Driving through France is a pleasure. Err, so long as you broadly skirt round Paris… Set cruise control to 80mph… aaand relax…
Only today I've done a small comparison between the fuel cost of a couple of vehicles I'm considering for later this year, and it does make interesting reading for the sort of vehicle I both want and need for various activities. I've never purchased a new vehicle, I prefer to spend what money I have on a better quality vehicle just a few years old than buy something new that I'd consider a compromise. I normally buy at 2 to 3yrs old and keep for @5yrs. I also do almost all work on my vehicle myself so warranties don't figure so much. I've had my current 10yr old Discovery 4 a little longer as I don't like the Discovery 5 so much, and even now I'm unable to find an alternative that does everything the D4 does. But it needs changing before it starts to cost me a lot of money to keep it going. Simply using published MPG figures, which I know aren't real world, I like to compare the cost to cover 10K miles. Note that all of the options I'm considering below are Euro6 and £195/y to tax, and I can insure all for the same annual premium. Fuel prices based on £/l at my local Morrisons today. My current D4 looks like this (3.0L TDV6): So £1,463 of Diesel to do 10K miles with 600NM of Torque which is the important bit for me. I am considering a Discovery 5, which comes with a 3l straight 6 Diesel or Petrol tuned to different levels. Ignoring the D250, I'm considering the Diesel 300 and 350BHP versions or the Petrol 360BHP However because I don't really like the D5 as much as the D4, the option I'm actually more keen on is the full size Range Rover, mainly because it has a similar split tailgate setup to my D4 and will do everything to earn it's keep the D4 does including carting stuff about and towing big trailers. The 4.4TDV8 in a higher trim level would knock me back price wise to possibly 4-5yrs old rather than 2-3yrs, but having driven a couple I know how good they are. The 5.0 V8 Petrol is a fantastic drive, and I've run the numbers for comparison, but running one daily is out of reach. Note I'm not considering a Defender as they are too small and have stupid huge side opening rear doors with actually a tiny access size. The numbers look like this: The interest for this thread is the difference in fuel cost to cover 10K miles in a Discovery 5 Diesel compared to Petrol, and from my point of view the lower Torque figure of the Petrol compared not only to the D5 Diesel but my current D4
