What car - Diesel or petrol

schnipps · 15 Apr 2006 at 21:28

Posted a few weeks ago about the Leon cupra R and that i was going to pick one up towards the end of the year, around september time.

Well i have driven one and was blown away as it was just fantastic, the only obvious problem i have is the utterly mad fuel comsumption. The main problem is a new place of work which is 27 miles away, so thats over 50 miles a day 4 days a week which adding on personal mileage is not going to be cheap. So i have been looking at lots of different cars and wondered what people thought.

Im not worried about insurance to be honest and would say 14k is the utter maximum car wise, 12k being preferable.

The way i feel i dont know wether diesel is the only way to go and have started looking at the Leon FR diesel which i love the styling of, however im just not sure and would love the cupra r and keep thinking you only live once just go for it, and then have the other part of me saying putting £60 a week in a cupra r is going to be a nightmare.

So what im looking for is some alternatives for the cash i have outlined and some reasoning to go diesel or petrol.

Just completely stuck and dont know what to go for.

[TW]Fox · 15 Apr 2006 at 21:35

You do 12k a year.

Only buy the diesel if you love the way it drives, to buy it purely from an economy point of view means you wont be saving enough to make it worthwhile.

schnipps · 15 Apr 2006 at 21:41

[TW]Fox said:
You do 12k a year.

Only buy the diesel if you love the way it drives, to buy it purely from an economy point of view means you wont be saving enough to make it worthwhile.

Fair point,but i would say probably with personal mileage its nearer 14k a year. If the cupra R is 12k and the FR is 14k im not so sure. I would be buying the diesel purely for cost/fuel.

You may be right, im not sure on the diff in fuel versus the saving in car payment.

Oracle · 15 Apr 2006 at 21:44

Still not enough to warrant the extra cost of the Diesel IMHO and i'm sure others will agree.

Break it down taking into account how many miles you'd get to each car, the extra price of the Diesel to buy and fill up, etc, etc

Fox has done this before, i'm sure he'll help again.

now i'm doing over 60k miles a year....THAT warrants a Diesel!

schnipps · 15 Apr 2006 at 21:49

Oracle said:
Still not enough to warrant the extra cost of the Diesel IMHO and i'm sure others will agree.

Break it down taking into account how many miles you'd get to each car, the extra price of the Diesel to buy and fill up, etc, etc

Fox has done this before, i'm sure he'll help again.

now i'm doing over 60k miles a year....THAT warrants a Diesel!

Ok so coming from someone who has never owned a diesel why should i get the petrol? if say the figures above are true and i can get a cupra r for 12 k max and diesel for 14k surely thats only 2k more.

If the R does 25 to the gallon at best and the diesel does 50 surely over say 4 years i would save money.

Are diesels more to service?

timbob · 15 Apr 2006 at 21:51

The "Petrol vs Diesel" (TM) debate is a bit of a non starter really...

You always pay a premium when purchasing the car, because diesel is seen to be more economical, and is therefore desireable. After you factor into the equation that diesel is a good 3 or 4p a litre dearer, you have to either do mega mileage, or own the car for a good number of years to recoup your losses.

e.g. I've picked Golfs on Autotrader, and spent 30 seconds (!) browsing. Found a nice looking GT TDi 03 reg for £14k. Found a similar looking petrol GTi 03 reg for about £11k.

Lets say the TDi averages 45mpg, and the petrol 35mpg. Every 1000 miles, you use 100 litres of diesel. For the same amount of miles, you use 130 litres of petrol. Diesel is, let's say 3p a litre more expensive. So for every thousand miles, the diesel costs about £25 less than the petrol car in fuel.

To recoup our initial £3k loss at buying the diesel car, we're looking at doing 120,000 miles - or 10 years at your current rate of driving.

Jokester · 15 Apr 2006 at 21:58

Would the diesel keep it's value more though?

Jokester

timbob · 15 Apr 2006 at 22:02

Using the examples you've picked - £12k petrol, versus £14k diesel.

Again, using diesel as being 3p a litre more expensive, and 35mpg vs 45mpg for sake of argument:

Litres of fuel per 1000 miles. 1000 miles/35mpg = 28.5 gallons * 4.54 = ~130 litres.

1000 miles/45mpg = 22.2 galloms * 4.54 = ~100 litres.

You use 30 litres less over 1000 miles, but each litre costs 3p more. Assuming for simplicity's sake petrol is 95p, and diesel 98. Petrol costs (130*95p) £123.50 for the thousand miles, and diesel (100*98p) £98. Roughly a £25 difference.

You'd need to do (£25*80 = £2000) 80,000 miles in order to recoup your £2000 initial expenditure.

ajgoodfellow · 15 Apr 2006 at 22:05

The diesel is likely to hold onto its value better than the petrol and it'll be easier to sell

You also have to consider servicing - diesels usually need to be serviced more frequently than petrol cars and the servicing is usually more expensive

Oracle · 15 Apr 2006 at 22:06

They say (EDIT: just seen above) that to recoup the cost of BUYING a diesel, you need to cover somewhere between 70-80k miles.

