when I took my 1996 W124.

Snap, cracking cars, invested some serious money into mine this year, hoping she'll give us another 10/11 years good daily driver service, always assuming we last that long..;)

I finally gave up on Diesels last year after having them almost continually for about 30 years, see no reason to go back, its LPG for me now, the MB so converted has been a great success, thats my route for the forseeable future.

'' The classic/older car industry is a thriving part of the economy!''

Thats the bit that will keep the environment gestapo at bay if anything will, must be a lot of money going into the economy from the classic and older car scenes, some of us are awkward minded enough to resort to push bikes and shanks' pony if they banned all the old cars, then ''they'' would get nothing.

Edited by gordonbennet on 13/10/2013 at 16:55

Both the Merc and Octy are very eco friendly so no reason for the government to legalise off mss1twbn. The classic/older car industry is a thriving part of the economy!

With help to buy (How about letting house prices come back to a sane level), the bank bailouts, and pathetic interest rates I question the governments concern over the 'real' economy.

Follow the money!

Edited by mss1tw on 13/10/2013 at 16:57

The government is only interested in being re-elected.

Dunno if anyone remembers but..I recall an interview with a certain Dr Porsche, quite a few years ago,.....whose company conducted much of the developement work on diesels for major makers.....this interview was some years ago...and he was talking of years to come [think he said, Porsche were condcting developements which wouldn't be seen for 6-8 years hence?}....

anyway, crux of interview was, he considered diesels [for cars?] to be 'at the end of their developement, and would die out.....

So, just as diesels are dying, I manage to buy myself an ancient DAihatsu Fourtrak.....the first,and probably only diesel I'll buy....unless I get bitten by the old tractor bug?

it won't 'replace' whatever car I'm driving...but it will tow my big trailer.....something my Fiesta could only dream about...

Does anybody know if the mud comes as standard?

Smell and smoke are two different things, the rules and DPF etc are concerned wioth particulates which if large enough appear as smoke.

Smell is probably the cheapster running his motor on home brew diesel (chip fat, veggie oil etc. etc.)

A lot of smoke offenders nowadays are people who get their cars/vans remapped or add a tuning box. These characters are also often likely to de-cat their motors and remove their DPFs. One of these modded engines often produces as much smoke/particulates as over 1000 normal cars and personally I think their owners should have their motors confiscated and crushed.

EU is trying to make modifications of this type illegal, but the UK is not biting yet - although the MOT rules are supposed to address this before too long.

A lot of oldet black cabs dont have a licence to work in central London only the suburbs of London I can only guess this is to do with emissions.

bah humbug.

Clive at work allows his fuel bill has halfed by changing his wife from a Mazda 3 petrol to a Vauxhall Mokka diesel.

He ignored my advice 4 years ago when he bought the b***** petrol car

35 mpg to 50 plus mpg

do the sums.

marcus

All sensible people know diesels are more polluting (in terms of genuine pollutants, not co2 which is a building block of life) than petrols, perhaps legislators are finally catching on.

The ordinary motorist has only started buying diesels in the last 15 odd years because of the price of fuel. When petrol was 34p a litre, nobody had a diesel.

They've let you out again?

Accepting the Co2 as bulding block thing have you not heard the expression too much of a good thing?

Diesels caught on here because (a) they're much more fuel efficient - while we buy fuel by volume rather than weiht (b) manufacturers produced diesels that drove well - PSA's XUD was the pioneer and (c) the BIK tax stuff around fleet cars

Don't you own a Berlingo and therefore have no right to critique the driveability of motorcars?

Drives an auto - opinion on driveability invalid. ;)

Jamie,

I'm not going to do a cut/paste disection but:

• Polar bears, whatever the population now, are suffering loss of habitat as the northern ice cap shrinks.
• The real terms cost of fuel now, measured in time worked to buy a litre, is at or below the historical average.
• I've had two cars with XUD engines the first of which directly replaced the same model running on petrol. Not only was the diesel quieter and more economical but it's 30-50 and 50-70 times, ie real world driving, were better.

The petrol / diesel argument will become increasingly irrelevant as we move towards range-extender hybrids in future years. Then, the internal combustion engine will become a mere auxiliary component, part of an on-board generator that only starts up when the battery pack needs topping up.

Edited by Sofa Spud on 18/10/2013 at 21:39

From a thermodynamic point of view, only a diesel prime mover makes sense for a hybrid. The Japanese are hopeless at diesel engines and also need to sell their hybrids world wide - diesels cannot be sold in some markets - so their choice is obvious.

The real flaw of a hybrid is its total inability to operate acceptably or efficiently at or near full load.

No hybrid can tow anything at all.

Drive a loaded hybrid up a mountain pass, and see how fast it can go after 15 mins.

Check the real fuel consumption under Winter conditions of full heater and electrical load - (miserable).

Check the real fuel consumption at full air conditioning load.

The diesel excells under all of the above conditions. The energy stored electrically in a hybrid's battery is so miniscule compared with the energy stored in a tankfull of fossil fuel that the facility of mains recharging is largely irrelevant.

A hybrid is just about a runner as a city car - but stupidly expensive for its limited capabilities, making it an uneconomic proposition for a single car owner who expects good performance over a wide range of applications.

659.

Edited by 659FBE on 18/10/2013 at 22:24