For many people cost isnt the main issue when choosing diesel over petrol , i would pay a premium for a diesel over a petrol provided the performance was the same , for a family car I prefer the characteristics of a diesel engine and the range is a big plus as well

For out and out performance it has to be a petrol though

Hmmm a hard one that, I'd have to drive them both and see. Not tried a DSG box yet, it is a shame I missed the Allams driving day. I heard that the Diesel 170CR went down well:)

Stick that DSG box stick into the 'S' position and it transforms it when really needed. My DSG Tdi CR has spent its short life on urban crawls (<700 miles so far) ; plus one short trip to Heathrow and another to Gatwick (no, I'm not a cabbie) but it's clocking 37 mpg! The urban fuel consumption is why I went for the oil burner rather than the petrol. I had two automatic petrol Saab 9-5s in a row, and over my home-work drag, I was looking at 23 mpg, tops.

I reckon the Tdi CR engine is posisbly the quietest engine I've ever had in a car, and it's a diesel! Blimey!

Just been reading this and I have never driven a 2.0TDi DSG 6 speed which changed to 5th in auto mode at 30mph. It can be manually changed at about 35, but in auto about 40mph is the change point. I've never experienced hunting of gears either.

I've driven Audis, VWs and Skodas with 140 and 170 PS and DSG boxes.

petrol wins hands down,

no rattles

smooth as silk

better dsg

no brainer

i never understand when people describe diesels as flexible, i spent 5 years driving a 2.3 145bhp RWD transit at work and for the last 3 weeks i having been driving my new van, a 115bhp 2.0 CR diesel FWD renault trafic and its shocking in comparison. the transit would happily pull from 1000rpm in any gear until its redline(well not in 5th) where as below 1500rpm the diesel hardly moves at all and isn't really worth revving above 3500rpm so the diesel has a 2000rpm rev range at best compared to the 5500rpm of the petrol not to mention the petrol pulling harder and accelerating a lot faster. diesel sucks balls.

Only had my Superb 1.8TSI (manual gearbox) for two days and I'm stunned how good the petrol engine is. My two previous cars were both turbo diesels (Fabia vRS and 105hp version of the Roomster Scout) which I covered 90,000 miles in 5 years between them.

I adore the way the maximum torque comes so low down the rev range - just like a diesel. It really does make it incredibly easy to drive and boy, that engine is quiet. So damn quiet I keep stalling the bloody thing!

As for this price differential thing - be careful and do your sums properly. I calculated that over three years I was £200 better off buying the petrol over the diesel at 20,000 miles per annum. That really shocked me and that's why I bought the petrol.

I love the lazy way you can drive a diesel but dislike the refinement (I know the CR engines are meant to be much nicer than the old PD units I've had.) The petrol doesn't have the fuel economy of the diesel but is incredibly refined and feels pretty damn quick too!

As for this price differential thing - be careful and do your sums properly. I calculated that over three years I was £200 better off buying the petrol over the diesel at 20,000 miles per annum. That really shocked me and that's why I bought the petrol.

I'd be interested to see how you worked that out.

What residual values are you assuming for both cars?

So damn quiet I keep stalling the bloody thing!

I overcame that problem quite quickly but I still haven't managed a decent (but low key) launch in the traffic light grand prix. Down here, if you break traction, it's considered "street racing" and they can confiscate the car.

As for this price differential thing - be careful and do your sums properly. I calculated that over three years I was £200 better off buying the petrol over the diesel at 20,000 miles per annum. That really shocked me and that's why I bought the petrol.

!

My commute is 100km per day of mostly motorway - At the time of purchase diesel was considerably more expensive than petrol & based on Skodas' fuel consumption figures, the diesel would have saved me about 50c per day. I'm happy to pay the 50c for the broader powerband.

i never understand when people describe diesels as flexible, i spent 5 years driving a 2.3 145bhp RWD transit at work and for the last 3 weeks i having been driving my new van, a 115bhp 2.0 CR diesel FWD renault trafic and its shocking in comparison. the transit would happily pull from 1000rpm in any gear until its redline(well not in 5th) where as below 1500rpm the diesel hardly moves at all and isn't really worth revving above 3500rpm so the diesel has a 2000rpm rev range at best compared to the 5500rpm of the petrol not to mention the petrol pulling harder and accelerating a lot faster. diesel sucks balls.

In the Superb at 70mph in top gear on the motorway the diesel will be more responsive than the petrol it has a lot more power and torque at that kind of rpm.

Diesel engines arent satisfying to drive hard anyhow to get the best out of them you need to short shift and ride the torque , no point revving them hard as you get a diminishing return and there is little point comparing a van to a car

FWIW FWD Renaults vans are c*ap always have been, compare your old transit to a 120hp diesel Sprinter and see which performs better , my old 312 cdi would out drag small cars off the lights even towing a caravan i was never had to drive it really hard to make decent progress..

i could launch my transit full bore and unless cold/wet it wouldn't spin up just go and it went well.

and top gear motorway cruising certainly isn't a sore point on the 1.8t engines, even the old style one like mine was amazingly good here, infact it was probably its strongest point!

I'd be interested to see how you worked that out.

What residual values are you assuming for both cars?

