Petrol or diesel - are we at the tipping point?

ankles

Looking at buying a one year old car, Audi maybe, anyway its wall to wall diesels as ever. But looking forward, in say three years time will we all be looking for petrol? Will the sale price difference be gone, or even reversed? Will motor tax now be piled on to diesel to disincentivise it? Will diesels pile up in unsellable heaps while the wily petrol purchaser laughs all the way to the dealership?

So should I buy petrol and pocket the savings and beat the crowd?

Comments????

Atlantic Dawn

PCP returns and the constant flood of cars from the UK would be a bigger concern. Buy what suits you now and for the next 3 years, don't concern yourself too much with resale. You will struggle to find a 1 year old petrol Audi in this country.

ankles

There's a few of them. I'm not pushed either way but there's a saving on petrol and they're less troublesome in the long run. Will do 20k km per annum at the moment so on the borderline really re cost

CIP4

I always drove diesels upto a few months went petrol and I'd never go back unless I started doing really high mileage >40k km per year doing about 30k km now. Modern turbo petrols are fantastic and completely underrated in Ireland. You don't realise how good they are until you get back into a diesel and drive it.

Del2005

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

PCP returns and the constant flood of cars from the UK would be a bigger concern. Buy what suits you now and for the next 3 years, don't concern yourself too much with resale. You will struggle to find a 1 year old petrol Audi in this country.

The constant flood from the UK might dry up when VAT and excise duty gets added after the UK leaves the EU.

ABC101

CIP4 wrote: »

I always drove diesels upto a few months went petrol and I'd never go back unless I started doing really high mileage >40k km per year doing about 30k km now. Modern turbo petrols are fantastic and completely underrated in Ireland. You don't realise how good they are until you get back into a diesel and drive it.

That's interesting, I would have thought at 30K you would have been well into diesel territory?    Unless it is city driving.   What turbo petrol are you driving now?

Cee-Jay-Cee

I don't think diesels are going to die out any time soon, we might see a change in 7 or 8 years time but it will be slow to happen as the government will be slow to act in relation to motor tax and we all know that motor tax is the prime consideration of the majority of the motoring public when it comes to what car to buy.

yop

Agree on interesting point re the 30km.
I'm doing 35k kms a year and drive a 2.0 diesel.

The premium for it is higher yes, but diesel and road tax is cheaper so it should balance out.
While the morning drive is a quick rush up the road, I average 40mpg, on the way its a slower journey and hit late 40's, early 50's mpg.

So unless I am missing something then a petrol isn't for me.

SBPhoto

The Car tax is not the big issue here, A 2.0l Diesel A6 Ultra 190HP IS €200 to tax while the 1,8L Petrol Ultra 190hp is €280 to tax so not a huge difference, i do about an average of 30K a year so diesel for me is much more economical that petrol. also the fact that i can claim the VAT back on diesel, but not on petrol makes a huge difference. nearly 35c a litre cheaper and approx 15%more miles per gallon on the diesel. I drive an A6 2.0L Diesel and average around 45mpg, get close to 60 on long journeys. For business people i don't think the change over to petrol will be an option at present

DaveyWaveyLad

Currently driving a 2016 model Audi A4 Petrol 1.4 litre stronic 150BHP. Traded in a 2014 2.0 Diesel A4 and find the Petrol a much nippier car. Only do 12000 Km's a year so diesel was wasted on me. MPG is great and trip computer shows avg 7.6 Litres/100km for Urban driving compared to 6.8 for the diesel. Petrol all the way for me from now on.

CIP4

ABC101 wrote: »

That's interesting, I would have thought at 30K you would have been well into diesel territory?    Unless it is city driving.   What turbo petrol are you driving now?

I don't do that much city driving mainly national roads and motorways. 1.4tsi Leon FR. I had a 143 2.0tdi A4 which would have had reasonable power but I'd still prefer the refinement, quietness and wide rev range the petrol offers it just feels smoother.

gooner99

I'd imagine that small and mid sized cars second hand cars are available in reasonable numbers here, but larger cars are really only available in diesel. So any issues with Brexit will reduce the numbers available further. For example my local indy mostly sells Toyotas and prefers petrols where possible and he has to import most of the petrol Auris from 5he UK, as most of the supply here is diesel.

PADRAIC.M

Hybrid or full electric is the future really or hydrogen

HiGlo

I find it mad how many people buy diesels, but i guess with the celtic tiger increasing people's commutes maybe it started to make sense...

I bought brand new last year and lots of people were recommending diesel.... but i do majority city driving so can't understand why... To be fair i clock up a lot of miles for work (car is slightly over 6mths old with 10k on the clock), but even at that my 25 min trip over and back on the m50 every day isn't worth a diesel... it'd cost me more in repairs...
I'm driving a 1.6 ecoboost focus titanium and its dead nippy, I love it.

With the price of petrol these days (1.41 I saw today!!), it'd make you cry! But i'd say there's loads of people driving around in diesels that have no earthly business in them, just cause of sales patter or uninformed influencers...

ABC101

The cost of running a car obviously varies on the circumstances etc.

