Which of these 3 Diesels to buy?

DubDani

Thanks for the suggestions, guys.

I didn't have the HDI on my list. But after the recommendations here I have been looking into them a bit more, and it seems the 406 HDI (just not the 90 bhp one) is a very good option. They seem to be reasonable reliable and very good on the fuel economy (55-60 mpg), which is very important if you are doing 600 miles a week.

Thanks a lot for the input.

siralfalot

Lex Luthor wrote:

it's gotta be one of these

http://www.carzone.ie/usedcars/index.cfm?fuseaction=car&carID=679807
http://www.carzone.ie/usedcars/index.cfm?fuseaction=car&carID=681093

beat me too it I was going to suggest the red sportwagon too, on motorway driving I can get 53mpg out of my 2.4jtd easily, normal hooning around returns 46mpg

sombody mentioned that the Diesel Alfas 156's are bad value when you can pick up a petrol one for free, Well I've owned both and the Diesels are way way ahead of the T- Sparks in every respect

whosedaddy?

but what about Alfas reliability?
honestjohn has a long list of whats bad / to look out for....

me interested in said red Alfa.

E92

Surley the Toyota Avensis cant be overlooked? Everybody knows Toyotas never go wrong. I've been in petrol Carina taxis with nearly 300 k miles and they're still going strong, not to mention the good old Avensis diesel with more than 300k. I'm 99% sure this is a lie, but a Toyota dealer once told me that he had recently seen a Corolla diesel go in for a service, boasting a million miles! And then lkets not forget what they did to the 190,000 mile Hilux on Top Gear, and it still started first go.

Speaking of the Skoda Octavia, I'm only back from Lanzarote, where I was 'treated' to an Octavia(as is the norm in the continent, most of the taxis there are Merc C/E(usually E) classes, although surprise surprise its almost exclusively the older taxis that are Mercs, back in the day when Merc made properly reliable cars, newer taxis less so, that wouldn't be anything to do with Mercs loss of interest in making reliable cars now, would it:eek: ?) TDi as a taxi one night, it had 799k km on the clock, engine still going well, interior a bit knackered looking, but nobody expects a car with nearly half a million miles on the clock to look as well as it did when it came out of the showroom, and a 406 HDi with 452k km, which sounded like anyday soon might be its last.

As for Alfas, well Fiat are the parent company, and we know what Fiat stands for, don't we?(Fix It Again Tomorrow, and as ned78 said when that doesnt work F**k It All Together:D )

unkel

E92 wrote:

Surley the Toyota Avensis cant be overlooked?

Surely it can and should be overlooked. Old skool tractor diesels should be firmly left back in the 20th century. It's their loss that Toyota (and Honda) didn't cop on to the diesel revolution until recently

This thread made me remember that Ford too was well late with the common rail technology launching in '01. I suppose being an American company is only slightly ahead of an Asian company

Timeline of joining the diesel revolution: (open to lots of corrections on this one!)

Alfa: '97
BMW: '98
FIAT: '98
PSA : '99
VAG: '00
Ford: '01
Toyota: '03
Honda: '05 :eek:

bazz26

unkel wrote:

Surely it can and should be overlooked. Old skool tractor diesels should be firmly left back in the 20th century. It's their loss that Toyota (and Honda) didn't cop on to the diesel revolution until recently

This thread made me remember that Ford too was well late with the common rail technology launching in '01. I suppose being an American company is only slightly ahead of an Asian company

Timeline of joining the diesel revolution: (open to lots of corrections on this one!)

Alfa: '97
BMW: '98
FIAT: '98
PSA : '99
VAG: '00
Ford: '01
Toyota: '03
Honda: '05 :eek:

Toyota introduced common rail diesels in 2000. Honda in 2004. VAG still don't use common rail technology.

maidhc

unkel wrote:

Surely it can and should be overlooked. Old skool tractor diesels should be firmly left back in the 20th century. It's their loss that Toyota (and Honda) didn't cop on to the diesel revolution until recently

This thread made me remember that Ford too was well late with the common rail technology launching in '01. I suppose being an American company is only slightly ahead of an Asian company

Timeline of joining the diesel revolution: (open to lots of corrections on this one!)

Alfa: '97
BMW: '98
FIAT: '98
PSA : '99
VAG: '00
Ford: '01
Toyota: '03
Honda: '05 :eek:

In fairness the VAG 1.9 TDI was a fantastic engine and possibly started the "diesel revolution" in 1992. I.e. up to then diesels were generally 2.0 normally aspirated lumps.

