I am in the fortunate position of being able to afford most cars in the sensible money range. I have owned a 07 plate 2.0 Octavia FSI L&K since new, but now want an automatic, a bit more power and space.

 

I am also not as agile as before so a Karoq or Audi Q5 are possible.

 

i am confused by petrol v diesel, particularly with regard to power when overtaking. 

 

Clearly the Audi is more expensive than Karoq, but if power is good I’m not so fussy.

 

Dealers don’t seem very helpful. Of course they just want to sell a car.

 

 

Best take test drives then, diesels and petrols with DSG / S-tronic..

A Mid / Large size SUV with 150 ps will have enough power for UK roads even with adults & luggage,

a 190 ps that bit more obviously.

Edited 12 July, 20187 yr by Offski

The old 2 litre FSI was about 150ps, but drank fuel heavily (I had a L&K Octy estate late 2006)

 

The new petrol engines are much more free running, and considerably more efficient than the old FSI

 

There are many reports of acceleration hesitation when pulling away with the diesels and DSG auto boxes, not really what you want when pulling out at roundabouts and side turnings.

The new diesels require 30-40 minute runs regularly to keep DPF clean, not a good idea if you do mainly local journeys with just occasional long runs

 

If you are going for a 2 litre petrol, and planning to keep car 11 years like existing one, then it is really going to come down to spec and comfort, however should find the 1.5 petrol more than adequate (do you really need the extra weight of the 4x4 system in Dorset (probably not if you are near the coast) and the bigger engine often comes with the 4x4 so adds £4k to the cost

 

There are some reports that the new emissions rules have caused some of the autos to change up earlier to save fuel, bit early to tell, but the MY18 spec might have a bit more driveability, try and get a test drive even if you have to go 50 miles away as your local dealer is acting all full of himself and not being customer focused

 

Very sound advice there. How about a recent TSI/DSG Yeti, for more compactness, high for easier access, dunno if 1.8tsi with DSG, if 1.2tsi too feeble......

On 12/07/2018 at 10:32, Fernbobs said:

I am in the fortunate position of being able to afford most cars in the sensible money range. I have owned a 07 plate 2.0 Octavia FSI L&K since new, but now want an automatic, a bit more power and space.

 

I am also not as agile as before so a Karoq or Audi Q5 are possible.

 

i am confused by petrol v diesel, particularly with regard to power when overtaking. 

 

Clearly the Audi is more expensive than Karoq, but if power is good I’m not so fussy.

 

Dealers don’t seem very helpful. Of course they just want to sell a car.

 

 

 

I've been trying various petrol/diesel Skodas recently.

 

Re manual - compared to my tsi petrol the diesel had a bigger surge of mid-range torque but keep your foot down it's fairly quickly game over and time to change gear. On my petrol that initial surge is less but as the revs rise it keeps giving and giving (good for overtaking!) - infact rather addictive on an open country lane.

 

If you have a DSG auto it may disguise the difference between the two

 

Test drive both to decide. The tsi is a marmite engine some people love it and some people don't..

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 20 July, 20187 yr by bigjohn

Thanks for your posts folks.

GM confident Bosch are on to something -

http://europe.autonews.com/article/20180814/ANE/180809784/gms-diesel-center-in-italy-has-a-role-post-opel?cciid=email-ane-daily

Saw a very interesting article yesterday, and it was about how the introduction of low sulphur bunkering fuel to ships in 2020 is going to cause diesel fuel prices to rocket (IMO requires 0.5% sulphur, instead of current 3.5% from 2020)

 

Currently ships use dirty fuel, but most refineries don’t have the capacity to produce the extra low sulphur diesel, so simple supply and demand will see prices rise, in Europe some fuel price analysts calculate +30% for pre tax diesel.

 

If fuel duty is unchanged (and hasn’t been changed for few years) then diesel could be 30-45p a litre more than petrol in 2 years time.

 

Even a high mileage driver will struggle to justify Diesel over petrol, if breakeven jumps to 40,000+ miles per year.

 

 

 

33 minutes ago, SurreyJohn said:

 

If fuel duty is unchanged (and hasn’t been changed for few years) then diesel could be 30-45p a litre more than petrol in 2 years time.

 

 

The price of petrol (Asda 114.7p!) has been dropping compared to diesel(Asda 125.7) as of late anyway - so around my area diesel is currently 11p /litre more expensive. That's a 9.6% difference.

 

My current 1.4tsi Superb II has been averaging 45.7mpg wheras my previous diesel 1.9pd Superb did about 50mpg with the same driving condiitons (my commute, town &holidays etc). For me the drop in mpg is now more than cancelled out by the price difference in fuel.

 

 

 

Edited 16 December, 20187 yr by bigjohn