Petrol or Diesel auto?

I'm hoping to buy a 1-2 year old Ulysse auto - but could anyone help me calculate if the diesel worth the extra money. I do about 12,000 a year, but most of its daily use is short trips on the school run. I would hope to keep it as long as it keeps going with fair reliability (5-6 years?)

As far as I can see, with the diesel...
fuel costs will be about £250/year less (i.e. £1,250 over 5 years)
up front cost will be about £1500-£2000 more, but presumably I'd get some of this back at re-sale time.
Serving costs are marginally higher (although I'd probably have extra oil/filter changes on either car)

Other factors
1) Ease of driving. I've only test-driven a disel auto - but the petrol looks a lot quicker on paper. (My kids are small, so it won't be hauling a great weight).
2) Are petrol or diesel engines less prone to wear on short runs?
3) Is the diesel engine likely to be more reliable as the mileage rises?

Can anyone help me make a decision?!

Thanks for any help

Hi

We have a 2.2JTD diesel, and love it - irrespective of fuel costs, I prefer the driving style in a car that size, i.e. immense torque, even with a car-load. The car gets used and abused on the school run every day as well...

As for speed, a quick remap on the JTD is an option, and makes it run rings round the petrol equivalent

Thanks for the rapid reply!

Sadly I need an auto (dodgy knee) and there are only the 2.0 engines available. I've got a diesel Picasso (sorry to admit on this site!) at the moment, and like the fact that it can pull from low revs which saves gear changes - but I'm not sure if the extra torque of a diesel will make much difference with an auto box?

Is diesel better for an engine on the school run?

Cheers

I have a petrol 2.0 auto, given the choice I would have the 2.2 diesel for the torque but like you wanted a automatic. I drove the 2.0 diesel auto and it was too slow and that together with the extra cost made me opt for the petrol auto.

I have to say the petrol is plenty fast enough and has a good acceleration from stand still. It will easily beat a 2.2JTD from a standing start as long as it's not fully loaded, but won't do as well at motorway overtaking because you have to shift gear. I think it would keep up with Stu . You can have the petrol remapped to give it more torque and then it will certainly be very quick, but I haven't bothered.

The diesel auto also has really bad fuel consumption, the urban value for an auto 2.0HDi is 20.6mpg as opposed to the manual 2.0HDi which is 30.7, so it shows that it is not a good option with an auto gearbox. So the fuel savings compared to petrol aren't great and as diesel costs more there is little in it. If you convert to LPG which is what we are doing you will pay about £0.34 litre and the cost saving over petrol is fixed by the goverment until at least 2008. If you plan to keep the car, the £1,600 cost to convert will be paid back very quickly. Our average round town seems to have settled at about 25.7mpg now and as this includes virtually no motorway driving, this can go above 30mpg if you do more motorway travelling.

My advice would be to try both, but I think you will settle on the petrol.

What is the book 0-60 on yours, then?

I have had 6 adults up in mine, cruising down the motorway, and the power was amazing - hardly had to take it out of 5th for overtaking, and the guy sitting at the back, who drives a petrol Galaxy, was pretty amazed.

I think it is about 11 sec, but it's the 0-40mph for town driving which I found was better. As I said on the motorway it is not as good at overtaking due to lack of torque.

With a remap they can add apparently about 10% more BHP and torque for £280.00, but I don't think I will go for it as we generally only have 3-4 people in the car.

Is this remap via Angel Tuning?

Ah, only 11 seconds then

No it's via another company as Angel don't have the petrol software yet. With an extra 10% it would virtually be a race car.

Plus your car smells like a bus

PMSL - well, with all the kids in there, smells worse than that

Thanks again for the advice - I guess I better go and find a petrol automatic to test-drive.

I think you've given the urban figure for the petrol auto - the diesel is still almost 6mpg better at over 26. (I think another thread claims that although on paper the Diesel should give 25-30% better fuel consumption, in the real world its closer to 15% - is that correct?)

Again, any thoughts on the long term preference for diesel or petrol for the short run use in terms of engine wear?

Cheers

I have driven all variations of the Ulysse and performance wise in standard the 2.0 petrol and 2.2"JTD" are on par. However the 2.0 and 2.2 when <cough> "sorted", completely blow the petrol away. Yes you can add 10% for an extortionate amount with a chip (not a remap) which may invalidate every cover you have, but even after that, you will still be huffing and puffing to keep up, plus you will have the extra fuel bill.

Shame that Citroen dont have an equivalent of the 20v 2.4JTD to throw in it..... but then the thought of kids, ice cream and puke stuck permanantly to the back screen probably put them off lol

Hate to go "off topic", but have you looked at an Alhambra 1.9 TDi 130, as these will blow even 2.2 into the distance once sorted... (Sorry guys!)

do they come with an auto box?

I know the Sharan does as we have done a few, I am not 100% sure if the Alhambra does although I would assume that if the Sharan does then the Alhambra could.... if you stayed awake during that! lol

The standard performance measuring methods does not reflect the actual advantage of Diesel.
It is much stronger than petrol in the entire range of 0-4000 RPM. However, it takes about 2 seconds for the turbo to get into full power when srarting from still, hence the "bad" 0 to 60 accelerating time, and it is less strong than petrol above 4000 RPM, hence the lower top speed (also significant for 0 - 60 acceleration).
In everyday normal use, if you are not a traffic-lights racer, the Diesel is much more flexible and powerful.
The flexibility is especially important for autogearbox since it has only 4 speeds, and the wider power band of Diesel (1750-4000) fits much better than the petrol's much narrower (4100-6000)

I hear what Nige is saying about the Alhamabra/Sharan TDi - purplemonday was only telling me the other day about what you can do them - amazing

As for the <sorted> "JTD", the accelaration is so different to the standard - how else could you explain a 0-60 in just over 9 seconds

If I was looking to buy an MPV again, I would still buy diesel [although I may be tempted by a 3litre V6 ]