Diesel or petrol?

Hi Baldy,

If you can justify the initial purchase cost and slightly higher service costs the diesel is the way to go.I assume you are referring to the "fifth generation" version built between 2004-2009.
There was the CDTi and the SRi, both turbo diesel engined vehicles.

Diesels provide more efficient and cost effective fuel consumption and maintain excellent acceleration with the turbo assisted power plant.

Generally, for a 4x4, one certainly get a higher resale value for the diesel which offsets the higher purchase price. With this in mind diesel id the way to go due to lower running costs

However I have not heard (or thought of) the resale principle in smaller cars? Would you get your money back on resale?

CJ

Unless each daily run is long enough to get the motor hot each time I would stick to a petrol.

The best way to run a desel is get it hot and keep it hot and it will last forever (unless its a ZD30) LOL.

I know heavy vehicles are slightly different but we drove buses that never actually got cold and had done over 800,000k and never had any serious problems Hadnt even had the injectors done.

I would do the sums.... taking into account the servicing cost, purchase price, depreciation, fuel cost and economy etc. I think what it would come down to is how long you plan to keep the car. Diesel would make sense to me if you're likely to keep it for long enough to make it worthwhile over a petrol (particularly considering the higher purchase price up front).

Without doing the maths I'd tend to think that over 5 years both would come out relatively even, so there comes in the element of personal preference.