Petrol vs Diesel - cost are getting close

[diplo-matt]

Hi guys, ive been pondering this for sometime. I do around 18k a year in my ZT-T TDCI. Nothing wrong with the car im just bored of the diesel lump.

Ive worked out how it would compare to say a V6 190 and heres my figures based on 28 year old with clean license and 5 years NCB

Diesel ZT 135
Car price (difficult to price tbh)= £2200
Basic Servicing (oil and filter change done at home) = £100
Insurance = £300 last time i looked
Total fuel (based on 18000miles at 40mpg @ 145p ) = 2962.
Total cost for year = 5562.35

Petrol V6 190
Car Price = £1200
Basic servicing not including cambelt oil and filter change= £100
Insurance = £600
Fuel = based on 18000miles at 28mpg @133p = 3794
Total cost for year = 5781.7

Ive kept the servicing at £100 because although the petrol needs cambelts most have done at lot less miles than the diesels so arn't as likely to need things like suspension, also the diesels often need expensive fuel pumps etc, so its difficult to judge. I think at £1200 you would expect a V6 not to need to the belts doing within the next 30k

So to sum up if you were considering buying a petrol or diesel you would still save £219.35 per year with the diesel.

However.... if you already had a diesel and thought about selling it you could sell it and buy a petrol and still have 1k in your pocket, put that towards the additional running costs of the petrol and you'd be £780 up!

If you were to completley factor out the price of a vehicle then you would save £1119 over a petrol which means any gains from selling your diesel for a petrol would be lost within 2 years.

So in short a diesel is still by far a better option against a V6 190, but diesel is set to rise further, only when it reaches £1.90 against £1.33 of petrol will you see the costs even out, but bear in mind the cost of buying a diesel against a petrol and there wont be much in it.

If you were to cover less than 11000 miles then a petrol would actually be cheaper in the first year of ownership

Im sure a 1.8 would be actually be a cheaper option than diesel.

I see a lot of low mileage V6's for sale in good nick and a lot of High Mileage CDTI's for sale.

Matt

[diplo-matt]

A more accurate way of looking at it is to look at depreciation. I doubt a good V6 will ever sell for less than 1k, but the diesels will continue to decline further. Most are nudging 150k now and i think anything about 200k will see there values drop further even if they still have a 100k left in them.

I should maybe do some figures based on 3 years of ownership.

[MisterTomez]

If prices carry on going the way they are it'll certainly at least break even against diesel.

Stick LPG on top of that and it's a no brainer IMO.

[rotrex]

Diplo-mat
can I just say, I think your mpg figure is a bit out assuming we'r talking like for like driving conditions ? also your insurance, ie I insured my zt cdt and 190 toure within a week of each other. same company same age cars ect ect. cdt £277 ztt 190 £288 both exact same cover fc I see you have quoted a lot more to insure 190.
also my 190 was lpg now I only owned the car for a short while but was very interested in comparing day to day running cost ie fuel, got to say lpg v cdt were very close running cost on fuel. on petrol no contest tbh not even close tam

[diplo-matt]

can I just say

Yes you can...

cdt £277 ztt 190 £288 both exact same cover fc I see you have quoted a lot more to insure 190

Fair enough, im just quotting the figures i was quoted, i think the cheapest quote i got was £588, it may have changed but the petrols is a higher insurance group.

One other thing i forgot to mention is that the petrol is in a higher tax bracket aswell.

I cant really make any sense of the last bit of your post, but LPG is fine provided you've bought a car with it already fitted, depending on the system it can take between 10k and 20k mileage wise to see the costs come back if you pay to have it fitted.

LPG is currently 79p per litre on average.

Diesel is 1.45p litre on average

A diesel will do 40mpg, this is purely a guess but isnt LPG not as economical as petrol,? If so then your only really seeing around 45mpg on a petrol, im sure someone will give me a more accurate figure than this.

[MisterTomez]

Originally Posted by diplo-matt

Yes you can...


A diesel will do 40mpg, this is purely a guess but isnt LPG not as economical as petrol,? If so then your only really seeing around 45mpg on a petrol, im sure someone will give me a more accurate figure than this.

You're quite correct but that depends on the tune of the car, you can get it to a point where it barely uses any more LPG than it would on petrol. I get around 45mpg (diesel fuel price) equivalent out of mine so I'm sure a 190 on LPG would have no problem doing that. 79p sounds expensive too, even in the middle of Solihull at a Shell station its sold there at 69.9p.

[Singvogel]

Hi there,

This is an interesting debate - but what happens if I whisper "Head-Gasket"?

Oops!

Singvogel.

[MN190]

Originally Posted by Singvogel

Hi there,

This is an interesting debate - but what happens if I whisper "Head-Gasket"?

Oops!

Singvogel.

It would be unusual for a V6

[Singvogel]

Originally Posted by MN190

It would be unusual for a V6

I agree with that in the case of a V6 - of course.

It's just that in the original first post the OP said something like an 1.8 would be a cheaper option than a diesel, which is fair enough but the likelihood of major engine repairs could wipe that out any day.

At the bottom end of the price scale if you get 2 years out of a car you need to be happy.

Seems a shame but that's how prices are going - forget it and get another.

That's what my brother is doing - he only does about 10K a year and he says he happy to take a risk on a 1.8.

So far he seems to have chosen wisely and 18 months later he hasn't had his fingers burnt - yet.

[guru]

Matt, am I missing something? As you've taken into account the cost difference in buying those cars surely those figures don't make sense if you plan on having the car for more then 12 months? I do admire the man maths though

Originally Posted by diplo-matt

Yes you can...


Fair enough, im just quotting the figures i was quoted, i think the cheapest quote i got was £588, it may have changed but the petrols is a higher insurance group.

One other thing i forgot to mention is that the petrol is in a higher tax bracket aswell.

I cant really make any sense of the last bit of your post, but LPG is fine provided you've bought a car with it already fitted, depending on the system it can take between 10k and 20k mileage wise to see the costs come back if you pay to have it fitted.

LPG is currently 79p per litre on average.

Diesel is 1.45p litre on average

A diesel will do 40mpg, this is purely a guess but isnt LPG not as economical as petrol,? If so then your only really seeing around 45mpg on a petrol, im sure someone will give me a more accurate figure than this.

An LPG car will loose a little economy on gas however with a decent conversion it's probably only 10 - 15% down on petrol. I do agree that you have to be doing very serious mileage to make it worth while do the conversion yourself however cars that have already been converted can be picked up for not much more then standard petrol ones.

Originally Posted by MisterTomez

You're quite correct but that depends on the tune of the car, you can get it to a point where it barely uses any more LPG than it would on petrol. I get around 45mpg (diesel fuel price) equivalent out of mine so I'm sure a 190 on LPG would have no problem doing that. 79p sounds expensive too, even in the middle of Solihull at a Shell station its sold there at 69.9p.

79p is the very highest I've paid anywhere and that was on the motorway services. Currently in Norwich it's 71.9 to 74.9 depending on where you go.

Originally Posted by Singvogel

Hi there,

This is an interesting debate - but what happens if I whisper "Head-Gasket"?

Oops!

Singvogel.

Probably lost of people will whisper "not on the KV6" back to you