What else can you purchase?

Vita

Vita

Vita

Soldato
Joined
26 Mar 2006
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Well, I have had my Mondeo ST TDCI for a year now. I thought I'd tally up my costs of fuel and other bits.

Considering I bought a diesel on the basis that I was doing many miles. I still do the odd long trip, but It got me thinking, is a diesel really worth it for me? I don't think I did many miles to warrant a diesel, and a lot of the miles were inner city driving which I don't really get great mpg on. In the year I've had it, it has cost me the following;

2 front tyres at £200
Servicing £100
Maintenance; £150
Fuel; £1,833.02
Mileage done; 11,425.00
Average consumption: 40.00mpg
Insurance: £1100
Tax: £175

So £3,558.02 in the year.

Now 40mpg to me seems rather poor to average over the year. I would have liked 45mpg at least or even 50mpg If I'm being optimistic. :p

So this then got me thinking, what petrol equivalent could I purchase that would give me similar or even better mpg then my Mondeo? Which is also quicker, more refined and a better car overall, oh and cheaper to run? I can't think of one, and no this isn't a purchase justification thread.

Is there even one? Would a old performance car cost me less to run then a newer diesel? Obviously, depending what the car throws up, it could cost me more either way.

It's just a thought and I would like your opinions on it. :)
 
Vita said:
So this then got me thinking, what petrol equivalent could I purchase that would give me similar or even better mpg then my Mondeo? Which is also quicker, more refined and a better car overall, oh and cheaper to run?
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It will be impossible to find a petrol car this is quicker with better MPG than the diesel Mondeo.

Having said that, if you don't focus on MPG, then yes there are quicker petrol cars which will be cheaper to run than the diesel Mondeo.
 
Petrol equivalent, unlikely with the mpg requirement, but the likes of a 530d would give you a performance increase with similar (maybe slightly lower) mpg.

Unfortunately, whilst any of similar value were great cars 10+ years ago I suspect they are more trouble than they're worth nowadays.

I still remember being amazed when my dads first e39 530d lifted the steering wheel out the way when turned off and had pre heated itself in the mornings.
 
rossk26 said:
It will be impossible to find a petrol car this is quicker with better MPG than the diesel Mondeo.

Having said that, if you don't focus on MPG, then yes there are quicker petrol cars which will be cheaper to run than the diesel Mondeo.
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Is it possible that you know of a few? It's not that I am looking to change, I'm just curious. I can't think of many that are in decent nick, as the usual impreza etc are getting on and may cost more to maintain then the cost of saving.
 
To average 40 mpg with mostly inner city driving over 12k per annum is pretty good to be honest. My old man averages around 46 mpg in his 320d, and he has a lot of A-road driving in his commute, and a little inner city driving (and even then, it is mostly on a ring road in a relatively small city). So even swapping to another diesel motor may not be saving you anything. I average around 47 mpg in my Passat TDI, but I do a LOT of (reasonably fast) motorway and town driving.

Your costs for running the car, except for the fuel, are minimal there, and would not likely change at all for switching to petrol, other than a possible increase in VED. And there is no petrol on the market, with similar performance levels, that will do anywhere near similar fuel economy, with similar driving characteristics. If you make the switch to petrol, your fuel costs will increase, while your other running costs, for the most part, will remain the same.

Expect at least a 10 mpg (probably more like 15 mpg with all the inner city driving) drop in fuel economy when switching to a similarly powerful petrol.

At a 10 mpg drop a petrol would have cost you an extra £470 over the year, based on the lowest petrol and diesel prices, local to me, on petrol prices.
A 15 mpg drop (which I suspect would be more likely), an extra £909.

It could, of course, be somewhere in the middle though, around £500 - 700 per year.

Swapping to a more powerful diesel will also cost more, probably a few hundred quid a year, for a 530d / 330d. But then there is the cost to change on top of that.

Basically, you won't be able to do it much cheaper than you currently are, unless you drop engine size / performance, and go for a more basic car.

