I know we've done a lot lately on the relative merits and economics of petrol and diesel engines, but I've done some calculations lately that made me sit up.
Here's the background: we're now looking seriously at buying a Toyota Verso as a family and weekend car. It will get moderate leisure-time use, a couple of long holiday trips a year, and will probably do my motorway commute one day a week. Probable total 12-14,000 miles a year.
Now, the Verso is available with four different engines, of which only two concern me. Actually, until I started calculating, it was only one - the 136PS 2.2D, which I've driven and which suits the car very well. But there's also a 130PS 1.8 petrol.
If you walk into a Toyota showroom, ask, "How much?" and write a cheque for the answer, you'll part with about £17,500 for a new petrol Verso and about £1,100 more for the diesel. You could have your own argument based on the break-even figures for those two. But I'm planning to buy something nearly new, and that's what made me pay close attention. For a year-old Approved Used T3 of about the same mileage, Toyota dealers seem to want about £16,000 for a diesel and more like £13,000 for the petrol.
So we can see that the petrol model doesn't make a good new buy. But it looks a lot more attractive 12 months on. At today's rates and my likely mileage, the difference in fuel cost is about £350 a year. (Even another 20p a litre would add about £70 to that.) The petrol car is an insurance group lower, servicing might cost a little less, and there's no worry over common-rail durability.
That leaves depreciation. There aren't any four-year old Versos to compare, but four-year-old RAV4s seem to show about a £1000 premium for diesel. So it looks as if a year-old petrol Verso might lose £5000 in the next three years, but a diesel one might lose £7000.
So what am I missing? It's possible that the 1.8 engine isn't up to hauling a short but not small car, so I'll try one and find out. I very much like driving a good diesel - my Volvo D5 is terrific - but not at any price. Has petrol power really become that unfashionable? And have I stumbled on a special case, or is this the same wherever you look?
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That £3K difference is fairly decisive, isn't it? That buys an awful lot of fuel, and in 4 years time there really will not be that much difference in resale value.
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I think salesmen reckon on our green conscience driving us towards higher mpg diesels/hybrids.
Technology is moving so fast in the area that it [almost] puts me off buying anything new-ish.
At least if I buy 5 years old, I'll only be spending 35% of the new cost. And it's so out of date that I would be beyond the pressure to upgrade 'green-wise' on an annual basis.
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Not only does the £3k buy a lot of fuel, but you've £3k less debt/capital tied up in the car. That's worth £300 a year on its own.
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The diesel engine will haul it along easier than the petrol but I guess you'd only really notice that fully laden on the holiday run.
Your "financials" point to petrol by some way with the only unknown being what you'll be paying for your road fund licence over the next few years. Amost certainly, medium CO2 producing engines will become the next soft target as high ones have already been singled out and so IMO we'll see big differentials in RFL that may have a bearing on running costs.
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I paid £2k more for a del miles diesel Focus than the equivalent petrol in 2002.
Still got the car, it's done about 66,000mls and I reckon I'm only now approaching break even on fuel costs.
As others in this thread realise, paying even £1k more for a diesel means you've got to do a lot of miles to see a saving.
With diesel more than petrol per litre the difference is even greater, so it looks like you only buy a diesel car now because you prefer the way they drive.
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In terms of performance the two cars are going to be like chalk and cheese in real life. A 1.8 is going to be slow, even with 130 ps, as you'll need to wring its neck to get it to shift a big car fast. The diesel will be effortlessly fast.
Yes, on low miles it would take a long time to payback, but that's always been the case in terms of diesels. The point is that petrol is cheap used because it's not a large enough engine for the car, therefore only appeals to someone that doesn't want a quick car (an entirely legit viewpoint btw), and therefore it's cheap.
Quicker cars always cost more to buy, the most extreme example being special editions where the only real changes are software, but it costs thousands more. The diesel the OP was talking about it likely to be a very different beast to drive.
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"....so it looks like you only buy a diesel car now because you prefer the way they drive."
Not necessarily if you do a high mileage, as I do: in most cases 15,000+ a year is enough to break even, and 20,000+ makes it worthwhile. But lots of us also prefer the way they drive - at least until we are offered more torquey petrol engines, like for example the TFSI 2.0 engine in the Golf GTI, Octavia vRS and equivalent Audis and SEATs. The old engines in MINIs were good for torque too, and the new ones even better.
Can anyone else think of a petrol engine with plenty of low-down torque? I'm sure there are others around, but I don't think the 1.8 Toyota engine is one of them, so you'll need to get a good run in one, WdeB.
Edited by Avant on 03/03/2008 at 20:13
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I don't believe the sums in the OP's first post.