My calculations were based on what I call 'real world' figures and therefore I didn't include a residual value as the car model is too new to make a meaningful stab at the value. Therefore my figures were based on the following:

On-The-Road price of car

Any extras I would have had fitted (in my case metallic paint, park assist and floor mats)

Road tax for three years

MPG (official combined figure -20% for 'real world' driving)

60,000 miles (as I drive 20,000 miles per year)

When I did my calculations petrol was 87.9p and diesel 99.9p. I appreciate that these have since changed and now petrol is closer to the price of diesel.

When all was said and done the 1.8TSI Manual came out at £28,049 and the 2.0CR at £28.244.

I've never worried about residual values in the past (life is too short ) and if I did I would never had bought nine new cars over the last 17 years!

I'd say that for fuel prices over the next three years you should have been looking at at least £1.10 for unleaded and £1.20 for diesel if not another 10p higher.

20% under the combined figures is probably a bit low , but shouldn't favour petrol or diesel too much. if your 20k involves a lot of motorway driving you should be able to get within 10% or better.

As for the residuals , I'd be amazed if the diesel wasn't worth more than the petrol in three years time.

On quite a few large cars a diesel engine will retain much if not all of the price premium over the unleaded.

My octavia PD140 was roughly a grand more expensive than the 2.0 litre petrol which had very similar performance.

It's now three years old and has done 70k and ss a trade in it would be worth roughly ......

Excellent condition:

£5660

Average condition:

£5050

Below average condition:

£4500

If I'd bought the petrol it would be......

Excellent condition:

£4740

Average condition:

£4230

Below average condition:

£3770

I know that's not a definite answer , but it's likely to be worth close to a grand more now and I've averaged about 51mpg instead of the 37 or so that a petrol would have done.

Have to agree with the posters who rate the 170 CR engine. Got one in my vRS Octavia and it's barely audible. Currently driving an Insignia SRi TDi and I can't wait to get back to my quiet Octavia....

I would guess Alex is right about the diesel residual value being higher.

For my company car the quote (lease price) for the 1.8 DSG Elegegance was higher (came in over my benchmark) than the 170 manual Elegance (the car I now have) even though the petrol is the cheaper car. Presuming discount levels are similar between petrol and diesel this implies the residual for the diesel is (expected to be) better.

Dan

With respect Bengie I cannot understand how you can say Diesels "suck balls" from your experience of one Renault van.:confused: I know people with Renault Diesels and thy say they are a bit laggy. In any case I was recovered a few weeks ago in an AA Vauxhall van which is just a rebadged Renault and it pulled my car along at 60 with no hassle. The AA guy said it was nearly as good as the 2.5 Transporter he had before.Maybe you had a duff engine. There are good Diesels and bad Diesels. Have you driven a 130PD in a Fabia VRS? I assure you it is very flexible! I have not driven the 170 CR yet but those who have them seem to have nothing but praise for them. Also the Supurb 170 CR DSG was getting rave reviews from some of the guys at the Maidstone meet after the Allams day. I have heard good things about the 1.8 TSI and would seriously consider one in an Octy. As I said in the Diesel thread in general, I would have think long and hard about another Diesel for financial reasons but still like them. A 2.3 Petrol Transit must drink like a fish and must be very difficult to sell on. I've been in the 2.4 Diesel Transit and the engine is brilliant. Makes a great fistof things in a Landy too!

Edited 5 April, 200917 yr by Matt Bodycombe

what about the nova diesel i owned, or the renault megane diesel i had for 2 weeks in gran canaria, or the renault clio diesel we had for 2 weeks in spain, or driving my brothers ibiza cupra diesel or the other diesel vans we have at work that i have driven on occassion over the last 6 years.

and as well as my brothers ibiza goes its no faster than swmbo's vectra and yes that has 20bhp more but also weighs a few hundred kilo's more and infact has a lower power to weight ratio, where the ibiza really kills the vectra is on mpg and low revving pull but the vectra will do over 70 in second!

his ibiza has a bigger turbo and puls for longer than the fabia so in honestly the fabia must be pretty pants seeing as when standard the ibiza ran out of puff at 4k.

i do think diesels make good city cars and motorway cars but i simply don't find them exciting to drive and should never be put into a sports car.

I think we will just have to agree to disagree on this one. Loads of people love Diesels but a lot of people don't so I respect your opinion. I am a petrolhead at heart but I think my Fabia is a cracking little car: One man's meat and all that...

quite, how boring would it be if we liked the same thing

You cant drive a diesel like you would a petrol and expect the same results PLUS you need to drive a decent modern diesel like the Fabia or Octavia they will see off many a bigger car and are nicer to live with, there is no point revving a diesel much past 4000 rpm as the power tends to drop off very quickly its far better to short shift and load the turbo up

I'm not saying one is any better than the other its all a personal choice at the end of the day

a modern diesel engine? so the 2.0 16v CR diesel engine in my van is an old hunk then? and i already said i have driven my brothers ibiza cupra a fair bit.

a modern diesel engine? so the 2.0 16v CR diesel engine in my van is an old hunk then? and i already said i have driven my brothers ibiza cupra a fair bit.

1) Its a van

2) Its a french van so yes POS

how does being in a van change an engine?

the engine in the transit i had was from a galaxy, does that mean it was fine in the galaxy but rubbish in the transit?

Luv diesels, but don't rack up stellar mileage any more so went for 1.8 DSG. 7 gears silky engine, smooth gear changes. Two long runs to the midlands and back from Ayrshire on consecutive weekends from brand new. 85% motorway at 75/80. First trip 33.7mpg, second 36.8. Chuffed.