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RIP Diesel?

After all the diesel bad press plenty of petrol models are now available 2nd hand the only reason to pick an equivalent diesel over a petrol is fuel costs and due to diesel being more expensive than petrol it is not even that big any more £30-35 over 1000 miles to drive a 540i over a 530d the petrol is also noticeably quicker. In the cost of car ownership £300-400 a year to drive a nice fast smooth petrol doesn't sound that bad.
 
Dangerous Dave said:
due to diesel being more expensive than petrol it is not even that big any more £30-35 over 1000 miles to drive a 540i over a 530d the petrol is also noticeably quicker. In the cost of car ownership £300-400 a year to drive a nice fast smooth petrol doesn't sound that bad.
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This simply isn't the case though. For a start for reasons known only to themselves BMW have decided only to offer the 540i as an xDrive, which has a noticeable fuel economy penalty. Annoyingly, they DO make an RHD 540i - but its only sold in Australia and New Zealand. if you want an RWD 5 Series the most powerful option is the 530d.

Under the new WLTP testing figures, which are far more realistic than the old NEDC figures, the 540i has a combined figure of 29.4mpg and the 530d 43.5mpg.

So for those 1000 miles it would cost you £185 in the 540i and, even allowing for the 10p a litre premium on fuel, £135 in the 530d. So thats £50 per 1000 miles or an extra £600 a year for an average mileage driver covering 12k miles. Realistically you'd probably put Super in the 540i which would increase the gap a bit more.

The gap is smaller between 530i and 530d but the 530i is slower and has 2 less cylinders - IMHO it just doesn't suit the car.

Whether its worth it or not depends on the mileage you cover and what you value in the car.
 
[TW]Fox said:
This simply isn't the case though. For a start for reasons known only to themselves BMW have decided only to offer the 540i as an xDrive, which has a noticeable fuel economy penalty. Annoyingly, they DO make an RHD 540i - but its only sold in Australia and New Zealand. if you want an RWD 5 Series the most powerful option is the 530d.

Under the new WLTP testing figures, which are far more realistic than the old NEDC figures, the 540i has a combined figure of 29.4mpg and the 530d 43.5mpg.

So for those 1000 miles it would cost you £185 in the 540i and, even allowing for the 10p a litre premium on fuel, £135 in the 530d. So thats £50 per 1000 miles or an extra £600 a year for an average mileage driver covering 12k miles. Realistically you'd probably put Super in the 540i which would increase the gap a bit more.
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WLTP is still out compared to real world driving I’ve recently handed back a 540i managed an average of 31.6mpg in my hands over 200 miles, 335d/53xd are high 30s in the winter months last tank full was 39.2. Summer is low 40s I expect I would get a little more out of the 540i if I owned one as I was still testing the performance more than I normally would.

I’m getting loan car tomorrow hopefully another 540i so I can get a good indication of consumption on a steady 300 mile motorway run I’m doing over the weekend.
 
The new Audi s6/7 are also diesel models in Europe with America getting the petrol variants.
 
[TW]Fox said:
My car has a 260bhp 3 litre inline six diesel engine. It weighs almost 2 tonne. It routinely returns circa 50mpg on the sort of driving for which it was designed and built. It's crap around town, but you shouldn't be buying this sort of car if all you do is drive around town.



It sounds nothing like a transit van.

I still don't believe we currently have a credible alternative fuel for large executive cars in Europe. EV isn't there yet - I can't buy a full EV 5 Series or a full EV E Class, all I can buy is plug in hybrids which drag around a load of batteries and are powered by a 2 litre 4 pot at motorway speeds - and pure petrol examples are noticeably more thirsty at speed.

Diesels should never have gone anywhere near small cars and I'm glad the trend is very much against them now. We have a petrol Mini Cooper - it does 50mpg. It's absolutely ideal. A car of that size and type does not need a diesel engine. By contrast the 540i I had for a few days last year was hilarious fun, sounded great and drank like a fish. Good fun for a few days when its somebody elses but pointlessly annoying when you've got 300 miles to cover at 70mph.

The move in favour of SUV's makes the anti diesel thing even more an issue - a large petrol SUV needs to virtually tow a tanker behind it to have any sort of sensible range. Meanwhile the 3 litre diesel Q7 I hired was quiet, refined and did 700 miles on a tank.
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My 5 litre, 385hp V8 petrol does 700 miles on a tank at 70 miles an hour. The tank is quite large though...

I believe there’s about a dozen consumer vehicles available with diesel* in North America. It’s a truly tiny market dominated by the largest pickup trucks. The others are European models (Landrovers largely).

As you said in an earlier post, cheap fuel and cheap /no tax and people go petrol. There’s also the fact the US had a much stricter emissions (particulate) policy which meant a lot of the diesels on sale in Europe in the past couldn’t be sold in the US (and by proxy the rest of North America).

That said, they released a diesel F150 pickup last year, the first one ever (engine joint venture with Landrover), and its a little disappointing MPG wise. It’s about 20% better than the 5.0 above, but only around 10% better than a turbo petrol. For the additional cost you need to do mega miles to make it worth it, so while diesels can make sense in larger vehicles, it’s not always the case.
 
