smart
Part of things
Posts: 134
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This has never really been a question for me. You buy a diesel for the boring car to drive to work everyday and petrol for your weekend car. Simples. However my cars are always so old I'm talking a uber reliable 306 HDI or a Rover with an L series engine. Recent events and the improved efficiency of petrol engines is changing my mind.......
My brother in law recently blew up his Seat Altea (1.9 PD 105bhp engine) The turbo destroyed itself on the motorway. He some how managed to limp 40 miles home and then continued to use it for a couple of days commuting to work!? No idea how he managed this?
**Bit of Back ground he learnt to drive in the Army over 3 days in some horrendous lorry and despite his best efforts to fail, he passed! He has no mechanical knowledge or sympathy, eats clutches by resting his foot constantly on the pedal and once filled his engine right up to the filler cap with oil**
I suspect he blew his engine up because it hasn't had a service for a good 30,000 miles and that was with non PD oil
Anyways as the bloke in the family who worked in the motortrade I get dragged round to look at cars and give my opinion when ever anyone needs to replace one. He wants an Altea, Zafira, CMAX sized car for £6000-7000 and sent me a list of potentials.
I'm now trying to push him towards a petrol. My point being that the £500-600 a year he saves a year in fuel by driving a diesel goes out the window when one of the many common diesel issues rears its ugly head. DMF, DPF, Injectors, turbo, EGR etc....... Diesels seem to be pretty unreliable these days and couple with his track record I'm thinking he'd be much better off with some boring 1.6 petrol getting 40mpg than a diesel that gets 50mpg?
Your thoughts people?
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1998 Rover 400 Derv
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Golf plus 1.9 pd, nobody wants them and make a good sized family car. Avoid the 1.6fsi engine, seem to be junk. I sold mine (2006 golf plus tdi) this year for £300 with 2 p/o and fsh, but bodywork was rough and was on 170k. Still on factory clutch/suspension/turbo/gbox and it's still going strong apparently.
That said I would always pick a petrol over a diesel.
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Last Edit: Apr 6, 2020 12:21:21 GMT by joem83
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^ sounds like a 'hope it lasts until the next MOT and then scrap it' bangernomics type vehicle. We're very wasteful with our cars in the UK, in the US 170k is just run in.
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Unless he is in a restrictive zone that is penalising diesels and older cars then why not just get an older <£2k diesel. The earlier 1.9 PD flavour being the best option if serviced properly and very tunable too. Something like an Alhambra, Galaxy, Sharan might suit him or he might get away with a Touran. Diesels after 2009(ish) have tighter emissions on MOT as well as expensive DPF stuff to contend with. Think of what else to do with the £5k saved.
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I almost bought a diesel VW Bora afew years ago, decided not to because of other stuff going on. A year or so later it went all up in the air about diesels and their potential emissions problems, so I decided to look for a petrol instead. Getting a diesel would have been a first for me so I wimped out and stuck with what I knew. I'm not sure I would get a diesel now either.
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^ sounds like a 'hope it lasts until the next MOT and then scrap it' bangernomics type vehicle. We're very wasteful with our cars in the UK, in the US 170k is just run in. Flew straight through with no advisories, but yes it was approaching throw it away if it brakes territory. All brakes were new, new calipers, good tyres, good battery but we got 6 years of hassle free motoring out of it for £2k. Can't grumble at that. For £300 + mot, if it lasts a year it's still worth £300 in bits.
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Last Edit: Apr 6, 2020 14:15:13 GMT by joem83
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I was looking for a 4cyl/6cyl derv when buying a car in January. I opted for a 6cyl 2.5 petrol version of the same model instead, as buying old(er) cars is all about condition and history from an increasingly limited stock.
I don't do that many miles anyway.
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I bought a 2.2 TDCi Mondeo a couple of years ago, touch wood I've only had unmaintained car breakdowns, nothing diesel specific, however I don't need a diesel, but stuck with it for now with what I've spent on it. My commute is 10 miles a day, I bought it on the basis it looked nice I'll deffo get a petrol next time round.
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I've got a 2007 Skoda Fabia as my daily with the 1.4 three pot tdi. Does about 48mpg on the run to and from school via the childminders, a run of around 12 miles with town, countryside and dual carriageway all in there. On a run to the caravan in mid Wales, I can just about hit 60mpg if I'm really careful. Its never going to set the world on fire, but it does what I need it to do, I service it myself and it just keeps chugging along. In the three years I've had it I've replaced a broken coil spring, the pipe to the egr valve rubbed through on the engine cover, a fuel pipe rubbed through on the engine cover, and it's got a loose wire somewhere in the front sidelight. Other than that, a set of tyres and several rear bulbs (it eats them for some reason!) is all its had.
As long as I can get where I need to be in a diesel, I'll keep driving them, and when I get rid of this one, it'll only be for a larger VAG diesel that I can tow with.