A £4k gap in price when new goes down to £1k when 4 years old.
That is what drives the whole argument.
If that gap is still £2k when 4 years old the argument is less compelling.
Even more so as his figures are not real: they are forecourt prices and NOT tradein prices.
Tradein prices of petrol cars I suspect will also reflect desirability versus diesel.
But leaving that aside.. any decision MUST - if financially based - be built on tradein prices when 4 years old.
Otherwise its comparing pigs and lemons.
PS and anyone who thinks oil and petrol prices will remain where they are today is deluding themselves. I would expect £1.50 per litre in 4 -6 years time and RFL to rise at least 30%... the Government has two wars to pay for and MP's expenses:-)
Edited by madf on 03/03/2008 at 21:31
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>I don't believe the sums in the OP's first post.
I believe my sums more than yours, Madf. }:---) Or rather, I don't think you read my first post very carefully.
For a start, the gap in new list price is £1,100. (Although I accept that you'd probably negotiate a bigger discount off a petrol car than a diesel one.) Anyway, I'm looking at year-old cars, and that's where the gap seems widest, at about £3,000. Even if it narrows only as far as £2,000 in the subsequent three years - say trade-in values of £7500 for the petrol and £9500 for the diesel - the petrol has lost £5,500 and the diesel £6,500 from its much higher start. So that's another £1,000 the diesel has to make up, with only its superior fuel economy to help it.
So even if fuel prices do double as you suggest, and do so immediately, that merely doubles the diesel's catch-up rate to £700 a year - so it'll still be £1,900 down at four years old (three of them in my ownership.) And that's ignoring the cost of tying up the extra capital for three years.
I haven't driven a petrol Verso yet but will report back here when the family and I have done so. I'm curious that Toyota might easily have made a 2.0 or even 2.2 petrol Verso but chose to stick with the 1.8, possibly because they didn't expect to sell many of any petrol engine. I agree that the 2.2 diesel suits it very well, and that fuel economy is not the only merit of diesel power. It may also be that the 1.8 has to work so hard to pull the Verso that its real-world fuel consumption is much higher than the official figures suggest. I'll just have to try it and judge for myself.
Thanks to all for contributions and suggestions. I'll keep you posted.
Edited by WillDeBeest on 04/03/2008 at 21:12
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...the petrol has lost £5,500 and the diesel £6,500...
I wrote this at the end of a rather long day and the double-counting has been bothering me ever since. Sorry about that - of course you don't have to add that £1,000 to the extra purchase cost, only to the cost of paying or not receiving interest on the extra. So the gap over three years from one year old is about £1,500.
So if fuel prices in three years' time are double today's - so 50% higher on average over the three years I have the car - I'd approximately break even. It may yet come down to how the 1.8 petrol is to drive, so it's time I got the family into one to find out.
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Putting aside the economics, it is all about how they drive:
My comparison was when my 110 HDi Picasso was in the bodyshop and I was loaned...a 110 1.6 petrol Picasso. When I set off I thought, oh no I have made a terrible mistake, this petrol one goes as good as my diesel. That was until I started putting stuff/family into it - which is the whole point of a MPV-style vehicle. My goodness was it slow. With the family 5 up I could have pushed the damn thing quicker, it was just horrible compared to the diesel - in my humble opinion! I am sure, as Avant points out, there are probably torquey petrol engines out there, but the PSA 1.6 unit isn't one of them.
So I'd suggest to the OP is that if you test drive the petrol Verso make sure you have your family (or a few of your burly mates!) with you to try it out in a real world setting, not just yourself and the (possibly skinny!) salesman. DB
Edited by Webmaster on 06/03/2008 at 21:15
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There's another more extream version of this thread - boats
Boaters will no longer be able to use Red Diesel from November, so to all intents and purposes, the relative price of diesel vs petrol is the same.
We have a boat on order for £28k with a petrol outboard - with a diesel the cost would be £5k more.
For this extra £5k we would get extra noise, vibration, more expensive to service, a heavier boat with less storage space and be 40% slower than the petrol, yet still many people buy diesel due to a better GPH!!!
Lot of crazy people out there
MVP
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Lot of crazy people out there
True.
As long as people behave irrationally, there will be opportunities for 'rational' people. I for one is very pleased that there are a lot of people who display irrational behaviour toward high mileage cars - allows me to buy newish high mileage cars for comparatively little outlay.
In the USA for example, mileage does not decimate the value of a car to the extent that it does in the UK.
