http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/green-motoring/8461146/Petrol-versus-diesel-economy-challenge.html

Thought this might interest people...

As I only drive 5 miles each way to work, Diesel would easily work out more expensive for me.

Thus, I've gone for the vRS. I specced up an Elegance with the 1.6TDI engine, and the cost was the same. List price for both was ~17.8K (yes, I know this includes full VAT, but you get the idea)

Nice little article.

Thanks for pointing it out.

Yes a thought provoking article,especially if you're in the position of buying a new car and do low mileage.

However,down the line when cars are very second hand,I think running costs are paramount.

e.g.My student son runs an old Peugeot 206 2.0 HDI.It will easily do 60mpg on a run,and is very pleasant to drive with lots of low down torque.Lower annual road tax as well.

I'm sure when the time comes ,it will be much easier to sell than equivalent petrol 206's.(worth a bit more too.)

thats a cracking write up.....

I would say the conclusion is, if you want lower running costs + you travel high ish miles, the diesel is the one, if you enjoy driving your favorite road and tend to cover less than 12,000 miles a year, the petrol would be the way to go!

I have to admit, that if I wasn't running a Fabia GL2 and getting 70+mpg I'd have the petrol DSG.

We have the 1.2 petrol DSG in our Yeti and I can get 50mpg driving it like the GL2 Fabia.

I have to admit, that if I wasn't running a Fabia GL2 and getting 70+mpg I'd have the petrol DSG.

We have the 1.2 petrol DSG in our Yeti and I can get 50mpg driving it like the GL2 Fabia.

I think that's the same for me, if the GL2 wasnt avaliably, I would have definatly gone for the VRS, but due to the 75mpg estimated, the 0 road tax, ever, lowest insurance group, etc, all these savings add up much more than just the normal diesel for myself, it also fingers crossed will have a good resale value, as fuel efficent cars are just going to get more demand.

Regardless i'd still have the 1.2 TSi. A petrol engine will never match a diesel on economy but it goes to show how poor the economy of a modern diesel can be when driven hard; 14.2mpg is pretty dismal but 22.3 isnt alot better!

I'd only chose the 1.6 CR if I was doing oodles of miles a year, it's clear the 1.2 TSi is the nicer more cultured power plant and better for enthusiastic driving.

14.2mpg is pretty dismal but 22.3 isnt alot better!

Over 50% better! take the worst scenario, you have two cars delivering that sort of consumption and you do 10k pa, based on £6.30pg petrol and £6.50pg diesel, the difference in fuel costs would be over £1500... not quite as close as it looks... and that little comment just goes to show that Statistics can be made to prove anything... Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics...

What the article proves is that it actually comes down to personal taste, not the mileage you are doing (unless its a minuscule mileage)... Most people keep a new car for 3 years, so the diesel would make more sense financially, but not by a lot... But as to which they would prefer... Makes a change for an article to be so fair minded about it... TG please note...

Over 50% better! take the worst scenario, you have two cars delivering that sort of consumption and you do 10k pa, based on £6.30pg petrol and £6.50pg diesel, the difference in fuel costs would be over £1500... not quite as close as it looks... and that little comment just goes to show that Statistics can be made to prove anything... Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics...

What the article proves is that it actually comes down to personal taste, not the mileage you are doing (unless its a minuscule mileage)... Most people keep a new car for 3 years, so the diesel would make more sense financially, but not by a lot... But as to which they would prefer... Makes a change for an article to be so fair minded about it... TG please note...

Hi The PM,

Yeah I agree it is more down to personal preferences. There was a time a VAG diesel was better than its petrol siblings (certainly in the case of the 130 & 150 PD diesels) but now with the adoption of small (I suppose) fairly heavily turbocharged engines its all changed. In my opinion (and its only my opinion) the new CR diesels are rather bland, same cannot be said of any of the TSi lumps.

I say all this even though my daily drive is a MK6 Golf GT 2.0 TDi 140, its a company car so didnt have the choice of the 1.4 TSi sadly. Its a very good car, very refined for a diesel, goes well and is very economical (if driven sensibly) but is rather sterile.

A point I was going to make was that a 1.2 TSi will roughly average late 30's to early 40's if driven sensibly. Not fantasic but that's petrols for you. The 1.6 CR should be able to average 60mpg fairly easily when driven sensibly. Point i'm trying to make is that when hammered, the difference between the petrols best and worst consumption is quite marked, showing how much less efficient a diesel is when driven hard.

