Buying a diesel - driving low mileage

wersal gummage

OK, so I know that I shouldn't do this...

I do less than 5k miles a year at the moment.

However, last few cars I've bought have all been a few year old petrols and I've lost my shirt on every one of them when I sold them. I tend to keep a car for maybe 18 months max and then get bored and fancy a change.

So am thinking of buying an 05 or 06 ish diesel car - simply because it'll be easier to shift on in a year or so.

My main question is, are there any diesel engines that aren't troubled by low mileages ? I gather the DPF issue is a problem with low mileage, but are these only on newer diesels ? Would the old 1.9 VAG lump be ok ??

I'm thinking of buying an Audi A4 Avant. I really want to get the 2.0 TFSI petrol one - but they do little over 20mpg around town and I can't find any for sale in Ireland - so this suggests it would be a tough yoke to shift on... So thinking the 1.9 tdi instead....

I'm buying in the UK and don't have to pay VRT as I will be over there for nearly a year for a job - so thinking of buying something over there to bring home. There are lots of cheap 08 low emissions diesels for sale in the UK - which seems like a more sensible thing to bring home from a resale point of view - just worried I would wreck the thing after a year or two of low mileage... For example - a 09 Citroen C5 HDI would not be much more than a 05 Audi Avant TFSI.. No doubt the citroen would be easier to sell on...

Grateful for any thoughts.

Thanks

Atlantic Dawn

It's no so much the amount of miles that causes problems with the dpf it's the style of driving within those miles. Someone could do 1000 miles a year all motorway driving and they would be fine, someone else could do 30,000 miles around the city at slow 1500 rpm driving and they would have issues.

vectra

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

It's no so much the amount of miles that causes problems with the dpf it's the style of driving within those miles. Someone could do 1000 miles a year all motorway driving and they would be fine, someone else could do 30,000 miles around the city at slow 1500 rpm driving and they would have issues.

There's the problem right there.
Take it for an odd motorway blast and you should be fine.

wersal gummage

Great thanks.

So more modern diesel wouldn't be any more troublesome than an older one, once I give it a blast up the motorway every week or two? I would be mostly urban driving, but not commuting type, so wouldn't be all trips at barely above idle.

shawnee

wersal gummage wrote: »

Great thanks.

So more modern diesel wouldn't be any more troublesome than an older one, once I give it a blast up the motorway every week or two? I would be mostly urban driving, but not commuting type, so wouldn't be all trips at barely above idle.

Buy something with service history , that should be easy in the uk and if possible with low mileage. Modern diesels are more troublesome and do need more servicing than older ones. I am talking from experience , I have had several order diesels without trouble. Had a merc and a mondeo and both gave trouble, swirl flaps , dpf, dmf all that ****e that wasn't in the older yokes that chugged away nicely. But hey everyone seems to want a diesel nowadays so if you want to resell you will sell a clean diesel car much easier than a petrol. And if it's low tax you will definitely sell easier as no one wants to pay high tax here anymore

wersal gummage

Thanks.

Yea full service history seems very common so would be looking for that. However, very high mileage in the larger diesel cars is also very common. The lower mileage examples command a big premium. Is it worth paying? For example, am 08 skoda superb 2.0 tdi cr 140 with around 120k miles is about 8k sterling. The same car with say 60k miles is up around 11 or 12 k sterling.... As a one owner car with full skoda service history, would the higher mileage car not be worth a punt? I would be doing very little mileage anyway so if I kept it for 2 or 3 years I wouldn't add greatly to the mileage.

I would definitely prefer a petrol, but very hard to sell them on now.

shawnee

I would certainly buy the one with the higher mileage and service history... particularly when you are not putting up lots of miles.;)

Walkedit

Just coming to this having never had a diesel but looking at an Irish 2011 S40 D2 SE Lux unmarked that has FSH and only 33k miles on the clock, for 12K.

Is the low mileage a plus?
Will also do low mileage but not all city stop/start, will DPF be a problem?
Economics with tax €200 and mpg make it look good

Any comments/guidance welcome

biko

Don't drag up old threads please

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