Petrol Engine or Diesel Engine: Your Choice?


Which is your pick?


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Re: Petrol or Diesel???

My dear,bring some 'road-going' car,not these 'made-for-purpose' ones.
You should take a look at BMW 640d. Can smoke out even some of best petrol cars.

It is not just about the torque buddy. Its about when and how the torque is available.
+1. It is for this reason trucks & buses are on diesel.

Maybe my next car will be Accord which my father liked and I found very tough to take him to Superb.Or even a Superb TSi!!
Honda Accord is very good car. First hand experience, but now running costs are a pain. Ofcourse, if running is low, it very good but now age has starting showing on Accord. I was told by Honda guy that new Accord will come in 2013 that too with diesel mill. Waiting for that now.
Btw, personally I liked Accord more than Superb coz Accord is good not only to sit in rear (Sethjis as raj calls them [lol]) but even nice to drive. Superb is pathetic compared to Accord as drivers car.

I prefer diesel, especially for big sedans. Reasons are -

  • Fuel efficiency is better, let alone just price difference between petrol & diesel,
  • Chances of adultration are less compared to petrol,
  • More importantly, while driving inter-city, finding 24x7 petrol pump is difficult but one can get diesel with ease. This is useful if you are inter-city traveler in your car,
  • Our running is high, so car price difference of diesel is recovered in an year or year & half.

And those who feel diesel aren't great as petrol, I suggest them to drive Merc E350 CDI. Its a gem of an engine & is better than its petrol sibling. Drive it once, & you will forget petrol.

Following are pics of BMW 640d.
 

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Re: Petrol or Diesel???

@tsivipul:
We are talking on Petrol Vs Diesel, not Which is more fun to drive!!! When we are doing such comparison, numbers will come anyway. To come to a conclusion, I, and most of us would do the following:
  • Compare initial cost.
  • Compare fuel costs.
  • Compare power output.
  • Compare maintenance costs.
  • Compare fun to drive factor.
  • Compare efficiency.
  • And there are many other factors. Theory will ultimately come in.
Unfortunately, your alignment is only towards the fun factor. All I can say is, Grow up buddy..
Anyways, as its rightly said, to each his own..
 
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Re: Petrol or Diesel???

That is what I was saying - diesels offer effortless performance. Those who are accustomed to driving a diesel will not go back to a petrol. And I have seen many such cases. But those who have set a negative mindset for diesels will never like it, come what may.
+1000 to what Raj said. I again think that the thread is moving to a big debate, where as the thread was about what you personally like and why. Not pointing at "you are wrong in thinking this". I like diesel and I have reasons for that. Better mileage is big big plus.

Let me tell you all an incident from my office parking area. I daily park my car on steep slope and the place available is minimal. So it is possible many times that we need to move other employees car to move our car out. SO here I have 2 cars in front of mine. Ford Ikon and Maruti Alto.

Started Ford Ikon, Shifted first gear. Tried doing half clutch to move car ahead. Walllaaaaahhh car went backwards and had hard time taking the car again. Same happened with Alto as well. Needed to rev really high to just make car move on the slope.

Then started my car, did half clutch and car climbed the steep slope easily. Now we can say that Diesel car isw much easier to drive in traffic no required to use accelerator, just clutch and brake. This proves the ease of driving and the reason for me not move again to petrol.

Please Note: No offense to any Ford Ikon or Alto user. This are just my experience and points for the going on debate. [:)]
 
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Re: Petrol or Diesel???

@Vipul : I understand what you really mean by saying Rev ranges . The bitter truth here is what you said. Diesel turbo is not even near to the normal petrol cars these days. However, there is a difference in diesel turbo technology .It also depends on high end turbo cars such as VW Gold TDI and Peugeot turbo diesels.

Turbos kick in at certain rev range and they also kick off after some rev range , so the initial pick up is a lot followed by a big lag unless your keeping the car in that rev range for quiet a long time.

Diesel is cheap in India so it makes sense for Indians to buy diesel cars, but in Australia Diesel is expensive then petrol (few cents) so people tend to buy petrol cars here.
Diesel cars are different to petrol, no one can compare them.

can you compare a lion and a cheetah ? no right. they different animals, yeah they do same thing - HUNT! Same for cars they all do one thing - Transportation.

@S Class- Honda Accords are normals cars , Seth jis car [lol] nah man I'd call that a Rolls Royce /bentley

@Dharmesh - Moving down the hill instead of up , I will call it poor driving skills [;)]

@Nozzlering : The comparison comes down to what you like and what suits you best .

Diesel vs Petrol is a never ending debate . In two lines

Diesel cars are - efficient but high cost of maintenance
petrol cars are - not so efficient but cheap to maintain.
 
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Re: Petrol or Diesel???

@Dharmesh - Moving down the hill instead of up , I will call it poor driving skills [;)]
That's what I meant to say, my addiction to diesel low end torque, I am not able to drive petrol cars any more. [lol]. And I would not say it poor, that's worst driving skills. [lol]
 
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Re: Petrol or Diesel???

This is a never ending debate.

I would like to conclude that - atleast in India, the future is "diesel". The kind of technological advancements diesel engines have made over the years, petrols cant touch that.

Diesels are more efficient, diesels are not noisy anymore and diesels are fast. The bridge between petrols and diesels are getting narrower day by day. BMW's diesels rev all the way to 5k rpm easily. So in future, we can even expect high revving diesels.

The only thing racer boys will miss is the throaty exhaust note of the petrol. I admit, even I miss that.