Say a TSi normally averyages around 40mpg but this reduces to 14 when driven hard thats a loss of 26mpg. Same with a CR, say it does 60 most of the time but then only returns 22 on a hard run thats a loss of 38mpg. With the diesel you pretty much lose the fuel economy achievable by the TSi in everyday driving just by driving it hard. I think it goes to show that if you are someone that drives their car pretty hard most of the time whilst it may not be cheaper necessarily the petrol probably is the more efficient car for that sort of driver.

Another factor to consider with modern diesels is DPF's. Someone I know in working in my local Audi dealership sees them replacing them regularly, all on cars which aren't doing enough miles and just pootling around town. I don't know much about them but since I'm only doing 10k a year it's enough to put me off buying a moden diesel

Our common rail diesel Golf has already had DPF regen problems when the car was about a year old. Thing is it does about 16-17000 miles a year and is on the motorway at least 5 days a week.

A diesel car with DPF driven mostly around town sounds like a bad idea to me. Petrol all the way.

And there is yet more improvements to come to petrol engines anyway. Research into lasers replacing spark plugs has come on a fair but and may be with us within this decade. Far more accurate timing and control of the spot ignition occurs in the chamber.

I get around 60 mpg from my crtdi 105 bhp and about 56 out of the 1.4tdi pd engine, we only do about 8k per year but I love diesels the torgue is superior and when fully loaded will pull like a train , the petrol will flounder and as for the regen just give it some beans every now and again

I dunno about the lack of torque - some TSI engines have some VERY impressive figures.

I've been driving my wife's Focus 1.6 around this week and find that sounds much nicer than a diesel too. Though, I am biased as I'm now getting a petrol car myself. In fact will be my first since 2006

I dunno about the lack of torque - some TSI engines have some VERY impressive figures.

I've been driving my wife's Focus 1.6 around this week and find that sounds much nicer than a diesel too. Though, I am biased as I'm now getting a petrol car myself. In fact will be my first since 2006

Well I drive a astra 1.6 petrol at work and it's awful with it full up terrible power and my 1.4tdi pd 3 cylinder although noiser is far superior pulling away , well maybe from 1st its not but it flies after, were as the 1.6crtdi 105 bhp is poo of a shovel lol

Well yeah, diesel engines are for pulling caravans

I'd love to try the 1.6 CR TDI in a Fabia though, to see.

My wife's uncle is having an Octavia Greenline at some point, that should be interesting - does 70mpg or something bonkers.

Great when you need to do the distance!

For me and my wife, petrol is fine - it works out cheaper than buying diesel cars because we simply dont do the miles. In my current car I managed a paltry 311 miles and now the light is on! It's a 1.9TD capable of 55 to the gallon - but my driving just doesn't matter. In terms of running costs, a brand new Fabia vRS Mk2 will be cheaper to run!

Insurance is cheaper

Petrol is cheaper

Tax is the same, admittedly.

Petrol cheaper no it won't be needs 98RON it's about same price as diesel, car tax £20 mine for a year!,and I'll get 60mpg easy , you'll have a bigger smile on your face though lol

A point I was going to make was that a 1.2 TSi will roughly average late 30's to early 40's if driven sensibly.

Only if you're in town all the time :S

My experience is more like 45mpg most of the time, or 53mpg if driven carefully. (have a photo to prove the 53mpg trip too). I only see 41mpg on my 6 mile commute. My old Fabia vRS only got to a max of 44 on the same trip. Petrol wins big-time in those conditions.

That's a very good article though and by far the fairest comparison of petrol/diesel I can think of. Surprised how close the 80mph figures were.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/green-motoring/8461146/Petrol-versus-diesel-economy-challenge.html

Thought this might interest people...

Proofs the point driven correctly the diesel is a better option

A refreshing report that appears open minded.

At the end of the day, both versions are really good cars and no one fuel variant is better than the other. If buyers want a more enjoyable drive, they will lean towards petrol. If economy is more important, then buyers will go diesel.

Perhaps we should all pat ourselves on the back for buying a great all round little car rather than fighting the petrol / diesel corner

Petrol Vs Diesel...I don't really know which one is best. There's really one way to find out....FFFFIGHT..!!!!

That's an interesting article. But there are a couple of things worth mentioning.

