Company car/Diesel drivers ....

As slightly freaky, immature and ill informed as this is I am fully expecting armaggedon of one sort or another soon and my choice is a diesel as can put cooking oil in it and head for the hills.

Is that helpful??

Hmm, well I've got a diesel which was all very well when diesel was about 5p per litre more than petrol and I was driving up and down the motorway to work (20 miles each way). But now I'm doing short trips round town and diesel is 15p per litre more, it's not a good choice of car. I'm getting about the same mileage per tank as my husband does in his petrol car and he's paying about a tenner less to fill up than I am!

I agree with the veggie oil in the tank thing, as I regularly have a 50/50 mix in my 4x4 to help with fuel bills. Im no help either am I?! lol

Ooh really? Is it legal? Does it really smell like chips?

Sorry, bit of a tangent I know.

H's response as a car buff:

Fuel economy depends on how you are using the car. Petrol is more economical on short stop start journeys whereas the opposite is the case for diesels as diesels take longer to get up to optimum. but you say you do 25,000 miles so I assume you do long distances. i.e. diesel wins

If you are looking at the two engines in comparison from a performance perspective, the 2.0 petrol whilst it has more horse power the 1.8 diesels has double the torque which will mean the car has more pull. Diesels also give a more relaxed drive as you don't have to change gears as much (due to the torque). i.e. diesel wins.

Some people don't like the diesel noise although only at idle speed can you hear it being more noisy. On the other hand, at speed the diesels are often higher geared so you don't have as much engine noise from high revs on motorways. i.e. a draw ?

There may be a tax implication as a diesel is a more expensive car. Would be worth checking it out before committing yourself.

Finally, many new diesels have particle filters which makes them good for the environment compared to the petrol. Demand that the diesel would have that too as sometimes they cut down the price by not including it.

Yes its legal (I cant remember exact figures but as long as you dont use more than about 2000 litres a year its fine, before they changed the rules I was registered with customs to use veggie oil) and yup, it smells like youre driving a chip van, its lovely! lol

Thanks for the responses, everyone, really useful and gives me more food for thought. My driving is a mix of both decent motorway distances and local road travelling (30 miles per day to and from work on back roads), so theres pros and cons both ways. I'm just pleased there are Fords on our list of options now, previoulsy we've just had Renaults, Vauxhalls and Nissans and none of them appeal (currently running a petrol Laguna, nice enough I suppose). I had a Mondeo at my last company and it was a really really nice drive, so that choice is a no-brainer.

A work colleague runs a diesel Picasso and he puts the cooking oil in it sometimes and it does smell like he's been to Maccy D's lol!

I'd also second having a very close look at the tax implications based on emissions and book value as it makes a HUGE difference sometimes. I seem to remember the AA had a good calculator on their site.

I would also look at what rate your company will reimburse you for the petrol v the diesel for business mileage. We were recently advised that over 20K miles a year, a diesel works out more economical. My H always goes for the diesel because of more torque.

CL

I've done the AA tax calculator and the Diesel woks out a bit less in tax.

This would all be a much easier decision if there wasn't such a massive gap between the price of diesel and petrol, and if we knew how it was going to change in the next few years. Ho hum.

I'm probably erring on the side of diesel to be honest, the lack of alternative choice on the car list makes me not "drool" for anything else so I'll probably be happy enough to run it for the extra year over the petrol.

Thanks again for everyone's thoughts ?