I have an N reg 1.0 Nissan Micra 9K11 type) with 60k on the clock. Just passed its MOT and had oil change, 4 new tyres and new exhaust fitted. I have started a new job which involves 100 miles per day commuting.
75% on motorways and A roads, 25% in traffic jams (M1 south of Leeds, A64 and York ring road if there are any Yorks readers here ).
Do I need a diesel?
The Micra gives excellent mpg, about 45 mpg I would guess.
The Micra has a full MOT and is very reliable. It should not need servicing for 6 months or so.
But 25k a year will probably knacker the Micra out (or will it?)
Is it economically sensible for me to think about getting a diesel?
Your Micra is worth very little. If you can stand doing that many miles in it then I would drive it until is knackered. Put the money that you save by not buying a newer car now into a savings account, and then when the poor little thing dies (which could be years), or your ears scream "Enough!", then you'll have much more cash to play with....
But in short, for 25k miles a year, and a Mondeo-type class car suited to that sort of mileage:
Petrol @ 35 mpg and 80p/litre = UKP 570 Diesel @ 45 mpg and 81p/litre = UKP 450
So you would save yourself in the region of UKP 120 a year by going diesel. Keep the car five years and you've saved (at constant fuel prices....) UKP 600.
Of course, depending on what you buy the diesel may well cost you at least UKP 600 more than the equivalent gasoline model....
Shouldn't do. Any modern well maintained car should be well into the 150k miles+ before it's in need of serious repairs
No. Unless the car is very cheap - factor in depreciation, servicing and finance and insurance costs and you'll be pushed to find much cheaper than your micra. You may /want/ something bigger, more comfy or more refined for a 100 miles/day but you don't /need/ a diseasel. 25000 miles/year at a guess in a micra would be about £2300 in fuel and servicing, and if it's worth a thousand pounds it's only gonna depreciate 300 quid per annum.
Go buy (say) a diesel used Yaris for (say) 6 grand and you've got to factor at least 3 grand depriciation, finance and other stuff over three years, and then you're still looking at 1800/yr in fuel and servicing.
Oooh know it well. There may be some short cuts, depending on where you're heading. My sixty miler a day involves York to Yeadon, so I'm going cross country, and busy finding all of the back roads... :)
Everybody needs diesel. :)
Guess? Heh. Kermit averages between 41 and 48 on my commute, depending on how hard I drive him. When you say K11 do you mean the bubble shaped one? These are especially economical, so you'd only be returning 45 mpg if you're caning it... :) The combined cycle figure is something like 47 mpg, so on a long haul you may be returning low 50s.
Hmm. Oil change every half interval will help keep the engine in good condition, although given your mileage it's possible overkill.
Nope, but the driver will. With with some degree of mechanical sympathy, especially when cold, it'll do just fine. I'm putting approximately 15K a year on to Kermit for commuting, and another 15K of private mileage. 30K a year isn't going to kill it, quite the opposite, really.
Yes, but only when you change anyway, if this makes sense. Changing for the sake of changing might get you a more comfortable ride, but to be fair and as others have pointed out, your current biggest cost of petrol will be replaced by depreciation.
But if you had decided to spend say £4,000 on a car, in terms of cashflow you'd save money by running a diesel relative to a petrol.
So at this point, it's probably not worth chopping the Micra in, but when you, then is the time to consider it.
To make matters worse from a running cost perspective, and using the new Micra diesel as a comparison, the 1.0 petrol manages a combined cycle economy figure of close to 49 mpg and the diesel just over 61 mpg. Sure, the 1.5 dCi Micra saves half a second to 62 mph and will have bags more in-gear thump, but it's not much quicker and it's not much more economical. For many small cars, diesels are not as relatively economical to make up for their additional cost.
Comparing something like a diesel Mondeo or Passat relative to their petrol cousins, aye there's a bigger saving to be made here...
I used to commute 160 miles a day in a 1990 Micra 1.0. It was very hard work. The gearbox gave out as it was only 4 speed and 80mph eventually cooked the bearings. A Jap sourced s/h box was the answer.
I would run your Micra until it starts to suffer then buy something with some torque and a bit more crash protection.
We have a Pug 206 2.0 HDi which is very nippy and gives 52mpg and nearer 60 if cruising.. The Mondeo TDCi (130) with the 6 speed box is also superb. 52mpg thrashing around France and it left our friends with their 2.0 petrol Mondeo standing on every hill. Over 2000 miles at French prices their fuel cost £212 and ours cost £96.
Whilst the diesel model usually costs more to buy I have never failed to get that premium back when selling. Service intervals are now virtually identical now too. The Renault diesels are now on 18,000 intervals.
I don't understand why anyone covering a reasonable mileage would go and buy a new petrol car. Even idiots like Clarkson and Quentin Willson now realise that their anti-diesel diatribes were ill-founded. In fact Clarkson runs a diesel, and Willson was shown recently raving about a Golf TDi.
On a recent cross country thrash I was giving my brother in his Puma 1.7 a very good run for his money in the 206 - I was still with him up hill and down dale (though I couldn't actually catch him!) I will also admit to preferring the sound of a revving Puma to a revving 206 HDi though!