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1968 Cal Look Beetle - 2007cc motor - 14.45@93mph in full street trim 1970-ish Karmann Beetle cabriolet - project soon to be re-started. 1986 Scirocco - big plans, one day!
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2 litre eco boost looks OK for that sort of car. I like the volvo d5 but they have choked it with dpf etc. The old xud engine from citroen was fab and sadly I had 5 but could not recommend them now.
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Had a number of 1.9 pd engined VW stuff and they are brilliant , if serviced i.e. oil changed regularly and EGR mapped out.
If he wants an MPV petrol is do-able for the smaller ones , Zafira or Touran for instance , but the larger ones are heavy so drink petrol to match.
Any car whatever engine if incompetently monitored will go pop so its not a diesel thing.
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Needs a bigger hammer mate.......
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got a touran myself, 2003 pd104, pre dpf, 6 speed. 238k miles on it and euns great.
swapped a 2005 saab 9-3 for it last year
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I had a 2003 diesel 1.9 VW Bora some time ago, but as I had a short, 2mile, journey to work, it never really warmed up. Had to do 5-6 miles to warm up properly. Until it warmed up there was always a peculiar vibration, especially at idle. "Oh they all do that, its the PD engine" I was told by where I bought it. Didnt believe that, I thought it might have been the dual-mass flywheel. A friend following regularly told me there was always a puff of black smoke if I floored it. Apart from that, it was quite a nice car. No other real problems in the 8 months i had it. I read somewhere on t'net recently that VWs are amongst a number of makes that wont like ethanol in petrol when it goes up from 5% to 10% I will stick to my old petrol BMW.
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Last Edit: Apr 6, 2020 17:58:51 GMT by bobdisk
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What about a Honda jazz? Big small car, Honda reliability
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I like the Altea, several of my customers have them. Lets face it, how many other engines would have tolerated 30k+ of constant abuse like that one did. And Alteas are getting much cheaper these days, I bought a tidy, 1 owner, low mileage, 08 PD manual example last year for one of my customers, £2400 and worth every penny IMO! Another customer has a PD T5 van, I had to do the turbo and a head gasket (for an oil leak) last year, at 245,000 miles! I think that speaks for itself!
Anything will break if you neglect it and mistreat it. I have a few car killers amongst my clientele too. What I have learned is that old saw "you can't cure stupid" But FIXING what stupid did has kept me in business for nearly 50 years, every cloud has a silver lining!
A final thought, there are 3 levels of "proofing" the lowest level is bullet proof, the intermediate level is idiot proof, but the highest accolade, the cream of the crop, is "squaddie proof"!!! I was taught this by an ex REME mechanic!
Steve
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Diesel....in '06/56 2ltr tdci focus flavour. Might be biased as i have the wifes one for sale on the drive. No shortage of legs to get it down the road. Would love to keep it for myself but swmbo said noooooooo when she bought her new daily as she needed an auto.
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'80 s1 924 turbo..hibernating '80 golf gli cabriolet...doing impression of a skip '97 pug 106 commuter...continuing cheapness making me smile!
firm believer in the k.i.s.s and f.i.s.h principles.
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stealthstylz
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 14,812
Club RR Member Number: 174
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Petrol or Dieselstealthstylz
@stealthstylz
Club Retro Rides Member 174
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Whether they're fine or not entirely depends on how they're driven. If you're just pootling round local they will both have issues. Diesels will have issues in a shorter time period than petrol's but they'll all end up equally knackered. What I suggest to people in that scenario is at least once a week go out to a A road/motorway and give it a good thrash and get it hot. Also just because a DMF means you can drive round smoothly at 30mph in 5th gear doesn't mean you should. Even 4th is too high in most cars.
If I was buying a 2nd hand "new" car I'd go for high mileage/looked after over low mileage "one lady owner" type stuff every time. It's a false economy since all the emissions gumf was added.
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My wife and I both daily thirty year old petrol cars. Her BG Laser is knocking on the door of 463,000 km and recently achieved 43 mpg on a run. My EA Falcon shows 295,943 km on the odo but it stopped counting over 26 months ago so the actual mileage is probably more like 350,000+. I wouldn't bother going for a diesel unless doing enormous mileage all the time and even then I might not.
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Last Edit: Apr 7, 2020 9:03:57 GMT by joem83
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MiataMark
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,954
Club RR Member Number: 29
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Petrol or DieselMiataMark
@garra
Club Retro Rides Member 29
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I've just replaced my 'daily' (not getting much use at the moment) and after 5 years of a diesel and suffering EGR, DPF issues and the fear of visible smoke come MOT I only considered a petrol replacement. Admittedly it was on 108K.
Different criteria but similar price point, I ended up with a 1 series 4cy petrol Turbo (no I don't want to hear any stories of woe).
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1990 Mazda MX-52012 BMW 118i (170bhp) - white appliance 2011 Land Rover Freelander 2 TD4 2003 Land Rover Discovery II TD52007 Alfa Romeo 159 Sportwagon JTDm
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