I'm looking at changing the car as I'm struggling with the boot space on the current car. The favourite contender comes as either a petrol or diesel but there appear to be far more available with the diesel option. The last time I owned a diesel DPF's were not a thing (Citroen BX19, complete with Creme de Menthe suspension fluid). Most of the usage will be local, but with one decent run a month at the moment, maybe one a week if circumstances change. For those with experience of these things, is that liable to be sufficient to keep the DPF happy, or am I risking a large bill for cleaning or replacement? TIA.
If you aren't doing enough miles to make the savings between petrol & diesel worthwhile, I'd buy a petrol car. Less likely to get a ULEZ restriction if you end up keeping it for a while. No DPF hassles and better performance which on low miles won't cost much anyway. Probably a better resale too as you're a Landin Boy incha! When I switched car 18 months ago, these were the reasons I chose a petrol JCW.
Ran a 2 litre turbo diesel VW Golf, sorry Seat Leon, great engine, DPF hated short mileage and I had to go through a thrash, constant 70mph for 20 minutes. On my third Leon now, the later 2 both petrol (the 2 litre GTi engine). I don’t miss the diesel one bit. Andy
Thanks, I live on the edge of the ULEZ zone so an important consideration and the intention is to keep it.
Our 1.4 Tsi petrol Golf will do 50 ish mpg on a decent run out, even local its better then my Tdi van.. I think diesel engine days are numbered purely due to the emissions crap that they attach to it to stop us all suffocating from soot and consumption.
Thanks Andy, the petrol engine you mention is the same as in my current car (Cupra Ateca) and the two engines you reference are the ones in the vehicle I'm looking at (Skoda Kodiaq/VW Tiguan Allspace). I was leaning towards the petrol so I'll have to look harder, unless the trip to the dealers this weekend pays dividends; been invited to an event for existing customers to buy new at cost price + £1... They obviously haven't hit sales targets but I'm not sure that there's anything in their current range that might address the boot space issue, other than the Cupra Leon Estate. Much as I like the look of it (and my previous car was a Seat Leon FR Sport Estate that I very much enjoyed), I'm not sure I want to go back to the lower seating position.
A diesel DPF will need a re-gen every 400-500 miles. They don't take long, 5 minutes or so on mine but the engine must be fully up to temperature before it can do it and then you have to keep driving until it's done. Of course you're completely unaware when or if that's happening. You're longer monthly drive may fall at a time when a re-gen isn't needed. You them do a month's worth of short journeys and it can't re-gen. The result is a clogged dpf that the car now can't re-gen. And then there is Ad-blue and EGR valves. It soon gets expensive when these things start to fail. Saying that, I have a diesel and it does two 130 mile journeys every 2nd week on average with 20 mile journeys in between and it's never been a problem.
Petrol for small (er) engines, can delete the DPF and all that other crap, I did my Amarok, it was a bloody nightmare.
I'd have petrol as well. I have two diesel vehicles, a VW van and a Landrover FL2. The van was a stack of trouble with failing injectors, EGR and pdf issues and a load of other non fuel-type related problems. Had them all adressed at considerable expence, but it's an older Euro4 vintage and newer examples have even more issues. The LR is currently the most reliable car I've owned, but it does do the road miles to keep the dpf happy. And again it's Euro4 vintage so no ecoblue and a 2.2L engine, not a 2.0L eco with wet belts and a massive turbo to make up for the lack of cubes. If buying new or nearly new I wouldn't touch diesel wet belts with a barge pole. If I didn't need a van and 4wd I'd definitely have petrol. If I lived in a city and they weren't going to introduce pay-per-mile I'd consider a hybrid. But I live out in the sticks and a lot of people here run even older 4x4s that will go on forever mechanically, but they will soon be taxed off the road. That's another factor to bear in mind. It won't be possible to simply ban diesel and petrol at the stroke of a politician's pen, but they can certainly be made unaffordable. I can see diesel vehicles being taxed at a grand a year soon, and it'll only keep rising until we're forced to give them up through road tax costs and CAZ prohibitions. My Euro 4 LR is still permitted in all ULez/CAZ zones except Bath and London, last time I looked. But I doubt it'll stay that way for long.
And, you can't remove or delete (remap so it's permanently open) an egr unless you eliminate the dpf at the same time. Dpf regeneration won't work if the egr has gone or been locked open as the soot levels will keep triggering a dpf regen, so that eventually it will go into constant regen mode that will never clear, which sends mpg through the roof, and you'll be stuck in limp mode. I made that mistake with my VW van. Had the egr mapped out and a couple of years later the dpf threw a fit. Cost me £900 to fix that. I thought the turbo was buggered as well as the throttle was having to be pushed deeper and deeper into the carpet before the turbo was kicking in. I thought (hoped) it was just the turbo actuator (though replacing that still isn;t cheap unless you can do it yourself as it's labour-intensive). Someone told me to try running some turbo cleaner through the fuel, and it worked. Normal turbo function returned over a few tanks of fuel. I was lucky, I got away with it. When I took it to the turbo shop to have the dpf magicked away the bloke said there was another van like mine in and he'd done the same thing as me but his turbo had failed.