However the biggest cost of any car, petrol or diesel is depreciation of the car itself, unless you are driving enormous mileages.

If you buy new, you loose money, a lot of money, some cars depreciating by 5 or 6 grand a year.

People loose money again by borrowing money on a depreciating asset, which is not good financial advice.

Unfortunately cars are not really assets, they have become a necessity.

I don't borrow money to buy a car, and I try to buy a good car which is already 8 years old, that way it has already lost most of it value and the depreciation curve is a lot more flatter. It's still losing money mind you, but if I can keep total cost of ownership about 4500 euro a year then I'm not doing too badly in my book.

The Bishop Basher

HiGlo wrote: »

I bought brand new last year and lots of people were recommending diesel.... but i do majority city driving... ...but even at that my 25 min trip over and back on the m50 every day isn't worth a diesel... it'd cost me more in repairs...

How did you know the car was going to cost you more in repairs without ever owning or driving it ? In fact, how did you know it would require any repairs at all given that it would have been brand new

Or do you mean those mythical "repairs" that so many posters on boards with zero experience of owning, driving or maintaining a Diesel like to talk about at every opportunity ?

HiGlo wrote: »

With the price of petrol these days (1.41 I saw today!!), it'd make you cry! But i'd say there's loads of people driving around in diesels that have no earthly business in them, just cause of sales patter or uninformed influencers...

I'm sure there are, much the same as the kool aid drinkers on boards who'll tell anyone that'll listen that a diesel is the wrong choice for them unless they're doing at least 5000 miles a month.

Ultimately people make their own choices about what car to buy just as you made yours. Some people may regard your decision to buy brand new to be as crazy as buying a Diesel for city driving but each to their own. You are free to continue judging them of course but in reality you have no idea whatsoever why they make the choices they make. Live and let live..

HiGlo

Swanner wrote: »

How did you know the car was going to cost you more in repairs without ever owning or driving it ? In fact, how did you know it would require any repairs at all given that it would have been brand new

Or do you mean those mythical "repairs" that so many posters on boards with zero experience of owning, driving or maintaining a Diesel like to talk about at every opportunity ?



I'm sure there are, much the same as the kool aid drinkers on boards who'll tell anyone that'll listen that a diesel is the wrong choice for them unless they're doing at least 5000 miles a month.

Ultimately people make their own choices about what car to buy just as you made yours. Some people may regard your decision to buy brand new to be as crazy as buying a Diesel for city driving but each to their own. You are free to continue judging them of course but in reality you have no idea whatsoever why they make the choices they make. Live and let live..

You own a diesel and do primarily city driving then, yeah?
Apologies for the great offence I seem to have caused you. :rolleyes:

Rattlehead_ie

Would never buy a new car. Just dont see the point.
However with a daily commute from Gorey to Blanchardstown I couldn't see myself going for anything else but diesel right now.
The +20-25MPG ,cost of diesel currently make this a no brainer for me right now....i think?!

Fiskar

Think a scrappage will be offered in 2018 for 10 year old diesels, too much posturing for votes me thinks this year for anything definitive to be offered this year in the Budget. Diesel's day is done, so I will hope the Government will drop the VRT for diesels traded in, that would save me a pile on a BMW 120i

NIMAN

Rattlehead_ie wrote: »

Would never buy a new car. Just dont see the point.

We are all lucky not everyone shares that view.

Cantona's Collars

The motoring section on the Last Word discussed this,tldr version is that the government sold the Irish people a pup in 2008 by telling everyone to buy diesel and giving us "the chape tax" on them and now diesel is the devil. What will all these people do? Pony up for a new petrol to replace their diesel cars,will the road haulage companies stand for increases diesel prices which the government are toying with to basically force us away from diesel.
Take the Quashqai as an example, the 1.6 petrol basically disappeared from sale in Ireland as incentives were given to buy diesels and now with thousands of them on the road we are being told "sorry folks,you should have gotten the petrol model".

zilog_jones

Whatever changes they make to taxation will have to be gradual and not unnecessarily penalise those who already bought diesels due to previous tax regimes. Also, there's not much point targeting haulage as they have no viable alternative and much higher costs to replace vehicles.

Easiest thing to do right now is target VRT on new passenger vehicles to discourage diesels, or reduce tax/duty on petrol (no change to diesel).

Mandzhalas

Rattlehead_ie wrote: »

Would never buy a new car. Just dont see the point.
However with a daily commute from Gorey to Blanchardstown I couldn't see myself going for anything else but diesel right now.
The +20-25MPG ,cost of diesel currently make this a no brainer for me right now....i think?!

Lpg is alternative. 65 ct a litre. You can fill up in forecourt across the road of lidl in gorey

An Ri rua

Exactly.

Buy a big gutsy petrol and convert it to LPG. Many European cars are fine with LPG, as their manuals will attest. Just do a bot of research on your model and then buy a big lump of a car and a good LPG system.
I do 700 miles /1100km per week on LPG in a 2.3. High tax as its 07; but ultimately high comfort, good savings and very little maintenance. Oh and 63 cent LPG