Some will say this is not important, others that it's irrelavant, but we don't know how many miles each 'test car' had covered before that write up and before they started driving them. This is important because if they were both new or newish, the petrol car would have a considerable advantage in as much as it would be better placed to achieve it's book figures. The diesel is handicapped by it's disproportionately tight engine for many more miles than a petrol counterpart, thus affecting both performance and economy. Petrol engines do not suffer as much internal engine friction during the bedding in process as a diesel due to a much lower compression ratio. It makes a very significant difference. This is something that is often acknowledged in the more informed testing papers/magazines when testing.

The other point to mention is that it's fairly clear the driver of the CR1.6 is not familiar with driving a diesel. Everyone knows!!! you don't drive a diesel flat out to the red line. It wastes fuel and IS ACTUALLY SLOWER on acceleration if driven like that. The CR1.6 is substantially more powerful with 250nm of torque at 1500rpm compared to 175nm at 1550rpm for the TSI. As many of you will know, the best idea with diesels is to stay in the max torque area and consistently change up before max power is reached and using that massive torque to fling the car down the road, instead of relying on the the bhp up near the redline. Doing this makes a huge difference to the mpg, acceleration and the driving experience with real performance on tap. But this is something that has to be learned by petrol drivers.

The diesel was ahead on cost, but the TSI was liked a bit more for it driveability. All fair enough. I liked the 1.2TSI too when I drove it. I had one for 3 days, the 105 version. Lovely it was. I had no complaints except the fuel consumption. It was poo! Best I got was 38mpg and worst 31mpg. I drove it instead of my own 1422cc 3 cylinder diesel 80ps version and used it in exactly the same way as my own diesel car. So I was disappointed at this poor fuel consumption. And, the performance wasn't much different in real driving terms (instead of on paper) than my own car either, although my PD engine was much noiser of course. But my diesel manages 195nm of torque at 2200rpm instead of the TSI's 175nm at 1550rpm, but here's the thing...my diesel managed consistantly 100% plus more miles per gallon than the TSI on the same journeys, driven the same way over the three days I had the TSI. It wouldn't be much different if I was driving the CR1.6 105ps either. My sisters 105ps CR1.6 with 5,500miles on the clock manages a regular 62-66mpg in normal running about in Suffolk on rural roads. Real driving that most of us do each day. With the £20pa road tax it can make a lot of sense to go diesel.

What I'm saying is the article was interesting but not representative of real life driving so making any judgements about costs of fuel and ownership based on their figures are not going to paint the real picture. Diesel is cheaper to own even on their figures, but the reality is diesel is cheaper by a much much bigger margin than the one they show for there test.

PS. I fess up to being completely biased and addicted to diesels. This is due to the experiences I've had with them and the fact I love that huge swath of torque and...saving money so I can spend it on my many motorcycles (which are not economical I might add and sadly run on petrol!!). If anyone is a petrol head, it's doubtful if anyone or anything will sway you away from your addiction either...nor should it!!

Edited 29 April, 201115 yr by Estate Man

Good points. I would think that both cars were pretty much brand new.

I think where some get poor mpg with the TSI is that it performs so well, it's hard to restrain yourself from giving it licks which isn't good for your economy.

One thing is clear. What we have on this forum are 2 groups of drivers that each favour petrol and diesel engines, and it seems that we have all chosen the right car for us, whether you just prefer how each engine drives, you do high mileage, etc. I like both engine types, a good TDI is an epic relaxed mile-muncher, a good petrol is a sporty drive.

Going up the Col de Turini in 2nd gear is about as extreme as you can get though, 14mpg isn't a surprise, but also that would be the lowest you would ever see from the TSI. A normal brisk drive in the UK (Like this one) gets about 38mpg. Not that I care at all about economy if I'm out to have some fun

I've driven both of the cars in the article, and while I prefer the TSI for it's great performance, I really liked the TDI engine too, really gutsy. You just drive them slightly differently to achieve pretty much the same result.

We all chose right

PS:

It can be done. 'Twas boring though Could have been a bit better without the air-con running.

(2 miles out of town from petrol station, 15 miles of motorway @ 70mph, 20 miles of A road @ 50-60mph, overtaking a couple of dawdlers, then through town to dealer)

You are so right Mike.

That mpg figure is bloody amazing too! They certainly get better and better as the miles go on.

Indeed, the identical trip when it was brand new only gave 45mpg.

I so love this engine. Sorry to keep saying it, but I do !

lol... I've had 50 + on my vRS :p I'll get a pic up when I can be bothered to drive that slowley