It feels like nearly every thread now has to have some mention of impending disaster for diesel cars, with speculation about huge financial penalties, cars being virtually unsaleable and so on.

Just this morning I've seen "Panic about to descend on diesels" and "EUs anti diesel stance", but is there actually anything to justify this or is it all wild speculation?

Is there any real evidence outside Londons congestion charge?

That I can see ... No. Nearly every bus and lorry is running on diesel and its to much of a problem to rectify now .

It won't be on our lifetime

I used it partly as an excuse to change my Octavia diesel vRS for a petrol car recently but that was to my wife as I wanted to get a new car

It will blow over, unless the news agencies really start pushing it and scare mongering like they can tend to do when they have a bee in their bonnets!

I don't mind if diesel car prices go down. I'm wanting to swap the wife's petrol focus for a diesel so it'll make it cheaper for me!

Its all media hype i think, Theres probably going to be changes in road fund licence etc in the future and ive read about certain emission zones in london and big cities where euro 5 and 6 should be ok its the older euro 4 stuff that may be worse off, but theyre not going to price us out of diesels any time soon imo

Edited 6 June, 201511 yr by jimdiesel

I don't see why they can't flip the market back around. They've done it once already flipping it from mainly petrol to a mix of petrol and diesel by lowering VED and pushing about how "green" they are. Now if they just do that in reverse then the market over about 10 years should flip back to petrols. Hurrah for that day!

Yeah, then I can drive a car which only does 30mpg instead of the diesel I drive which gets near 60mpg. That'll speed up the rate of consumption of crude oil meaning we get to run out of oil a lot sooner.

Yeah, then I can drive a car which only does 30mpg instead of the diesel I drive which gets near 60mpg. That'll speed up the rate of consumption of crude oil meaning we get to run out of oil a lot sooner.

If you swap the Eco diesel for a performance based petrol then yeah, maybe.

like an eco fiesta, for a fiesta ST.

My Jetta Sport does a very brisk 0 - 60 time and still gets 60mpg. The closest comparison petrol engined Jetta (1.4 TSI 160) does 0-60 in about a second less, but will just about squeeze into the 40mpg bracket. A lot depends on how many times on each journey you're actually going to need that 1 second extra from a standing start I guess. Can't think of any times I really thought to myself "I wish I could get to the speed limit just a little faster and waste 30% fuel.", although I've only been driving for 30 years, so I guess that time could still come.

Blame Boris!  Diesel is still the fuel of choice for buses and HGV because realistically there isn't anything else.  OK there are Hybirds and buses that run on chip fat (very clean I'm sure) but it is all hype.  This year it is diesel will give you cancer and end the World next year it will be something else for the ones who know best to panic everyone with. 

 

All this Euro emission stuff is OK but in the real world it just means that they have moved the goal posts.  How efficient is it really having stop start engines.  Every time you start the engine again it will be kicking out more fumes as they always runs a little rich on start up.  Any members on here who are bus drivers and have driven any of the new buses will tell you that they are governed down so much that they are gutless and so all that means is you boot it everywhere to keep up speed because if you don't it takes an age to pull away again.  In fact I would say that from a standing start at a junction where you are pulling out into oncoming traffic you need a massive gap to pull out or you just go for it and make others sort it out which would be a fail on test.  They are governed down so much they are on the verge of dangerous and that is Euro regs for you.

 

Oh and as for electric power that is made by what?  Nuclear, coal, oil or something else that is really clean for the environment.  World has gone mad.

Some interesting views!! Start stop now uses more fuel and causes more fumes than same car without?

Petrol requires more oil to produce than diesel. Diesels get a calculated 60mpg but equivalent petrol only gets 30mpg

Interesting...

Obviously it is not untrue about pollution, etc, but every time these issues are brought up it just gives the government(s) the opportunity to raise taxes even further, be it fuel duty, road tax or whatever other tax they can think of, and whatever ways they can weedle even more from these taxes (think road tax transfer being cancelled) than they get from us already.

If diesel cars become cheaper to buy, not only will the seller lose money because of this, but the savings on the purchase price will be lost because of the increase in running costs, via taxes, and vice versa. Yet the tax man gets his cut, whatever happens.

 

All the information they know about pollution, and they still fill our roads with ridiculous amounts of speed humps and traffic calming, of which just increases pollution even further, and knackers peoples hard earned motors, no matter how slowly you drive over them.

We have a road that is all of 50 yards long, and this had a speed hump in the middle of it. Now removed though, at further cost to the taxpayer. Ridiculous.

Personally, I think 'stop start' thinking is ridiculous too, but maybe I could be proven wrong. I would not want one anyway.

 

So, Diesel or Petrol, it doesn't matter, you'll get stung either way, always. They used one reason (excuse) years ago to fleece petrol users. Get ready for the Diesel excuse (excuse), to be revealed very soon, no doubt.

 

It feels like nearly every thread now has to have some mention of impending disaster for diesel cars, with speculation about huge financial penalties, cars being virtually unsaleable and so on.

