Fuel price discussion thread (was ‘chaos’)

Am I missing something here when people keep saying diesel isn't worth it? I've been looking at a lot of cars recently and the petrol ones which people seem to wax lyrical about these days are always significantly less economical than the diesel equivalent. Closer to 50% than the 20% disparity in the price of the fuel.
Is there really any truth in diesels having more expensive servicing and insurance? I don't think so tbh.
I understand that diesels can be money pits, I own one of those with a Mazda badge on already. That tech behind a lot of those problems exists in petrols nowadays too, and indeed a number of the downsized turbo petrols have just the same reputation for unreliability.
 
I don't think a modern petrol car is any more reliable than a modern diesel car now - this used to be the case back when a diesel had direct injection, a particulate filter and a turbocharger and a petrol engine had none of those things but petrol engines even have particulate filters these days. As discussed in the other thread about this I don't think there is any material difference in servicing prices either.

So, really, the only differences that might matter are how much will it cost in fuel and how much will it lose in value over the time you have it. One of these is easy to work out, the other is not.

Even in the current range, well, as of last week before they removed it, I don't think there is a better engine in something like a 5 Series than the 3 litre diesel. The 4 cylinder engines are not as smooth and don't have the same effortless power delivery you get from a larger engine and the 6 cylinder petrol engine delivers largely the same sort of experience but consumes significantly more fuel and also carries around a load of batteries and has a fuel tank almost half the size which really impacts on the range.
 
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Clarkey said:
Am I missing something here when people keep saying diesel isn't worth it? I've been looking at a lot of cars recently and the petrol ones which people seem to wax lyrical about these days are always significantly less economical than the diesel equivalent. Closer to 50% than the 20% disparity in the price of the fuel.
Is there really any truth in diesels having more expensive servicing and insurance? I don't think so tbh.
I understand that diesels can be money pits, I own one of those with a Mazda badge on already. That tech behind a lot of those problems exists in petrols nowadays too, and indeed a number of the downsized turbo petrols have just the same reputation for unreliability.
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Never seen any difference in insurance personally, other people's mileage may vary. Servicing is a tricky one - if you need to comply with certain servicing specifics for warranty, etc. reasons on a new car diesels can be worse but that is a case by case basis, otherwise if you are sensible servicing is similar for both.

For a similar MPG vehicle the average person is probably looking at about £5/m extra for a diesel fuel wise at the moment, that may change either way in the future - but there aren't always close equivalents for a car petrol vs diesel.

Depreciation is going to be a varied story.

Where it is likely to sting more is if you try to keep an old and/or high mileage diesel on the road when big ticket items start to reach end of life.

Again other people's experiences might vary but I've never had any issues really with diesels people talk about and/or from not babying them and largely just driving with minimal time spent warming up - aside from EGR issues, people worry about DPF, etc. a lot but at least in my experience it has been rare and far more likely EGR related problems if they do happen. We run a fleet of diesel vehicles at work, and they certainly don't get serviced like they should, most of them on like 200K miles before you start getting any major issues - with varying usage patterns from vehicles which literally spend their entire life doing 2 minute runs down the road and back 2-3 times a day to ones which will be out on major roads for 30+ minutes, etc. and these are for the most part not driven sympathetically.
 
Some of it depends on what you’re using it for and how you’re using it.

If your doing short journeys then a petrol will get up to temperature quicker, a diesel won’t which is harder on the turbo, it’ll also soot up more.

I’ve gone from a 1.9tdi to a 1.8tsi, and other than it being thirstier It’s not cost me anymore on servicing. Other than brakes discs and pads and 2x services it’s not cost me anything in 30,000 miles of ownership.
 
Doobedoo said:
If your doing short journeys then a petrol will get up to temperature quicker, a diesel won’t which is harder on the turbo, it’ll also soot up more.
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On my 3.0L diesel pickup the previous owner put 20K miles on it, average 15MPH, a big chunk of that being the school run of like 2-3 miles :( that has not done several components any favours. But I'm up to nearly 140K miles before that caught up with stuff like the turbo. (EDIT: Oh and in the context of this thread I don't even want to think about the fuel bill LOL).

But I bought it knowing what I was getting into.

(If it was any other vehicle I'd have sold it before this point - spent like 6 grand keeping it on the road recently :( though some of that is due to off-road use requiring replacement of suspension parts, etc.).
 
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Rroff said:
On my 3.0L diesel pickup the previous owner put 20K miles on it, average 15MPH, a big chunk of that being the school run of like 2-3 miles :( that has not done several components any favours. But I'm up to nearly 140K miles before that caught up with stuff like the turbo.

But I bought it knowing what I was getting into.

(If it was any other vehicle I'd have sold it before this point - spent like 6 grand keeping it on the road recently :( though some of that is due to off-road use requiring replacement of suspension parts, etc.).
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My mum on the other hand and mother in law both had turbos go on turbo diesels and were told the short journeys were a contributing factor. It’s the oil that isn’t able to thin down enough to lubricate it sufficiently, it’s why your told never to rag a car from cold, it won’t go bang immediately but it will speed up the wear by a lot.

On my tdi it was a common mod to do an egr delete because it was inevitable that it would need either cleaning or replacing.
 
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Tinders said:
Looks like fuel is back up. Local Morrisons dropped to 137.9 last week…..for a grand total of 4 days, back upto 140.7 now.

They took forever to come down, Costco had been 135.9 for a good 2 months.
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I just received an email from our fuelcard company saying they are expecting fuel to drop 5p from next week!
 
I hope we all enjoyed the last few months of lower fuel prices as OPEC just decided to reduce oil production by 3.7%, which means oil prices rising back up from approx $78 a few days ago at the announcement to $82 now and likely $100+ again in the very near future, taking fuel prices up with it, oh joy!

www.reuters.com

OPEC+ announces surprise oil output cuts

Oil prices last month fell towards $70 a barrel on concern that the global banking crisis would hit demand. Still, further action by OPEC+ to support the market was not expected as crude recovered toward $80.
www.reuters.com www.reuters.com
 
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Tinders said:
They haven’t really come down much by me. UL is still 145, when it should be 125 in reality, watch the fuel prices shoot up
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As a rough "finger in the air" guess as to the coming increases, last time oil prices was at mid-$90's per barrel (March 2022) the UK fuel costs were about 20p a litre higher than right now for petrol & 10p for diesel at 167p and 179p respectively and both were climbing, hitting £2 by June 2022.

I wonder how close we are to repeating that same peak?
 
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