I'm moving house fairly soon and the one I have just bought means I will have to commute about 7 miles each way to the train station to get into London. I want to buy a cheap smoker to do this but with the short journey each way will it still be more beneficial buying a diesel over a petrol or will the extra of cost of diesel per litre make it uneconomical knowing the diesels are better on long runs? (would go for 1.8 petrol or similar if not).

Cheers

 

Small engined petrol i do 100 miles a day when i uk always had dervs bought a 350 quid ka and all its had on it in 2 yrs is tyres all my dervs had big bills more than the price of the ka lol may look stupid driving it but my pockets laughing drive and park it like its stolen dont even lock it

 

Haha I do get that, thing is whatever car I buy will need to be a bigger car / estate for practicality aside from commuting hence suggesting it will be a 1.8 or bigger!

 

My work commute is 12 miles each way, I use a 530d and it isn't great on fuel. Short journeys don't get great economy on a diesel as the warm up cycle is quite rich. I get 26-7 mpg out of mine. If my commute was 12 miles of motorway or a road with no traffic I'd be much happier as I'd easily get 40+ mpg

 

Petrol. I use a 2.3 galaxy for my 24mile round trip to work. 30 miles to gallon warms up quickly and costs 30 quid per week. Smaller would be better.

 

Dervs don't really like short runs it tends to kill the DPF's very quickly and they tend to be expencive to renew also the EGR valves gum up with short runs.
I would say you would be better off getting a petrol car.

 

Agree totally. I run a diesel and love it to bits but they need regular runs.

 

Petrol for short journeys and diesel for long motorway journeys

 

To be worthwhile you'd need something modern so you get the realy good mpg,
But then you get into th egr/dpf problems that come with short journeys,
I'd say that you'd be best with a petrol ad well for the reasons listed above

 

I'd agree with others, diesels for long journeys (which is what I do) and petrol for short ones.

 

Petrol - a nice tasty V8 should suit you going on your old cars

 

Pd engines don't mind short runs. Pre dpf.
Wife drives a remapped bora tdi, only problems have come from split intercooler or boost pipes, although I've had turbo, egr and intake off for cleaning when i got it.
Mpg isn't as good as on a run, but over 40mpg average and it shifts well.

 

7 miles each way. About the same as my commute. in that case get a v12


sillyness out the way, already mentioned but if you do go diesel make sure it ain't got a dpf as you'll kill it! wish I known about them before using a navara for my commute!

 

cheers chaps im kind of glad that the preferred response is petrol! My missus uses our C220 cdi sport mercedes for work,s he drives about 15 each way and only gets about 32-35mpg, she does have a heavy right foot but did expect better when I bought it.

Been scouring ebay and the trader, really fancy a large barge like a 7 series beemer or Audi A8!!!! Any ideas on alternatives up to about 3k? Ideally and auto and something with a big boot, folding seats ideally but not essential!

 

As above, petrol if you are doing shorter journey's as a diesel will not get remotely warm and this will lead to big running problems further down the line. That's before you take into account the higher cost of diesel and poor economy you will get.

We had an 07 Saab 9-3 1.9 TDi (pretty Vauxhall Vectra) which was bulletproof when doing a 70 mile per day commute, then the ex-wife changed jobs to be 4 miles away but insisted on still using the car, within 6 months it needed the EGR valve, DPF and inlet manifold all changing because they got horrificly clogged up from the short journeys. Very bloody expensive they were too!

 

my daily commute is 2 miles each way and i use my golf gt-tdi - but then it does always get a good run down the motorway several times a week lol

 

Diesels are far more economical than petrol if you're sitting stuck in traffic for most of that journey.

As for DPF's and all that shite, just dont buy a modern shitbox that has one ! That way it can never give problems or go faulty.