Diesel or Petrol

[silver1011]

We’re all different, but if a 10mpg difference was influencing my decision on which car to buy, I’d be thinking I need to be looking at cheaper cars.

 

Unless covering significant annual mileage the difference in fuel costs between petrol and diesel is a rounding error in the overall running costs of a £30,000+ car.

[daviemck2006]

My daughters car is a seat Leon 1.5tsi manual. It's the same age as my karoq 1.6tdi dsg. I consistently get between 52 and 55 mpg, daughter struggles to get 40. Her previous car was a Leon 1.6tdi. Her current one needs revs, and lots of them to get decent performance.  I would not entertain towing the caravan with it, my karoq handles it OK. I was considering a vw troc, the only one I looked at was a 1.5tsi dsg. The salesman tried to convince me that the tsi would be a great tow car as it has 150bhp rather than the 115 of a 1.6tdi. He was a young guy, not much over 20. I politely told him that it's low down torque you need for towing, not power developed at 6000 rpm. I'm glad I held out until I found a diesel to suit me, and daughter says her next car will be back to diesel for her.

[silver1011]

My 1.4 TSI Kodiaq tows our 1.5 ton caravan with ease.

 

Sure, the extra torque of a diesel would no doubt improve things, but the little petrol engine is more than adequate.

[Vlady]

20 hours ago, SurreyJohn said:

@Vlady you don't give the prices, which might make one lot cheaper, but if similar then not a lot in it.  The 1.5tsi is fairly efficient, and in mixed driving the mpg difference to diesel is not as big as some think.  Allowing for diesel often being 8-10% more than petrol, even closer by types of fuel.

 

My gut feeling is if don't tow or load car up lots, and do lots of short journeys ferrying kids around, then get the petrol.

 

The 4x4 is more expensive to service, and heavier (it's extra weight is like carrying few bags of cement around all the time), so uses more fuel than 2wd.    Unless you live up steep hills can use money saved to buy decent tyres with winter rating instead of opting for 4x4

 

 

Last 3 cars we had I always was using All Season tyres during winter so 4x4 not really required. As you said, the car is heavier and more expensive to maintain, more things to go wrong, well unless 4x4 is needed then it is a good car.

Anyway, at the last minute my wife changed her mind and at the moment she says she/we will keep the BMW (2 series) after PCP ends, she (I too, but I like changing cars/bikes) doesn't see the point of taking another car on PCP which is the same age as her BMW. 

I still don't get it, the trade in prices are crap, either for my Karoq or wifes BMW but the dealer prices are still high! Every car I looked at on Autotrader should be £1.5-2k cheaper to buy, well according to Autotrader Evaluation.

[SurreyJohn]

1 hour ago, Vlady said:

Anyway, at the last minute my wife changed her mind and at the moment she says she/we will keep the BMW (2 series) after PCP ends, she (I too, but I like changing cars/bikes) doesn't see the point of taking another car on PCP which is the same age as her BMW. 

I still don't get it, the trade in prices are crap

There are some that think PCP has had its day, many now realise that it is just a money-go-round money pit.  What seems to have woken people up is the roll over to a new car deals aren't working as previous batch of PCPs got all the post covid residuals and trade in values wrong.

 

One of the default finance calculators on Skoda website was showing over £7k for total payable less cash price for a Kodiaq.  If going to have to pay that much in interest, then settling your existing car PCP and keeping the car few years makes lot of sense (even if got to take bank loan for couple of years to pay it off).