Toyota fitted the D4D from 2001 in the Avensis!

prospect

unkel wrote:

Alfa: '97
BMW: '98
FIAT: '98
PSA : '99
VAG: '00
Ford: '01
Toyota: '03
Honda: '05 :eek:

LOL, you are so biased dude...

Fiat developed the CRD engine, and it was first introduced in the Alfa 156. So give them some credit and put them in that list above BMW.

unkel

Right, lets compile an accurate list for the craic. I'm open to all corrections here! First my presumption is the first model of a manufacturer available for sale somewhere in Europe (as not to be biased towards RHD / LHD manufacturers)

bazz26 wrote:

Toyota introduced common rail diesels in 2000

maidhc wrote:

Toyota fitted the D4D from 2001 in the Avensis!

They fitted the D4-D from '00. That was an old skool (non-common rail) diesel. Toyota fitted the D-4D from '03 afaik. That is a common rail

bazz26 wrote:

Honda in 2004

You're correct. It was early '04 in fact

bazz26 wrote:

VAG still don't use common rail technology.

Correct. The entry above is for the PD system which is pretty modern too
In fact VAG are dumping PD now and moving towards CR too

prospect wrote:

LOL, you are so biased dude...

Fiat developed the CRD engine, and it was first introduced in the Alfa 156. So give them some credit and put them in that list above BMW.

:eek: The Alfa (156) is on top of the list! I always credit the FIAT group with having had the first common rail diesel on the market!!! But you're right, I should have grouped FIAT / Alfa together so here's the updated list:

FIAT / Alfa: '97
BMW: '98
PSA (Peugeot / Citroen) : '99
VAG (VW / Audi / Skoda / SEAT): '00
Ford (Ford / Mazda / Volvo): '01
Toyota: '03
Honda: '04

Where does Renault fit, Mercedes-Benz? Any other makes / models I should include?

JCDUB

Ah lads come on you're forgetting the marvellous Primera 2.2 turbo DCi;)
No seriously though, I have a 04 company one, due for replacement very shortly and was talking to a mate in the trade, said they go for very cheap cos of engine size.
I've had no difficulty with it and it goes like a train, motorway cruising is a pleasure, but it looks like a bag of hammers type space ship from Doctor Who in the 80's:D
I would recommend it though, comfy inside and economical and reliable, although I don't know much about technical side of things.
Defo one to think about though, what you think?

maidhc

unkel wrote:

They fitted the D4-D from '00. That was an old skool (non-common rail) diesel. Toyota fitted the D-4D from '03 afaik. That is a common rail
?

Nope. The facelifted Mk1 avensis has a common rail engine (from 00/01...whichever). There is even an 02 model sitting on our driveway at home and it wasn't the first of them!

The old school diesel was branded "TD"... we had one of those too, so I am pretty sure!

R.O.R

JCDUB wrote:

Ah lads come on you're forgetting the marvellous Primera 2.2 turbo DCi;)

Hate to slag off someone else's car but....

Probably the second worst car I've had to pick up (after a 1.4 megane saloon, but that's for another day). For a 2.2 diesel there was little or no go in the thing on the M50. As you mentioned the looks are not to everyone's taste, and the radio / climate control contols take a bit of getting used to (but once you've figured them it's actually fairly easy). My main problem was that it feels like you are sitting on the car rather than in the car - still, miles ahead of the 1.6 petrol model to drive

From all that's been mentioned in this thread, I think this is the one I'd recommend least, in fact I haven't ever recommended a Primera to someone looking for that size of car.

As for being cheap, it's probably something to do with the company I used to work for dropping about 30 on to the market every 2 weeks a couple of years ago. Don't think they've ever recovered from the 120 ish that went.

unkel

maidhc wrote:

Nope. The facelifted Mk1 avensis has a common rail engine (from 00/01...whichever). There is even an 02 model sitting on our driveway at home and it wasn't the first of them!

The old school diesel was branded "TD"... we had one of those too, so I am pretty sure!