But yes, the diesel would hold its value better than the equivalent spec petrol.

Diesels DONT need to be serviced anymore often than petrols. Its all mainly variable servicing now. My car has covered over 20k without the need for a service. Also, as many Diesels are chain driven, they dont need their cam belts changing.

cymatty · 15 Apr 2006 at 22:07

Jokester said:
Would the diesel keep it's value more though?

Jokester

Yes, but if you pay 3k more for a diesel over the petrol car you will not get 3k more for the diesel when you sell it.

Jokester · 15 Apr 2006 at 22:13

cymatty said:
Yes, but if you pay 3k more for a diesel over the petrol car you will not get 3k more for the diesel when you sell it.

Maybe so but it will greatly reduce the mileage you would need to do to break even though (unless servicing costs are really that much more - assuming you don't do it yourself

).

Jokester

cymatty · 15 Apr 2006 at 22:17

Jokester said:
Maybe so but it will greatly reduce the mileage you would need to do to break even though (unless servicing costs are really that much more - assuming you don't do it yourself ).

Jokester

Well yes but even if it reduces the break even point to 40k this will take the op over 3 years to achieve, so a bit pointless as a money saving excercise.

People are under this impression that they will save thousands a year buying a diesel and this is not true if you are doing average mileage.

Skiddley · 15 Apr 2006 at 22:20

I've got an LCR, on premium I get 31-32 MPG Motorway and I don't hang about. Town driving is more like 15-20. Rememver when I drove it home new from the stealer, 17mpg...DOH!

Realistic motorway range on a full tank is 280-320miles... so yea, you ARE looking at 60quid a week not counting leisure use.

The diesel FR version drives NOTHING like the LCR. You're comparing an apple with a kiwi. And yes, I've driven both - including track time.

IMO, unless you are skint, get the LCR. If you don't you might as well get the pipe and slippers now, life is over.

[TW]Fox · 15 Apr 2006 at 22:27

schnipps said:
If the R does 25 to the gallon at best and the diesel does 50 surely over say 4 years i would save money

But if you are caning it around and getting 25mpg from the Cupra R, your driving style suggests you'd not get 50 from the diesel.

Lets take the combined fuel economy figure for both cars:

Seat Leon Cupra R: 32mpg
Seat Leon Cupra TDI: 52mpg

Now, 32mpg average sounds maybe a little optimistic but then so does 52mpg for the Cupra TDi, you drive that like you would an R and you wont be averaging 50mpg but the 20mpg difference between them should help us thrash out some figures.

You do 14k a year?

In 1 year, you would spend:

£1807 in fuel if you had a Leon Cupra R
£1161 in fuel if you had a Leon Cupra TDI

So, by choosing diesel, you would save about £650 a year.

So it would take more than 3 years to even break even given a purchase price for the Cupra TDI of £2k more than the Cupra R.

And even then, youve broken even, not saved money.

Skiddley · 15 Apr 2006 at 22:31

Just looked. My average is 27.4 mpg over 7K miles.

v0n · 15 Apr 2006 at 22:47

[TW]Fox said:
And even then, youve broken even, not saved money.

Not quite. Insurance group 13 for Cupra TDI against 17 for Cupra R, tenner short from £1000 higher residuals after 3 years for diesel. If it wasn't VAG, service intervals would be 4,000 miles longer for diesel etc, etc.

For motorway driver Cupra TDI will also be less noisy and more relaxed drive, plus you can do 600 miles on one tank of fuel rather than searching for petrol station every 385 miles.

cymatty · 15 Apr 2006 at 22:56

v0n said:
Not quite. Insurance group 13 for Cupra TDI against 17 for Cupra R, tenner short from £1000 higher residuals after 3 years for diesel. If it wasn't VAG, service intervals would be 4,000 miles longer for diesel etc, etc.

Yes but;

Cupra R 210bhp 0-60 7secs
Cupra R 225bhp 0-60 6.7secs
Cupra TDi 150bhp 0-60 8.6secs.

Now i know the diesel may have the better in gear performance, but surely it is a little silly comparing cars that are so far apart in terms of performance.

PMKeates · 15 Apr 2006 at 22:58

v0n said:
For motorway driver Cupra TDI will also be less noisy

The VAG 1.9 TDI... l.. l.. l.. less noisy!?

Gadge · 15 Apr 2006 at 23:04

Diesel for me. I bought one and i dont do the high millage to make it 'valuable'.

I got a diesel because its cheaper to insure, performance was of fairly high spec petrol equivelents, and if i want to modify the engine (chip it). I would get bigger bang for buck!

But thats me!

I also feel there more fun to drive.

I have a 306 Hdi D Turbo btw.