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Petrol v Diesel when travelling only 6000 miles a year

I am deciding on a Company Car and have narrowed the choices down to a Toyota Prius and a Golf Bluemotion.

The Golf costs slightly more in relation to BIK, but both fit my budget. I feel that the Golf's interior is a far nicer place to be than the Prius, but the Toyota seems to be a technical marvel. However, we only do 6000 - 7000 miles per year with 4,000 miles consisting of journeys of less than 10 miles with two annual road trips of 1000.

Will the Golf cope with such small journeys and still return a good MPG, or will the petrol Prius be much better suited?

Asked on 22 November 2011 by N Atkinson

Answered by Honest John
If it's a company car, you don't need to be concerned with problem areas such as dual mass flywheels, diesel particulate filters, EGRs and timing belts. You'll only have the car for three years and the poor sucker who buys the car after your tenure will be the one who has to pay the big bills. When the public finally cottons on that 3 - 6 year old diesels with DPFs are potential money pits rather than money savers we are going to see a severe dip in used diesel retail prices and hence in diesel residual values. Hybrids are proven to be much more long-term reliable. Nothing much ever goes wrong with a Prius.
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