Diesel cars are - efficient but high cost of maintenance
Why so?

My diesel Fiat has a service interval of 15000 kms or 1 year whichever is earlier. Typical servicing cost is 5k.

I dont think 5k a year (Rs. 13.5 a day) can be called as heavy maintainence.
 
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Re: Petrol or Diesel???

You should be Multi skilled Dharmesh , I drive Petrol / Diesel / Turbo/Non turbo/Supercharged / Rotary engined cars (auto/manual) and never miss a beat
 
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Re: Petrol or Diesel???

This is a never ending debate.


Why so?

My diesel Fiat has a service interval of 15000 kms or 1 year whichever is earlier. Typical servicing cost is 5k.

I dont think 5k a year (Rs. 13.5 a day) can be called as heavy maintainence.
Depends on what you drive ,Diesel cars are expensive to fix thats what I've always heard and recently my mechanic was fixing a VW passat in Diesel 2011 Model and he ordered the whole bunch of engine tools cost him 5000 dollars and to replace the head gaskets (which were blown) , overall estimate was $10,000 (5.7 lac rupees)

am not anti diesel or anti petrol dude . I am trying to buy a diesel car for my dad in India[;)]
 
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Re: Petrol or Diesel???

You should be Multi skilled Dharmesh , I drive Petrol / Diesel / Turbo/Non turbo/Supercharged / Rotary engined cars (auto/manual) and never miss a beat
Your are right I should be multi skilled, But it is only since May 2011 I have learned and started driving. Apart from Zen and PUNTO haven't driven any other car. Some times I do drive my Father-In-Law's Wagon-R. That's it. Now what do you expect from me. [confused]
 
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Re: Petrol or Diesel???

@raj I really don't know what's happening but your statment saying diesel are less noisy please please come to my sector and see all swift,punto,etc diesel hatch cars they make noise like trucks even 6years old wagnor doesn't make that kind of noise


Main thing I like about diesel is torque specially on slop but hate it on bumper to bumper traffic stupid thing run like animal released from cage and I end up using brake lot but its best when traffic is moving slow you feel like you driving automatic car :P
 
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Re: Petrol or Diesel???

THE major reason for the slow and steady demise of the petrol engine in India is the huge discrepany between petrol and diesel prices that forces car manufacturers to give in to market demands and focus their resources on that engine that is more popular.

Imagine a scenario, say 15 years back when the only diesel cars available in India were the Amby and the Fiat 137D. The diesels were noisy, rattly, unrefined, and not that fuel efficient. This was because the price disparity between diesel and petrol (in absolute value terms) was not that much. And therefore, since people we're buying much more petrol cars than diesel ones, car makers were putting all their R&D money on developing better petrol engines.

The situation has reversed in the last few years. Nobody wants to put any money on developing the petrol engine any further because policmakers have killed any such incentive.

Did anyone really believed 20 years back that one day diesel engine would be as refines and as powerful as petrol engines? They have become what they are today because a lot of money and time has been put to develop them. If car manufacturers start putting all their money in improvinf petrol engines, don't we belive that a silly problem like 'bottom end torque' could be erased easily?

Diesel engines, due to the very nature of the fuel that they use, are more torquey and fuel efficient than petrol engines. But given a world where the type of fuel to be used in ones car were not to be dictated by mundane parameters like purchase price and the need of stretching the buck, and where a car would be what a car should be, refined, powerful, graceful, and comfortable, which fuel would one choose for one's car?
 
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Re: Petrol or Diesel???

THE major reason for the slow and steady demise of the petrol engine in India is the huge discrepany between petrol and diesel prices that forces car manufacturers to give in to market demands and focus their resources on that engine that sells more.

Imagine a scenario, say 15 years back when the only diesel cars available in India were the Amby and the Fiat 137D. The diesels were noisy, rattly, unrefined, and not that fuel efficient. This was because the price disparity between diesel and petrol (in absolute value terms) was not that much. And therefore, since people were buying much more petrol cars than diesel ones, car makers were putting all their R&D money on developing better petrol engines.

The situation has reversed in the last few years. Nobody wants to put any money on developing the petrol engine any further because policymakers have killed any such incentive.

Did anyone really believe 20 years back that one day diesel engine would be as refined and as powerful as petrol engines? They have become what they are today because a lot of money and time has been put to develop them. If car manufacturers start putting all their money in improving petrol engines, don't we believe that a silly problem like 'bottom end torque' could be erased easily? How many of us who have driven cars like, say, a Palio 1.6 disagree to this?

Diesel engines, due to the very nature of the fuel that they use, are more torquey and fuel efficient than petrol engines. But given a world where the type of fuel to be used in ones car were not to be dictated by mundane parameters like purchase price and the need of stretching the buck, and where a car would be what a car should be, refined, powerful, graceful, and comfortable, which fuel would one choose for one's car?

Petrol OR Diesel?
 
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Re: Petrol or Diesel???

[thumbswink]Debate is getting hotter and hotter. I think you all must see the poll results at top of the page, everything will become clear. It doesn't matter whether we like a diesel car or not, but somewhere inside us, we all know that it is the future of our country.

One more thing i just love diesel engines, be it due to its efficiency, torque, low end power or anything else they are just awesome.

Now a days diesels are superior than petrol in every respect, reasons have already been mentioned by raj_5004, dharmesh, S Class, nozzlering and Sam Dinkar.

One more thing, diesel cars are now better handlers than their petrol competitors examples are all fiat cars.

BTW, i don't want to enter into the debate but i know, i am in.
 
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