In news:4141c616$0$7464$ snipped-for-privacy@ptn-nntp-reader04.plus.net, Doctor D decided to enlighten our sheltered souls with a rant as follows
I do a reasonable distance in my cars (which are all petrol), but also have use of a lot of new diesel powered cars. Other than the Mercedes CDi diesels and a couple of other exceptions, I don't rate any of them as better than their petrol equivalent. Better on fuel, yes. More midrange torque, yes, but if you spend time away from the diesels natural habit of motorways and steady speed work, then they're simply not as nice to drive.
Diesels will never be as responsive as a good petrol. They're good when they're wound up, sure, but it's that initial lag that ruins them for me. They all do it. Unfortunately it's due to the way diesel engines work. Petrol engines will always be more responsive, and DI petrol engines are becoming more economical by the day.
I'd ban all diesels from the roads if I had the chance.
It does depend on how you drive them. If you chase the power, then you'll never find a turbodiesel as good as the equivalent petrol engine, because of the way they deliver their acceleration. But adopt a more relaxed pace and attitude and you're able to perhaps drive 80% as quick using something like
50% as much go pedal pushing.
You mean turbochargers and not diesels, yes?
The Mercedes CDI donks have funky variable geometry (vane) turbine blades, which goes a long way into cutting out the lad.
Aye, and they've had some distance to come up.
I like turbodiesels for the way they deliver their poke, which means I can be lazy and relaxed, and still keep up with the flow. The Ka's "ye olde Endura-E" donk is broadly similar, with a very flat torque curve (>90% peak torque from 2,000 to 4,500 rpm, change up at 5,500 rpm if you're gunning it). I can use half maximum revs and perhaps perform 70% of maximum, whereas in something like a Toyota Yaris 1.0 VVTi, if I use half maximum revs I get something like 40% of maximum performance...
In news: snipped-for-privacy@uni-berlin.de, DervMan decided to enlighten our sheltered souls with a rant as follows
I know, I'm a pretty relaxed driver 90% of the time. I just hate having a laggy engine with a narrow powerband. If I tell an engine to do something, I don't mean in a few seconds. In the Sierras I can pretty much leave 'em in
4th or 5th gear most of the time when commuting to and from work safe in the knowledge that if I want to accelerate all I go is squeeze the throttle and the power is there if needed. In diesels it's more often a case of changing down a gear and waiting for the turbo to spin up, surfing a bit of torque for a while, then changing back up. Even the 530d auto I drive sometimes takes a while to do its stuff, quick when it does, but it's the wait that I hate
Diesel response lag and turbo lag are slightly different. It's just that most diesels use a turbo as well, so they manage to get both diesel lag and turbo lag. I can live with turbo lag (see sig)
Indeed....
but they're doing it. Some of the DI petrol engines are well impressive. This does not include the FSi Golf.
Kas are great because they're /properly/ torquey. You can be in a totally unsuitable gear in a Ka and it'll pull instantly anyway.
As for useable rev ranges, in the XR4x4 I tend to lug it around as if its an auto. 4th gear will cover basically everything. 3rd and 4th if I'm in a hurry on a b road, 4th and 5th for commuting..
The estate needs a few more gearchanges if I'm in a hurry, but will pull hard from 1300 rpm to 5500 in any gear.
In news: snipped-for-privacy@zetnet.co.uk, Guy King decided to enlighten our sheltered souls with a rant as follows
On a daily basis I compare some of the best new diesels to an '87 Sierra
2.8i. The diesels are normally quieter , but they're nowhere near as relaxing to drive. A 2000 rpm useable turbocharged diesel rev range just isn't as nice to drive as a 4000 rpm NA petrol of a decent size.
Thing is, the 2.8 in the Sierra wasn't even a good example of a petrol engine in 1977, never mind nowadays. Yet it's still nicer than a current diesel..
i.e this week I've been driving a new Mondeo TDCi, a 2 yr old Pug 406 HDi, a new Focus TDCi, a VW LT35, Iveco Cargo 75 E15, various new Transits. I've done on average 25-50 mixed miles in each and while they're quite all nice to drive, they're all pretty lame when out of their powerband. The 406 was spectacularly lame, it's only saving grace was it was quiet, comfy, and better on fuel than the others.
I guess it's that old idea of "getting used to it." If you'd driven just about nothing but diesels then you moved to most petrol engines, you'd struggle...
Well, perhaps not, but this V6 is about low down torque. Power is merely a consequence!
Hmm. Yes; but if you were to try the equivalent petrol version, it'll be left behind on hills unless you're in "zone five" and third gear, type thing...
However, I guess it's an example of modern cars being tilted towards "excellent across most circumstances" and this means changing the gearing to suit in the power band over most circumstances.
Don't forget that the low-down torque of most diesel cars is more down to the turbocharger than the engine itself. I recently drove our non-turbo zafira petrol 1.8 to exeter - it coped with everything it should do, the Ecotec engines have a good breadth of torque anyway. Yes many small petrol engines are buzzboxes but not all.
Of course all th arguments go out of the window when your petrol 2.0 volvo has >200 lbft at 2000 rpm >250 at 3500 then you also see little need for a gearchange as 4th gear pulls hard from 20 to 120...
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