Should I buy a Diesel or Gas CAR?

[Ryan]

As usual. When I can't get a straight answer in specialty forums I turn to my ole Turbo Buick family. I permanently live over seas now. Gonna purchase a car soon. Fuel is very very expensive. Cars are very very expensive. Seams like the prices dont drop a hole lot with used cars so we are looking at new ones. I can't make up my mind if we are going to get a Diesel or Gas car. They have diesel cars with really small 1.3 or 1.6 engines with 60mpg. The gas cars are around 35-40 mpg. The Gas is $6 a gallon Diesel is $5 a gallon. Does not sound too bad but the dollar is kicking ass right now and at the record high so the prices will probably go back to about 7 bucks for Gas and 6 bucks for diesel. The Diesel car is around $3500 more than the Gas car. Did some crude calculating and figured we would drive about 8-10k a year. About a third will be highway. I'm bad at math...hope I provided enough numbers. Thanks in advance.

 

[Pliskin1]

Quick rundown:

Gas
Say 10,000 miles a year at 40 mpg on gas. So 10000/40 -= 250. That means 250 gallons of gas.
250 gallons of gas at $6 per gallon = $1,500 per year in fuel.

Diesel
10,000 miles per year at 60 mpg = 167 gallons of diesel (10000/60 = 166.6)
167 gallons at $5 per gallon = $835 in diesel costs

So you save $665 per year in fuels costs by purchasing diesel over gas. ($1500 per year in gas minus $835 per year in diesel).

Now, with an extra cost of $3,500 if you buy the diesel, that's $3,500 divided by 665 (annual savings), which equals 5.2. So basically, in 5 years you will recoup the cost of the additional money you laid out on buying the diesel.

I understand there are variables - such as where the price of gas and diesel goes over the next several years, how many miles you truly drive, maintenance costs, price of fuel, etc. - but we can only work with what we know, which is current costs.


Think I got that right. Hope it helps.

 

[regan j]

Long haul equals diesel. Short haul is gas.

 

[Ryan]

Definitely gonna keep any car I get over 5 years. We do lots of short trips. 20 min to an hours ride. Prolly a 70 mile round trip every other week or so. Would this short trip live style hurt the economy or the reliability of the diesel engine?

 

[Boost231]

I would go diesel, however make damn sure you keep that diesel fuel clean and make sure the station your getting it from goes through alot of it. I sample every time I fill up. You get one bad tank, be prepared to dish out some money