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For this extra £5k we would get extra noise vibration more expensive to service a heavier boat with less storage space and be 40% slower than the petrol yet still many people buy diesel due to a better GPH!!! Lot of crazy people out there MVP
A bit off-topic I know, but isn't petrol rather dangerous in a boat (I am thinking about heavier than air fumes collecting in the bilges and then exploding)? Personally I would feel safer in a diesel engined boat.
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A bit off-topic I know but isn't petrol rather dangerous in a boat (I am thinking about heavier than air fumes collecting in the bilges and then exploding)? Personally I would feel safer in a diesel engined boat.
Standard response actually, the USA runs loads of boats with petrol, the most common reason for fires? Electrical faults, in Europe it's LPG gas which the yanks don't run. Also once diesel is alight it's harder to put out.
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A bit off-topic I know but isn't petrol rather dangerous in a boat (I am thinking about heavier than air fumes collecting in the bilges and then exploding)?
We've getting an outboard, so no fumes in bilges (I think only American boats have inboard petrol engined boats)
MVP
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In the RN we ran our ships on diesel, but outboards were always petrol. The petrol canisters were stowed on deck, on quick release chutes that would jettison the lot into the sea if the pin was pulled. You really wouldn't want a petrol fire below decks. Admittedly, you shouldn't come under fire from enemy Exocets!
Edited by oldnotbold on 05/03/2008 at 13:24
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Now't like the sound of a Spey in a machinery space:)
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Despite my vehment pro-diesel stance, I find myself strongly considering a 2.0 petrol C4 as a replacement for my wife's ZX when the time comes. 3 yr old 2.0 petrols are getting on for £3k cheaper than diesel ones, and at 10k miles a year we'll never make the difference back. Still got to drive one, and see if I live with wringing its neck to make it go though....
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Four G6's worked for me. +-)
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Four G6's worked for me. +-)
Would those be Cummins G6's, Davmal?
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I see your maths, but a 1.8 non-turbo petrol engine in a car like this is going to make you feel a bit depressed when you drive it I would have thought.
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How can you even consider spending 13 THOUSAND POUNDS on a 1 year old Toyota Corolla?
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He's looking at a Verso, which is a seven-seater MPV and a lot more car than an ordinary Corolla.
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This argument is one I've been considering myself a lot lately, especially considering the current fuel prices, and the trend of which is likely to continue.
Like many in the backroom, I like my diesel not only for its economy but also for the way it drives. But financially, a petrol engined car is starting to look a lot more sense.
Currently in the North East diesel prices are consistenly 6- 7% higher than petrol. So before we even go into higher purchase price, servicing costs etc. you need 7% better fuel economy just to break even at the pump. Then a lot more and a lot of miles a year to break even.
I'm looking ahead to replacing my wife's diesel estate next year, and I'm starting to seriously consider (against all the environmental trends) a larger petrol engined car, i.e 2.5 litres+. This is simply because I don't think I can live with the puny output of a smaller petrol engine hauling a lot of load. The difference in bigger cars between petrol/diesel is even greater, which sways the argument even more towards the petrol.
A lot of food for thought.
In fact, I daresay you'd be better off buying a second hand petrol, saving a massive wad of cash, and then spending a grand or so on a decent LPG conversion, that is as long as LPG stays as cheap as it is at present....
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Interesting idea, Nomag - although my principal reason for considering the Verso is the way that it packs five humans (can't see us using seats 6 and 7 very much) and a useful quantity of Stuff into a moderate amount of road. Wouldn't a conversion - assuming I could get one - steal some of that luggage space?
Incidentally, I put a shortened version of the petrol-v-diesel case to Mrs dB the other day. Her answer surprised me - she'd rather pay the extra for the diesel because it will be nicer to drive.
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It's a no brainer if you do short journeys.
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I think in the case of the Verso Mrs de Beest has it right - the 1.8 petrol engine is too feeble for a biggish car, especially if it's fully loaded, whereas the 2.2 diesel makes the Verso really good to drive. With, say, a Ford S-Max, the 2.0 diesel v. the 2.5 petrol would be a different argument.
At 12-14k miles a year there isn't much in it financially so go for what you enjoy better. From my experience of test drives the Verso is the best of the MPVs: if we'd still had offspring at home I might have gone for it instead of the Golf estate.
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Someone wondered why the Verso is a 1.8 petrol, not a 2.0 or 2.2.
Toyota's big market for right-hand drive Corollas (and derivatives) in Europe is Ireland. As a nation, we love Toyotas. Our road tax and insurance scales also become punative for anything over 1.9 litres. Hence the majority of private cars are 1.6 petrols and the majority of repmobiles are 1.9 diesels.
Irish buyers will go as far as 1.8 in an MPV but no further, so that's what Toyota offer you in the UK too.
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