Diesels

[sxturbo]

my sister's Zafira 1.4 petrol turbo does 25mpg - this saves us around £800/year.

.

Something isn't right on that surely.

My ancient Audi A4 Quattro 2.0 turbo averages 30 - 35 mpg (I get 45 on a really long run) and I like to push the accelerator quite regularly much to the annoyance of misses turbo.

My shed nissan is a gutless 1.5 which I tend to rag everywhere just to get the blasted thing moving averages 35

 

[frutbunn]

Well if you lived in the People's Republic of Camden and your wife parked on the street she would be paying an annual parking permit fee of £269.57.

Jesus T**ty F***ing Christ!!! I'd have to pay more to park my car than what I pay for the car!!! The most I've paid for a car in the last 10 years is £320 and I've had that 2 1/2 years.

Mary usually does the carving but tonight since you are our guest, you could do it, Henry. All right with you?
Of course. I'd be happy to. So I just, uh... I just cut them up like regular chickens?
Sure, just cut them up like regular chickens.

 

[chainsaw_masochist]

Maybe I should check search for diesels in Camden - might be some desperate sellers!

Actually, I don't think you are far wrong. I have noticed the number of diesels around here has reduced markedly over the last couple of years. Perhaps they do get sold off at a competitive price.

 

[chainsaw_masochist]

Jesus T**ty F***ing Christ!!! I'd have to pay more to park my car than what I pay for the car!!! The most I've paid for a car in the last 10 years is £320 and I've had that 2 1/2 years.

You may be surprised to hear that Camden is not the most expensive borough for car permits in London. I do believe that that prize can be awarded to Richmond who were the pioneers of permit pricing according to emissions - I think they price on length of vehicle as well. Not all boroughs do this, though. For example I think the borough of Bromley is only £100 per year irrespective of what comes out of the exhaust.

Mary usually does the carving but tonight since you are our guest, you could do it, Henry. All right with you?
Of course. I'd be happy to. So I just, uh... I just cut them up like regular chickens?
Sure, just cut them up like regular chickens.

Oh, You are sick!

 

[frutbunn]

Oh, You are sick!

I first saw this movie in 82 not knowing anything about it or David Lynch, ended up watching it 3 times in a week.

 

[cdbe]

Something isn't right on that surely.

My ancient Audi A4 Quattro 2.0 turbo averages 30 - 35 mpg (I get 45 on a really long run) and I like to push the accelerator quite regularly much to the annoyance of misses turbo.

My shed nissan is a gutless 1.5 which I tend to rag everywhere just to get the blasted thing moving averages 35

That's what the computer says. It's the tourer version - big heavy 7 seater, she wanted to sell it to us cheap last year - I couldn't afford to run it. She did look at a ford 7 seater with a 1 litre engine, that must be screaming, I don't even understand how they can get that much petrol into those tiny engines. I've always read that bigger petrol engines are less stressed and proportionally more economical than smaller ones.

 

[ReganAndCarter]

I've always read that bigger petrol engines are less stressed and proportionally more economical than smaller ones.

And bigger petrols are a lot nicer to drive too. Don't like small engined things that you have to flog just to maintain legal speeds. Life is too short for bad wine and underpowered cars.

 

[Nige F]

I was doing a column rad. install once ......the customer asked me what I was doing...... I said " I'm watching the lady in the radiator "

 

[frutbunn]

I was doing a column rad. install once ......the customer asked me what I was doing...... I said " I'm watching the lady in the radiator "

"In heaven everything is fine"
I wonder how many people are reading these replies and wondering what the hell are they going on about!

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

"In heaven everything is fine"
I wonder how many people are reading these replies and wondering what the hell are they going on about!

David Lynch?

 

[frutbunn]

David Lynch?

Yeah, "Eraserhead" his cult classic first movie and, aside from Alex Cox's cult classic "Repo Man", the most eminently quotable movie.

 

[Londoner2]

Really modern diesels need to do long journeys, they don't like short stop starts, it clogs everything up and when they go wrong they do cost considerably more than a petrol, amd most garages still struggle to diagnose issues correctly, and tend to just Chuck parts at them until the fault is fixed, and more often than not the problem ends up getting masked as being fixed only to come back in a couple of weeks.

Our Mondeo pool car at work had best part of 4k spent on it year before last over the course of a year.

It was smoking heavily upon acceleration and going into limp mode. At the start we said it was the injectors needed replacing and the dog cleaned as a result.

Well the diesel specialist didn't want to trust our judgement and started out saying it was the 5th injector clogged up, replaced that for £600, a week later, oh the dog is blocked again and it won't regen, need a new dpf. Fit that for £600, a week later, the aftermarket dpf fitted isn't any good we advise to get a genuine one that's the problem, another 1200 quid (parts only).