Just this morning I've seen "Panic about to descend on diesels" and "EUs anti diesel stance", but is there actually anything to justify this or is it all wild speculation?

Is there any real evidence outside Londons congestion charge?

Yes a rolling program in Paris and France has increased the tax on diesel and is considering a scrappage scheme to get diesel drivers into less polluting (and French vehicles) there are already bans on the dirtiest diesels in Berlin, Cologne and Hanover , wont affect the owners of most modern diesels for a while but you'd be a fool to stock your head in the sand about it

Some interesting views!! Start stop now uses more fuel and causes more fumes than same car without?

Petrol requires more oil to produce than diesel. Diesels get a calculated 60mpg but equivalent petrol only gets 30mpg

Interesting...

 

I'm not altogether certain about the production ratios of petrol & diesel from crude oil, but I never implied that it takes more oil to produce petrol than diesel. What I said was that driving a vehicle with a 30mpg efficiency will use more fuel than driving a vehicle with 60mpg efficiency. Clearly if you go twice as many miles using diesel instead of petrol (gallon for gallon, litre for litre, or with fuel volumes / capacities being the same etc. ) then you're going to use half as much fuel using diesel. If a barrel of crude will produce about the same volume of petrol and diesel when refined, then it doesn't take a scientist to work out that more barrels of crude would be needed to fuel a petrol driven car over its life than a diesel driven car.

 

As for the comment about my diesel mpg versus a random petrol mpg figure plucked from the air, well that's not a fact at all, just a throw way comment about petrol being less efficient than diesel.

Diesel is more harmful pollution wise though isnt it? Thats what the hooharr is about, the air quality in larger cities is still below the EU's targets so by getting rid of dirty diesels they hope to improve this. It's nothing to do with the MPG we as the end users get. There was a 'panorama/dispatches' style programme with ex government people admitting they got it wrong touting diesel as the green option and that it'll end up shafting all the people that have gone over to diesel use. 

 

That said, no one knows what will happen, I think the majority of people worried about costs need to be in the correct car, so many people are blinkered into thinking diesels are cheaper no matter what. This ends up with people who do a 2 mile trip to work and back in a diesel that doesnt even get up to temps and getting less MPG than the equivalent petrol. 

It's niether here nor there but you get more pettol than diesel from same oil. Mpg in diesel is better for equivalents but not double. And that's only part of the issue, the issue with diesels are more to do with older engines but it's the ratio of NO2 and particulate matter rather than the CO2

Read as roadtest reviewers drive the fat lump diesels over long distance and sportingl according to them and get 35-37 mpg and think this is just wonderful, as the emissions drive gets introduced the cars being introduced economy is getting worse. Green petrol cars using less fuel but more oil than 3 decades ago, but forget the fuel and the oil and the tyres that are the running costs, fix the emission figures, that is the EU way.

Edited 6 June, 201511 yr by goneoffSKi

It's niether here nor there but you get more pettol than diesel from same oil. Mpg in diesel is better for equivalents but not double. And that's only part of the issue, the issue with diesels are more to do with older engines but it's the ratio of NO2 and particulate matter rather than the CO2

 

I never said diesels get double mpg figures.

Diesel is more harmful pollution wise though isnt it?

 

That said, no one knows what will happen, I think the majority of people worried about costs need to be in the correct car, so many people are blinkered into thinking diesels are cheaper no matter what. This ends up with people who do a 2 mile trip to work and back in a diesel that doesnt even get up to temps and getting less MPG than the equivalent petrol. 

I think they are probably equally harmful, just in different ways.

 

Yet I pay way more in road tax for my petrol car than I do for my non dpf'd diesel! Perhaps not for long though, I fear!

Edited 6 June, 201511 yr by Tilt

Yeah, then I can drive a car which only does 30mpg instead of the diesel I drive which gets near 60mpg. That'll speed up the rate of consumption of crude oil meaning we get to run out of oil a lot sooner.

 

Yeah, then I can drive a car which only does 30mpg instead of the diesel I drive which gets near 60mpg. That'll speed up the rate of consumption of crude oil meaning we get to run out of oil a lot sooner.

 

Did you mean to add something here?

 

As I said, I didn't say diesels get double mpg figures, despite what you think you're reading. I said I'd be able to drive a car which gets 30mpg instead of near 60 as I currently do. That wasn't a direct comparison, whichever way you try and paint it.

 

In a later post I gave more exacting figures relevant to a direct comparison between a petrol Jetta Sport and a diesel Jetta Sport. Don't try and misquote what I say. :p

No I didn't mean to add anything ur post said it all

I don't really care either way. I didn't misquote or edit your post, you picked petrol at 30mpg and diesel at 60mpg one is double the other or half of the other

Don't worry you can now smile

Yes I picked it, just as you say. I'm a complete idiot for expecting anyone to understand the difference between a general comment about two types of fuel, and a second comment with specific facts which has little relevance to the first.

Now now don't be so hard on yourself

They need to move away from hating cars and look at freight side of things. The 10 biggest ships in the world create more pollution a year than every car in the world combined.