What car for £2k? 10k a year

[ChrisD.]

Why is 40 mpg such an important figure?

Have you take into consideration:
Higher purchase price of diesels compared to petrol equivalents
They are sometimes less economical over short distances
Increased cost of servicing/repairs, ie, more to go wrong
Diesel costs more to buy
It's a diesel and sounds like a tractor
It's a diesel and has no powerband

Etc etc.

Of course you are going to struggle to get 30 mpg in a 3 litre petrol engine. My 3.0 TDI used to struggle to get 35 mpg unless on the motorway. 2.0 or less will be much better.

 

[Kohaashi]

Why get rid of the 130i if you're only doing 10k miles a year?

 

[fizzle-187]

Why get rid of the 130i if you're only doing 10k miles a year?

How much would it cost for doing 10k miles in the 130i though? Roughly?

 

[Kohaashi]

How much would it cost for doing 10k miles in the 130i though? Roughly?

Well based on 10,000 miles running at 26mpg with the price of super unleaded at approx 132p it would cost £2307.97 per year

 

[xs2man]

Well based on 10,000 miles running at 26mpg with the price of super unleaded at approx 132p it would cost £2307.97 per year

Yeah, so only a saving of £1162 per year in a 50 mpg diesel.

 

[Kenai]

Yeah but any diesel that's going to get 50mpg on the sort of driving that a 130i averages 26mpg on is going to be a gutless horrible 1.6 lump I expect, so it's hardly a fair comparison.

You're looking at 34mpg book for a 130i, so achieving only about 75% of the claimed mpg would loosely imply you'd need a diesel capable of around 65mpg book figures to realise your 50mpg 'savings'.

edit - a slightly fairer comparison IMO, would be as follows:

26mpg at 123.9p unleaded (current national average) - £2166.39
40mpg at 127.9p diesel (again current average price) - £1453.61

£700 saving is a bit more realistic than nearly £1200 on a 10,000 mile basis, especially when you're talking £2k cars - anything realistically capable of 50mpg on the same driving cycle that nets a 130i 26mpg is going to be absolutely horrible, but 40mpg would be achievable by your average 2.0TDI VW or the like.

That's only comparing to the 130i though, a 3.0 litre petrol is never going to be the height of economy. Find a petrol car that's a bit less thirsty and you could probably manage 30 or 32mpg, reducing the diesel saving to more like £400, which personally would be nowhere near enough to make it worthwhile.

 

[xs2man]

Yeah but any diesel that's going to get 50mpg on the sort of driving that a 130i averages 26mpg on is going to be a gutless horrible 1.6 lump I expect, so it's hardly a fair comparison.

You're looking at 34mpg book for a 130i, so achieving only about 75% of the claimed mpg would loosely imply you'd need a diesel capable of around 65mpg book figures to realise your 50mpg 'savings'.

Not really. My Passat TDI 130 BHP (which was of an age where a £2k budget would get one)averaged pretty darned close to 50 mpg when I was driving it, and that was fast rush hour A-roads, through towns and industrial estates etc... Whereas whenever the in-laws took it for a jaunt to London, it was an easy 55 mpg for them. That was a car that booked at 48.7 mpg average.

The same driving in my old S4 averaged around 24 mpg, 330i around 26 mpg, Stage 2 1.8T Golf GTI around 28 mpg, V6 4motion Golf around 26 mpg. So comparable figures to a 26 mpg 130i I would reckon, which books an average of 30.4 mpg (55 plate model year).

Comparing inaccuracies between book and actual the way you are attempting is never going to be an accurate way of doing things though. My A4 2.0 TDI Black Edition (177 BHP) only ever achieved 60% of it's book figure, whereas my current 530d gets closer to 80% of book figure.