be driving 70 miles a day so 350 miles a week.

He wants a Diesel but they are like hens teeth in our price range loads of petrols though. Diesels are also about £1500 mroe expensive than petrol equivalents

So he has asked me to ask MN, if theres anyone who has had a petrol then switched to a Diesel and what were the savings?

TIA

anyone?

Hi, I changed from a 1.4l petrol VW Golf to a 1.9l diesel Citroen Zsara Picasso. It now costs me slightly less than it used to to do my regular long drive to visit family and I am driving a much bigger car.

HTH

You can compare fuel efficiency etc here

My mother persuaded me to get a diesel, and I am so glad. It is extremely fuel efficient, I hardly ever have to fill it up.

I only drive around town, but I would have thought that with 350 miles a week it would pay for itself very quickly.

It's also worth remembering that some diesels need servicing less frequently - so you can save money there too.

Finally, don't forget that diesel engines are meant to last longer than petrol engines - so you could do what I did and get a diesel with a higher milage - 80,000 in my case, which brought the price down quite a lot.

I bought a brand new Mazda 2 two months ago (diesel) and we went on holiday last week - return journey and driving around all week cost £90 - last year in a petrol car, same engine size it cost £150.

It is a slower car - in diesels the rev's are low down so it's easier to stall and slower to get going. I have noticed enormous savings on fuel though - usually I would spend £30 a week - now spending less than £20.

I bought it because ours was on it's last legs and I benefitted from the government scrappage scheme - before I had an unreliable 11 year old shit car that cost fortunes in repairs, now I spend £211 a month driving around in something that is saving me money. And it's totally reliable obviously - cheaper insurance, no MOT for 3 years. No further costs for 3 years (when it will be paid off).

I'm eulogising now but it's so nice to drive around in a car that you are just waiting for something else to be replaced that month - the last month I had my old car the bloody cat went - at £140.

I know it is the daily mail, but they got their figures from somewhere else so it may be true? Have a look here

Interesting - average 12p more per litre for diesel than petrol? I would question that figure tbh - around here diesel and petrol are always within 1p of each other, I certainly have never seen it cost anything like 12p more.

Op, if you are reading this article then I wouldsuggest the first thin is to compare prices in your local area, are petrol and diesel similar prices where you are?

From the article "AA president Edmund King said: 'Buying a diesel is not an automatic switch to cut-price motoring. For many low-mileage drivers, buying a diesel is a false economy."

I don't think low milage really applies here

Thanks

Interestingly enough when we bought the MPV last year we Diesels were about 1-1.5K more expensive and with the mileage I do, about 30 miles a week it was not worth it.

Just wondering if DP is doing 350 miles a week it will make a difference, he ahs been on public transport for 4 years and is sick of it, it's so inflexible and with 3 young DCs it means he can work compressed hours and be at home more.

350 miles a week on my petrol (estate) car is about 1 tank per week. In the equivalent diesel I would guess that it would be about 0.6 tanks/week, saving about £20 per week, i.e. about £1000 per year. Offset that with increased servicing costs, probably around £200 extra for servicing and I would estimate a saving about £800 per year from running a diesel on that sort of mileage.

"While Britain's big four supermarkets have recently cut diesel prices to 97.9p per litre, petrol can be found for 85.9p per litre on some forecourts. A diesel car costs on average £1,400 more than its petrol equivalent."

From that Daily Mail piece. I don't remember petrol being anything like as cheap as that for years, but that's apparently the figure they've based their costings on

Definitely worth paying a bit more for a diesel car on that mileage, kitty - plus he will probably actually do more than that with running around at weekends. And as had already been mentioned, diesel engines have a much longer life so you can buy a higher mileage car than you would if it was petrol.

I would say a diesel. I have a 2.0tdi audi a3 and it does about 55mpg, DP has a 2.0tdi golf and it does even better. And neither of them lack power at all. I get about 600 miles out of a full tank which costs £55ish.

The gap between the price of diesel and petrol has come down a lot, so now it is just 2p more I find. Interestingly we had a few weeks in the Scotiish Highlands recently and diesel was a penny or two a litre cheaper than petrol up there.

We have a diesel MPV and I drive about 200-250 miles a week. It's much more efficient than DHs petrol car (though to be fair his petrol car is an older car so less efficient anyway).

I have a 2.0 litre diesel and get about 550 miles out of a tank that at the moment costs around £65-70 to fill up. DHs car is a 2.0 litre petrol car and costs about the same to fill up (petrol prices very similar to diesel at the mo) and he gets about 350 miles out of a tank.

Get a diesel with a biggish engine.

DH had a BMW 320d and it was very fuel efficient. I cannot work out the mpg (I only do liters/100km as live abroad) but we used to do almost 1000km on one tank of petrol which is over 600 miles.

Have a look at BMW 3 series (320d) and the Audi range, you can go for an older diesel as they last much longer than a petrol engine.

DH's car had 130000km on the clock after 3 years but was still running perfectly. It was sold for a really low price.

Check out Honest John on the diesel v. petrol debate. He takes the view that diesels are not necessarily cheaper to run once maintenance costs are taken into account.

The petrol station I use has diesel the same price as the cheaper petrol (and 6p cheaper than the super-unleaded, or whatever it is called) at the moment.

I changed to a diesel four years ago when i was commuting 100 miles per day, my weekly fuel bills went from £70 to £40, so a saving of around £120 a month, really is worth it in the long run

Dh is a driving instructor. When he had a petrol car the fuel bill was much higher than the one we have now (cute little 5 door Citroen C3). He's had no problems with it (other than a very hamfisted pupil yanking the gearstick half out of its moorings!)

DH: 2l petrol VW Passat estate. 25mpg A-road driving, 400 miles a week
Me: 2l diesel Focus estate. 42mpg round town, 100 miles a week

same reg, similar mileage, similar price, obv his is bigger but mine has more poke.

no significant difference in servicing costs so far