What do y'all think of diesel cars??

There is no such thing as a "diesel car", they're called Tractors.

:pac:

Diesel = Fuel of the Devil!

Are you thinking of changing your car OP? What sort of driving (local / motorway) do you do and how many miles / km per year?

A petrol engine is generally more simple than modern diesels. I.e., a diesel has more components like turbo, DMF, DPF, etc and more parts = more to go wrong. Buying a 1.5 diesel to bring the kids to school is a waste of time when you weigh up fuel savings vs potential maintenance costs. Buying a 2L diesel vs a 2L petrol when doing 20k km/yr on longer drives is a no-brainer.

RandomAccess wrote: »

The cables are lockable, but anybody who watched top gear the other day might try to do it anyway "for a laff" and end up doing some damage.

http://www.thechargingpoint.com/news/Is-Top-Gear-encouraging-fans-to-unplug-electric-cars.html

They'd want to be lockable.

There's also the liability issue if they tresspass on my property, unhook the car by force and somehow manage to electrocute themselves with it.

I'm trying to think of the lowest common denominator.

You know what judges are like in this country.

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

You'd have to make sure there's enough voltage to dispatch them, it's only surviving trespassers that will sue you.
In the German army we where told to either let trespassers run away, or to make sure they cannot lodge a complaint or sue afterwards. But also, not to be so obvious as to pump the entire clip into them on rapid fire from 2 meters away!:D

Was this before or after the war?:eek::eek::eek::cool:

Notch000 wrote: »

if electric cars ever become popular, surely they will be taxed to death like everything else

Only 48 EV's were registered here last year.

vectra wrote: »

Not entirely so.

Operating temp in my car is 90 deg. to which it is advised to keep it under 2.5k rpm

@ 2.5k rpm I am doing over the motorway speed limit so no problem here.

As for turbo spooling up?? Not a problem there..Spools up just fine.. and can rev out to 5k..at which my car would be doing over 150mph..
Not bad for a duzel :pac:

The operating temp is the same, but diesels do take longer to get there. And they're like a cranky toddler when cold, noisy and reluctant!
And 1800rpm to just under 5k rpm isn't exactly a fantastic rev-range!! Off-boost they are pathetic too. All diesels should be auto.

So far 11 years of owning a car, and I never chanced it with a diesel.
Petrol (or few times LPG) was always a way for me.

Go test drive a BMW 535D which is probably the best diesel car on the market.

Twin turbo, 0-60 is 6.1 seconds and still can do 40+ mpg.

R.O.R wrote: »

Does it take that long to get to 60?

Think I'll try the new A6 3.0Tdi Twin Turbo with 313bhp and quattro. 0-100km/h in 5.1 seconds and combined consumption of 44.14 mpg (6.4 l/100km).

I could be overly pessimistic here but what are the chances of consistently getting near 44mpg with a 313bhp quattro, especially if also achieveing 5.1 seconds to 60!

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Mine seems to pull just fine from just under 1k revs, where most petrols don't exactly do well.
So 1k to 5k revs, that'll do me!
You can drive it just on torque, from 1k revs to 2k revs through town.
A lot of smaller petrols need their nuts revved off to get anything out of them.

What do you drive? Cause I've not driven a diesel with less than 6 cylinders that's happy below 1,500. They'll go, but they're not happy.

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

'06 1.8 TDCI CMax, 115hp. It's not a rocket, but pulls fairly evenly from 1k, you can do "taxi style" town driving in it, where you need never bother to go above 2k rpm.
It's only below 900 rpm in a high gear that it starts sounding a bit stressed.

On the other hand, her MX5 with it's 1.6 16 valve DOHC engine wouldn't pull the skin of a rice pudding below 2k rpm, it's mild to 3k, starts to go above 4k and goes to the red line.
Pretty much the opposite. For cruising and commuting it's rubbish, but it's a blast on a B road.

I've driven that engine in a Focus. Certainly doesn't pull well below around 1750-odd. Pulls, but not well!

R.O.R wrote: »

According to the Alpina Configurator, a D5 also takes 5.1 seconds to 100km/h, but costs (in Germany) just a shade under €71,000. That makes the A6 an absolute bargain at just over €66,000 from your local Audi dealer. Especially when you consider that sort of money would have just about got a 523i Manual with leather in 07.

Given that the 3.0Tfsi is only €2,500 less to buy, is slower, costs more to tax, only does 8.2 L/100km and isn't that special to drive, I'd be putting my money in to the diesel, and turning up the radio.

I agree. It's the best value A6 out there. But would you choose one over an S6, or RS6?
Also, In 5 years time, the TFSI will be for sale on some forecourt for less than half the price with half the miles than the diesel will be. Which would you buy then? would you pay twice the price for 0.4 seconds and a few bob a month saved on fuel?
On the D5, by quicker, I didn't mean 0-100km/h. It'd easily leave the A6 behind in any other speed range once the AWD advantage off the line is gone.

Common rail is probably the most significant step.

challengemaster wrote: »

At the end of the day, it's not a fecking race car, so why expect it to be one?

Because most numpties in diesels talk them up like they are race cars. Shíte like "shurrr a 535d is faster in the real world than an M5... more torque too" and "my tdi-cr-170bhp-red i-red-d chipped to 346bhp would ate anything off the road" is often spouted.
Much more research and development has gone into diesels over the last 10 years than has gone into petrols. 12 years ago a typical 2 litre non-turbo diesel had less than 70bhp. A 2 litre petrol had around 120-ish bhp. A turbo diesel of the same capacity had less than 100bhp. A turbo petrol had probably anything between 165bhp to around 300bhp.
Today a 2 litre turbo diesel has an average ball park figure of 140-150bhp. A top end twin turbo diesel 2 litre has around 210bhp. A very unstressed Golf GTi 2 litre turbo petrol has 207bhp, while a N/A 2 litre petrol is probably still around 150bhp give or take.
We have 180bhp from 1.4 petrols.
So your point of "how much more performance do you need?" when talking about your diesel can be applied to any reasonable petrol, yet it's only the diesel heads boasting about performance!
An Octavia VRS is still slower than it's petrol brother.

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

I'm just so used to it, maybe to someone used to a lot more power it might feel slow (not slow, but not fast either), but there seems to be enough torque from 1100 rpm for keeping up with traffic without it struggling.
So, swimming with traffic in a relaxed manner, 1100rpm to just a nadge over 2000 rpm.
Of course if you want to exploit a gap or make a light, you'd want to keep it between 2-3000 revs.
Revving it higher than 4000 is unnecessary, but in a drag race (i.e. someone decided you're not getting past them), it can go to 4500 rpm no problems.
It will rev to near enough 5k, but will flash lights at me and won't be happy.
Mine is the 115 hp Zetec, there is also a 90-odd hp version, that might have different characteristics.

Can any mechanically minded persons advise if running a diesel car on very low revs in a high gear puts additional pressure on engine/gearbox/clutch. There is ongoing discussion with regard to DMF's going early in diesle cars and was wondering if driving habbits could be contributing to this issue