Vita said:
The new Audi s6/7 are also diesel models in Europe with America getting the petrol variants.
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Yes which sucks. They weren't exactly exciting cars to begin with, now they get a boring engine too. People who buy these kind of cars usually aren't interested in a diesel or they would just buy a diesel.

Looking at the US's petrol version, it seems it's also a bit quicker too.
 
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Nasher said:
Yes which sucks. They weren't exactly exciting cars to begin with, now they get a boring engine too. People who buy these kind of cars usually aren't interested in a diesel or they would just buy a diesel.
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I bet the sales volumes increase now. There is more demand for this sort of car as a diesel than a petrol. It's not exciting or interesting enough to justify running a V8, the RS6 exists for people who want that.
 
[TW]Fox said:
I bet the sales volumes increase now. There is more demand for this sort of car as a diesel than a petrol. It's not exciting or interesting enough to justify running a V8, the RS6 exists for people who want that.
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Sound absolutely perfect for me. Performance, economy, yes they'll sound pants (but everything has fake sound now) and it looks a bit more special than a 535D.

I don't want to commute at 20MPG, but a Diesel S6 would be an easy daily.

I'll still end up with a 535D I'm sure, but keep seeing ones with boggo spec.
 
[TW]Fox said:
There is no 535d anymore. The best diesel 5 series is now the 530d sadly.
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That would explain why I hadn't seen many on AT then. I've been looking at 535D F11 Tourings but most seem poorly specced. G31 prices seem to be dropping within reach steadily so not in any rush.

Is the UK getting the M550d? That looks pretty special.

I've been thinking of just buying new but know I'll end up going silly with the spec list and end up divorced!
 
Only managed to get a X4 2L diesel sitting at a long term average of 34mpg since new so don't think it will do very well on a motorway run. When waiting for the car an owner was kicking off having to pay for a new tyre on a courtesy car that had got a puncture the dealer half'd it to £125 from the £250 in the rental contract. She still wasn't happy I don't think it helped when the service chap pointed out you won't get a new Michelin 19" tyre for £125 from anywhere. I thought it sounded pretty fair to me just bad luck it was on a hire car.

Her car has been in the garage for 6 weeks waiting for what I assume was a EGR/EGR cooler my car is getting checked today when it's in despite no official recall or me mentioning any issues so I suspect the recall is about to get extended to later cars.
 
Looking at the S6/S7 they look to be just replacing the old BITDI model with an improved engine surprising when BMW are not bringing the high performance diesels to the UK.

They may sell more when compared to the old S6/S7 but I doubt it will be a huge difference from the old BI TDI model which was rare.
 
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Don't think Diesel will die off completely for a long time, it will always have a place for those who do massive amount of miles a year. It will slowly die off in the main stream over the next 20 years. Whilst the manufactures slowly stop mass producing them, then that needs to filter down to the end uses. I look around locally and see that the vast majority of taxi driver are moving over to Hybrid, one firm use EV only cars now to, that because of the type of driving they tend to do short stop start in traffic. I am looking at buying a dirty diesel myself, i would rather go hybrid.
 
Dangerous Dave said:
Only managed to get a X4 2L diesel sitting at a long term average of 34mpg since new so don't think it will do very well on a motorway run. When waiting for the car an owner was kicking off having to pay for a new tyre on a courtesy car that had got a puncture the dealer half'd it to £125 from the £250 in the rental contract. She still wasn't happy I don't think it helped when the service chap pointed out you won't get a new Michelin 19" tyre for £125 from anywhere. I thought it sounded pretty fair to me just bad luck it was on a hire car.

Her car has been in the garage for 6 weeks waiting for what I assume was a EGR/EGR cooler my car is getting checked today when it's in despite no official recall or me mentioning any issues so I suspect the recall is about to get extended to later cars.
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Average in a 2011 X1 Xdrive 2.0 diesel manual I have is 44.1 MPG, a little lower than an old 2004 1.0 litre Front WD petrol runaround I use too (44.8).
I'll be looking to move back to a petrol engine in main car next time. Problem with diesels also is when they go wrong they can be costly to repair. Fuel pump, glow plugs and turbo especially. I'd rather have an NA petrol although even petrol engines are mostly turbo charged these days too.

Big wheels and tyres are one of my current hates. Take £250 for a tyre. I replaced all four on the yaris for less than that without going budget (Goodyears). BMW makes cars heavier and heavier which means big wide wheels (for looks too), expensive tyres due to size, brakes - all gets £££££ when things go wrong. The X1 cost about £900 last time I replaced all four tyres (18" wheels, 255 rears and 225 fronts).
 
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The extra costs like that are what ruin it. A supposedly economical diesel Audi I had would have cost me more in just 6 months (if it didn't have a warranty) than my gt86 has in 2 years. Any savings in fuel just gone instantly.

And yea big wheels make the ride quality awful. But people seem to want them, even though they never go off-road
 
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Nasher said:
The extra costs like that are what ruin it. A supposedly economical diesel Audi I had would have cost me more in just 6 months (if it didn't have a warranty) than my gt86 has in 2 years. Any savings in fuel just gone instantly.

And yea big wheels make the ride quality awful. But people seem to want them, even though they never go off-road
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You don't have to buy a car with massive wheels by the way. That's hardly an argument against a certain type of fuel is it? Plenty of petrol cars have massive wheels.
 
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