2 weeks later, limp mode again, dog needs a regen oh and we think the turbo is faulty. Another 700.

Throughout ball this we kept saying are you sure it's not the injectors? Kept getting told we've checked them and they are fine.

Another couple of weeks go buy, dpf blocked again, oh it's the egr valve causing bit to coke up. So we decide to get it deleted and mapped out. Another 500

4 weeks later dpf blocks again, now we told them outright change the bloody injectors like we asked you at the start. 800

Problem solved. Luckily we are on account so we withheld payment until they agreed a considerable discount on all work carried out beforehand for their lack of diagnostic ability.

If the car is PCP or such like and you plan on replacing bit every couple of years then diesel is fine as everything is covered under warranty really, if buying outright I wouldn't bother, especially as petrols these days are so good on mph and power ratio.

That said the 6 cylinder diesels found in the prestige German cars are gorgeous, sound nice and Christ they are powerful. But they are like a private yacht will make you bankrupt given half a chance

This is why i dumped diesels back in 2014.

 

[Peter.N.]

I have run exclusively diesels for the last 30 years or more and wouldn't go back to a petrol. As a second-hand buy they probably don't cost any more than a petrol vehicle now and the torque delivery and economy is streets ahead. I run Citroen C5s, the last one I bought a 2.0. 2008, first of the new shape models diesel estate with all the trimmings, electric leather seats, satnav, parking sensors, glass roof and so on, I paid £1800 for it in 2019. I avoided the hydropnumatic suspension and auto box on the grounds of servicing/repair costs but the conventionally sprung model gives a superb ride anyway.

They can be expensive to repair but so can most cars, all I have replaced on mine since I had it is the thermostat, not an easy job but I did it myself and save a lot of money, the actual unit cost about £25 pus I had to buy a special tool that cost me £8.00. I couldn't afford to run one if I had to pay for repairs but that goes for any car. I am still able to repair mine at the moment but don't know how much longer for I'm nearly 82.

It rides superbly and does 60mpg+ on the motorway. There are some about now for less than £1000 and the breakers yards are full of them at the moment so plenty of used spares. Its a very big car but all the Peugeot/Citroen models use the same engine and its bombproof.

Of course if you have to drive in cities and some towns they are a no-no but we live in the country and no towns we have to go to have emission charges.

Peter

 

[Avocet]

And bigger petrols are a lot nicer to drive too. Don't like small engined things that you have to flog just to maintain legal speeds. Life is too short for bad wine and underpowered cars.

Lots of people say that, and from the limited choice of company cars that I have, I went for a Peugeot 5008 to replace my previous VW Sharan. Both big 7 seater MPVs. The 5008 has a poxy little 1.5 litre, 130 horse diesel in it. The Sharan had the older 2 litre 150 horse diesel in it. To be honest, I've been pleasantly surprised! Yes, the Peugeot is underpowered compared to the VW, but it is also lighter, which narrows the gap. Yes, the VW had a good "lump" of low-down torque from about 1500 revs to about 3500, but actually, the Peugeot is nothing like as bad as you'd think it would be! OK, I'm not going to win any races in it, but it will happily sit at an indicated 80+ on the motorway and doesn't take that long to get there. However, the big "win" is fuel consumption. I track all my cars, brim-to-brim with an app. The Sharan, over the 25,000 miles that I had it, averaged 43.14 to the gallon. The Peugeot (I've only done 5000 miles so far because of lockdown) has averaged 47.5 MPG. I don't have a towbar, and I do have misgivings about how the 5008 would handle a hill start, fully-laden with a caravan on the back, but other than that, I've been pleasantly surprised.

 

[Avocet]

My dad hates diesels, so whenever I mention a potential car to him, he dismisses it instantly if it is a diesel.

Are they really a problem? I know they are no longer being made, but if I buy a diesel now with the hope that it gets me through the next 5 years, that won't be a problem?

https://www.check-mot.service.gov.uk/?_ga=2.216568406.1735383843.1616428136-2118400379.1612517607

As others have said, it depends on the sort of driving you do and where you do it. Personally, unless I was doing big miles and lived in a rural area, I'm not sure I'd go for diesel these days. It's not that I think a brand new (or at least post-2019) diesel is significantly worse environmentally than a petrol engine, but the politicians and the public are currently running round with torches and pitchforks, looking for a witch to burn, and diesel cars seem to be that witch! Older diesels (and especially in urban environments), yeah, they were pretty bad, but the current ones are very good indeed.

Also as has been said, heaven help you if a modern diesel goes wrong!