Then again, you may find it more satisfying to spend near an extra £1k per year on fuel to drive a car you enjoy driving. Although, I suspect if you are doing mainly inner city driving, you wont really enjoy it regardless of what your driving.

I find it absurd really, that when considering running costs, anyone can ignore fuel costs though. You have already highlighted your running costs for the year, and they are already at a minimum. So whether you pick petrol or diesel, they aren't going to change by very much. I suspect it will be nigh on impossible to find a car cheaper to run...
 
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Great post xs2man. Makes much more sense to me now looking at it with those factors. Thank you.
 
40mpg from a Mondeo diesel with lots of city driving I would say is pretty good. I had a 2008 TDCI and did ~25K / year. I averaged 42mpg from that over 2 1/2 years. I didn't drive it particularly frugally and there were quite a lot of shorter journeys in there (I lived ~5 miles from the office and was in there a few times a week).

Nowadays I drive a 2011 320d, and do ~30K / year. Lots more motorway driving and the office is ~50 miles away. I average about 52-53mpg from that over the 3 years I've had it.
 
I agree with what xs2man has said. Your running costs have so far been minimal and you shouldn't expect a petrol car's costs to be any lower. However, a modern diesel engine is much more complex than a petrol engine, so what you DO have is the chance for something much more expensive to go wrong.
 
rossk26 said:
It will be impossible to find a petrol car this is quicker with better MPG than the diesel Mondeo.
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I call shenanigans - some of the twincharged VAG TSI petrols will be quicker with similar fuel economy. Granted they may not fulfil the other requirements (before someone gives me a 'lol reliability' shout) but I feel your claim is false :)
 
"So this then got me thinking, what petrol equivalent could I purchase that would give me similar or even better mpg then my Mondeo? Which is also quicker, more refined and a better car overall, oh and cheaper to run? I can't think of one, and no this isn't a purchase justification thread."

Suppose you missed that bit? :p

People are highly unlikely to be thinking of cars that cost probably 2x the mondeos is worth to compare it with

You also won't get that mpg from a tsi around town - tbh i'm amazed the mondeo is doing it!
 
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Inner city driving I get an average of around 35mpg/36mpg, this is with the car not even being warmed up to temperature some of the times. The average of 40mpg is there because of my long distance journeys which are twice a month.

I think it's quite poor, and I am not light footed either. On the motorway I can see 50mpg if I do sensible speed.
 
Havana_UK said:
I agree with what xs2man has said. Your running costs have so far been minimal and you shouldn't expect a petrol car's costs to be any lower. However, a modern diesel engine is much more complex than a petrol engine, so what you DO have is the chance for something much more expensive to go wrong.
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This is true. There IS a CHANCE of something quite expensive going wrong with a new diesel. If it has a DPF for example, that could cost around a grand to fix / replace. Or if the turbo goes, probably similar expenditure. Pretty much everything else is similar.

Then again, you're saving that much money per year, in fuel costs alone, so as long as you don't get a DPF /Turbo failure EVERY year, your still up. And this is why the 12k per annum figure I would say is around the cut-off from Petrol to diesel. Any more and your definatley better with the diesel. Any less, then it's up to your preferred driving style.

For example, I probably only do 8k in the Passat compared to around 16k in the BMW (530d). But I can justify the Passat easily as prefer the way a turbo diesel drives to that of a NA four/six pot. By a LONG way. I would maybe prefer the drive of a 2.0T, marginally, but there is no wiggle room for turbo failures, where the Passat offsets possible repair costs with cheaper fuel costs.

A few years ago I had a mapped 2.0 TDI A3 and a 2.8 V6 4motion Golf. They were both as quick as each other in a straight line, but the A3 gave me 48 mpg and the 4mo gave me 26 mpg. The 4mo sounded better, but not £1k per year better. And I preferred the lazy torquiness of the diesel. So I found the TDI better than the V6.
 
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