Making your engine last - oil change vs fuel quality

[TheMatador]

Just had a very interesting conversation with a taxi driver in Aberdeen. He's been in the business over 30 years. His last few cars were - Mercedes Diesel (non turbo) - 300k+ miles - loved it, Toyota Avensis Diesel - went through 2 engines and got ripped off by the dealer - never buying another. Current car - Ford Mondeo 1.8LX petrol.

Here's the interesting bit - he said a lot of the taxi drivers are moving away from diesels now because the fuel pumps go. He said the Ford TDCi, Vauxhall CDTi etc are overstressed - they're ok for the warranty but thats it. Only decent ones are Merc and VAG.

In every case where he's known a diesel fail its the high pressure fuel pump. So it makes me think - all this talk about how long life service intervals are bad and we should change our oil every 6k - that will do nothing to prevent the fuel pump going.

Proposal is that its better to got with the mfr long service intervals and put the money into top quality diesel instead.

Any thoughts??

[Col]

Some very good points there.

Personally I think that the current crop of diesels when they get old are going to be uneconomical to keep running when certain items fail.

Take for example the following;

Duel mass flywheel
Injection pump (as you mention) on the new common rails
PD unit injectors on slightly older cars.

None of these are a cheap fix and when the cars are say 5+ years old would represent a substantial percentage of the vehicles worth.

Even before that point if you need to replace any of the above, any diesel savings are wiped out against the petrol equivelant.

When you also consider the premium price you pay for a diesel car in the first place it all looks increasingly more unattractive and expensive.

On top of that look at the price difference of petrol to diesel, the mpg advantage is almost wiped out by that alone.

What I'm mumbling on about is the fact that I reckon there is no advantage to running a modern diesel over a petrol car except for the better real world drivability.

I could mumble on.

[paul b]

Funny you should say that. My work's van, a Renault Trafic 1.9 DCI broke down outside my house when I was leaving for work a few weeks back. I wasn't bothered about touching it myself due to my boss's attitude, so it went to Renault. The problem was the fuel pump, costing over £800 alone. However, to do the job properly the timing belt has to be removed, so add a new timing belt and the job reaches £1,100.

Personally I would have fixed it and got shot, that van has already had £1k spent on it to re-condition the gearbox.

Makes the turbo replacement on my T5 look like short change... so glad the Renault is theirs not mine!

EDIT: Add on some other bits and pieces, that van has had about £2.5k spent on it. In the current climate, its only worth £3k. I would certainly bin it, and bin it quick.

Paul

[TheMatador]

Interesting. I would get shot of it too....

Chatted with another taxi driver on the way back to the airport (they're always a wealth of information) - he had a Sharan Tdi that he put about 400k on - no engine problems. Had to replace the gearbox after 300k but thats still good going.

So basically, the old Tdi unit looks like a winner. Different story on newer diesels perhaps, especially with the big difference in the cost of fuel as Big Col says.

[Clinterous]

By having diesel I save about £2k a year in fuel. This go towards to my maintenance cost. Whereas a petrol car I would end up spending more over the course of a year.

For average to low mileage car user, petrol makes alot of sense cost wise.