New Petrol or used Diesel?

needhelpguy

I'm buying a new car in 2012 and have decided on a Golf MkVI. Either an Edition-R or Highline model.

I have test driven the 1.2 TSI and I really like it. Quite nippy, but fairly economical. Feels faster than the figures suggest. Cost to change for me is about €21k. I had decided on this but a lot of people are urging me to go diesel. Lower tax, will give a better trade in value, more miles to a tank.

There is a 2011 1.6 diesel model for sale in a dealer (low mileage) in the colour I want and the cost to change would be about €20k. 1000 euro less for all the above. There are no used petrol models in the spec or colour I want. I don't want to wait as I need to change the car as soon as possible.

Am I better off going diesel? I'm not mad about them due to their noise among other things. Also I keep hearing about diesel particulate filters that would clog up. I only do about 6k miles a year. I don't know if people are blowing it out of proportion but a mechanic friend of mine said not to worry, he has never come across DPF problems and just drive her hard if the light comes on.

Any opinions? The cheaper diesel or dearer petrol?

racso1975

What kind of mileage will you be doing?

mathepac

needhelpguy wrote: »

... I only do about 6k miles a year. ...

Your mechanic is talking rubbish. Buy a petrol car. At 6k a year it is marginal decision as to whether you need a car or a bicycle , but certainly not a diesel.

Tefral

Petrol for that Mileage..

The cheaper tax is one thing, but very shortly you will see the Price of Diesel being HIGHER than Petrol. The old law of supply and demand. Im here in the Uk at the moment and every fuel station ive seen so far the Diesel price is abouy 7p more than the Petrol. The tax imbalance is the only thing keeping them level to this point in Ireland.

My brother is a mechanic and he is constantly changing injectors and DPF's in diesels.

daRobot

Perhaps i'm being unhelpful here, but I have to say it:

Why spend 20k (+ your trade) on a golf? Especially one that's going to be relatively basic in spec and low on power.

For the same money, you could get into a 08' 320d coupe with sub 30k. A much nicer can in almost every way, and still about 200 euro a year to tax:

http://www.carzone.ie/search/BMW/3-Series/D-E92-M-/131945222727955/advert?channel=CARS

You'd probably get a years warranty of that calibre of Garage if you haggled hard aswell.

Leonard Hofstadter

While a petrol is clearly the better option here, don't forget that direct injection petrols are quite intolerant of constant town driving, and need to be worked hard to clear them out from time to time. Direct injection petrols can suffer from carbon build up if they're driven too gently.

The OP would be better served by buying a simple naturally aspirated petrol with no turbos or direct injection to go wrong.

Cars like the 1.6 petrol Focus, Opel Astra 1.4 or (perish the thought:eek:!) Toyota Auris/Corolla 1.33 are also in VRT band B like a Golf TSI but don't have direct injection or a turbo. In the case of the Focus, if you go for the 125 PS version you'll also have more power than you'd get in the Golf.

R.O.R

OP - How long do you plan on keeping the Golf?

At your mileage, you probably will see issues with the diesel, but the Petrol is going to lose money at a much quicker rate than a year old diesel.

If you change every 2-3 years, the difference in resale value might outweigh the predicted higher maintenance costs of the diesel. If you will be hanging on to it for 10 years, petrol alllllllll the way.

Anan1

daRobot wrote: »

Perhaps i'm being unhelpful here, but I have to say it:

Why spend 20k (+ your trade) on a golf? Especially one that's going to be relatively basic in spec and low on power.

For the same money, you could get into a 08' 320d coupe with sub 30k. A much nicer can in almost every way, and still about 200 euro a year to tax:

The BMW would be four years older, which means four fewer years of not having to worry about anything going wrong. An E92 is also a lot less practical than a Golf, and more expensive to run. Finally, well and all as it handles, an E92 isn't really in its element around town. If the OP were going to go that route then I could see a much better case for a 130i auto myself.

the_syco

needhelpguy wrote: »

There is a 2011 1.6 diesel model for sale in a dealer (low mileage) in the colour I want and the cost to change would be about €20k. 1000 euro less for all the above. There are no used petrol models in the spec or colour I want. I don't want to wait as I need to change the car as soon as possible.

I'd wonder why the original owner sold it. Is there something wrong with it, I wonder?

As for lower tax...has the latest budget changed that much?

bazz26

the_syco wrote: »

I'd wonder why the original owner sold it. Is there something wrong with it, I wonder?

As for lower tax...has the latest budget changed that much?

Chances are it is either an ex demo model or a ex hire car.

okiss

I recently saw a program on the bbc showing people who had brought diesel cars for town driving. They were having problems which were costing a couple of £000 plus to fix re a some type of filter getting blocked as some modern diesels need to have high rev/motor way driving to keep these filter from blocking up.
I would look at a diesel car if you were doing high millage but you are not doing high millage.
Would you not consider a car that is 2 or 3 years old rather than putting your money into a new car which will lose value the min you leave the garage.
I would get a petrol car and look into the cost of tax on this also.

EPM

If I do a week of town driving I can feel my diesel running rough and choking up. I had a DPF fail at 44k km as the original owner used it around town. I wouldn't buy one for town driving. I've never seen a DPF light since replacement but it covers at least 1k per week, 90% on the motorway. The invoice for the replacement was eye watering.

bazz26

Diesel cars by their entended purpose are designed to be driven alot.

The problem these days is that people only see the savings in motor tax and a few cent a litre at the pump and that is enough for them, hence the current trend of people doing feck all mileage buying them. Long term these people will end up with large repair bills due to not using them for their entended purpose.