Yep, you're spot on. The D4-D ('00) is indeed common rail too. Looks like Mercedes-Benz were '98 and Renault '99 BTW. Mitsubishi was '01. New list:

FIAT / Alfa: '97
Mercedes Benz: '98
BMW: '98
PSA (Peugeot / Citroen) : '99
Renault (Renault / Nissan): '99
VAG (VW / Audi / Skoda / SEAT): '00
Toyota: '00
Ford (Ford / Mazda / Volvo): '01
Mitsubishi: '01
Honda: '04

Keith K

hi, just to get back to the cars in question, my uncle is a head mechanic for renault and has always guided me and family to new cars with no biase

he said not to touch a renault laguna with a stick(especially to watch out for the dodgy recall that got plenty of lagunas mileage zeroed as a result!!!!)
also electrical faults a plenty

passat is overpriced with costly repairs

skoda is grand, i dunno how a lesser badged passat dodges the bullet

i got a 01 mondeo with 94k miles, 115hp zetec model though. it has timing chain so piece of mind
cant say that bout others

also a point about the tddi v tdci thing-ford had developed the common rail engines for their cars but phased it in as said by someone else here starting in 2000 with lesser powered transits, the transit still used the tddi engine in its high demand units (til this year- they had to give in after 6 years)because it was tried and tested technology, like the way most vw diesels are only changing to commonrail now

ps the mondeo is actually quite fast in comparison with the others in my little immature traffic light grand prix'
zetec interior is very nice, probably taking second place to the passat, but as you will be doing lots of miles you will be happy to find if you google it that the drive quality and cornering abilities of the mondeo are second to none.
i have mine about 18 months now and love it

bazz26

Keith K wrote:

skoda is grand, i dunno how a lesser badged passat dodges the bullet

This is a common misconception. The Octavia is based on the Golf/Bora platform and shares most of it's components. The Passat is in the next class up from that and shares most of it's parts with the Skoda Superb.

Keith K

bazz26 wrote:

This is a common misconception. The Octavia is based on the Golf/Bora platform and shares most of it's components. The Passat is in the next class up from that and shares most of it's parts with the Skoda Superb.

my bad, i just meant its basically vw technology but doesnt seem to get the negative feedback associated with vw

E92

keith k wrote:

my bad, i just meant its basically vw technology but doesnt seem to get the negative feedback associated with vw

Thats because Skodas are built in the Czech Republic, whereas VWs are built in Germany, Spain, and a few other places as well. Apparantly the
Skoda workers are more diligent than the ones who build cars for the rest of VAG.

Plus, anyone who remembers what Skodas were once like knows that the only way for them was up, so therefore when people think of Skodas they think that they wont last a day, and the fact that they last as long(or not so long) as any other VAG car means that people are astonished that they are so 'so' reliable. A lot of 'reliability' surveys are customer satisfaction surveys, so people expect absolutely nothing from a Skoda, whereas they expect quality and reliability from a VW/Audi which is another reason why Skodas do better than their sistem VAG cars. There was a time when the owners manual of a Skoda was a bus timetable after all.:D (I think that was actually for Lada, but nevertheless its appropriate to Skodas of old as well)

does anyone remember the Estelle?a car thats far from the ideal getaway car, as its so noisy you could hear it about 5 mins before it was about to arrive, and so slow I once had the misfortune to be in one, about 12 years ago and it actually stopped going up a not-too-steep hill on a road in West Kerry. I can honestly say that the Skoda Estelle is the worst car I have ever had the misfortune to be in. I remember the Mk2 Escort, I thought that was bad, it was like a luxury saloon by comparison to the Estelle:D

Keith K

best site i have found for impartial advice
www.honestjohn.co.uk
he explains why the jtd engines are so unreliable and how out of like 140 cars surveyed by some company the alfas/fiats etc score third from bottom consistently and the timing belt system fitted to most jtd engines were officially declared a sham and can snap with as little as a bit of heavy right foot action and need to be changed at least every 36 months or 30000 miles


THATS RUBBISH and is across the board with them

belts/chains are the driving force in your engine essentially

i needed that out of my system because i dont understand why anyone would invest in fiat based technology

Michael G

DubDani wrote:

As I will have to drive much more from now on I will have to switch to a Diesel. As my budget isn't huge I have narrowed it down to the following 4 cars, which all cost about the same:

02 Renault Laguna DCI 95000 miles
01 Ford Mondeo TDDI 98000 miles
98 VW Passat 125000 miles
2001 Octavia 115000 miles

I've had two Octavias and am now on a Superb. The Octavia is just a VW Golf with a different body and is an excellent car but you need to be sure that the timing belt and tensioners were replaced at least once and in fact they are due for a second replacement in another 5,000 miles.

itarumaa

After seeing Laguna diesel (the new model) to get stuck in full throtle and filling the road with white smoke, so that traffic was stuck, I would never, ever buy that car.