UKC

I drive less than 600 miles most months but don't really want to go with out a car completely (I need one for occasional work-related stuff as well as family and leisure use). Given the stuff that's coming out in the news about the real impact of diesel engines, I am wondering whether I should sell my current car (a SEAT Exeo diesel estate) and replace it with a petrol equivalent?

My motivation is to sell the car before the price of diesel vehicles completely tanks (not sure if this will happen), and to stop contributing to the problem, directly. Obviously, given that the buyer might well do a higher mileage, selling the car might indirectly cause more damage.

I'd be interested to hear how more car-savvy people think this is whole issue is going to play out?

In reply to FrankBooth:

I was looking at new (to me, depreciation on brand new cars makes me cry) cars two years ago and had to decide between petrol and diesel. We do around 15,000 miles a year, so getting to a point where the fuel savings of diesel are worthwhile, but we're worried about not doing the regular motorway miles required to regenerate the catalytic converter.

Opted for a petrol with a turbo (latest version of the SEAT Leon) and have been pleased with happy with the fuel economy and whilst it is no sports car, it is sufficiently nippy when required, despite a relatively small engine.

In reply to FrankBooth:
I do not buy the line that driving a diesel is more damaging than driving a petrol car. We just scaled down from a big, van type diesel to a smaller one of similar age (2009 Volvo V50) as the older kids are off to uni and we don´t need five/seven seats anymore. The true CO2 emissions of the diesel engine are still significantly less than for a comparable petrol model, even if we had gone for a more modern version.
To me CO2 emissions still are the most important consideration. NOx and dust may be felt more acutely, but CO2 driven climate change is going to hurt more. If this means I have to leave my car at a park and ride every now and then if local dust or NOx levels are too high, then so be it (for anything less than 10 miles one way I anyway use my bike most days).
To be fair, having bought a used car I do not care about the resale value.
Either way I hope that this was the last car with combustion engine I will ever buy. Hopefully the next generation electric vehicles will be more affordable. I was tempted to put a deposit on the new, small Tesla, but it still was too much this time round.
CB
edit: Just to add, for my annual mileage a petrol car would be more economic, but I am happy to pay extra for the reduction in CO2 emissions.

In reply to FrankBooth:
If I did your mileage I would have a petrol. The modern petrol engines are very economical. We bought a skoda Citigo for our daughter to drive. 60mpg from a 1l engine but is pretty nippy and great round town but probably too small for a family.

In reply to FrankBooth:

if you do your own servicing then diesels are far simpler and cheaper as not ignition system (conventional) to worry about, just regular oil changes and with sympathetic driving, a decent diesel with last many many years which is something to consider if intending on buying a car that'll you want to keep for a long while.
i've an 09 mondeo 2.0 TDCI that regularly gives me 50+ MPG, can shift a bit, very comfy and has never seen the other side of 3k revs

In reply to FrankBooth:

It's an interesting one. I've just got a new company car and since I'm in France, it's mandatory that we take a diesel. The majority of cars here are diesels and just before Xmas the prolonged period of still, cold, high pressure created some terrible pollution down in the cities.

My nearest town of Grenoble, and nearby Lyon resorted to banning even-numbered licence plates on alternate days and also banning certain classes of cars (including anything over 20 years old) from the cities. 70kph limits on the ring roads and 110kph on the autoroutes also tried to limit the damage.

In reply to wilkie14c:

My experience of modern diesels is expensive money pits, failed injectors, dual mass flywheels, egr valve constantly blocking, overly complicated machines.

In reply to FrankBooth:

I'm sticking with my diesel as it's cheap to service and I'm low mileage and don't go to major urban areas so the difference in pollution to petrol is small fry. This lets me save faster towards my next car, which will be an EV.

I have absolutely no idea if this is better or worse for the environment than me selling it and getting a cleaner ICE car tomorrow. To many variables.

Mind you it's 14 years old and has little resale value so I don't need to worry about the value tanking; if I had a high value car the only thing that would worry me is if I commuted into or out of a major metropolitan area, as they might conceivably see a "dirty diesel" ban or levy one day, but I'd not be driving it anyway as I hate big city air and would feel to bad making it worse.

In reply to wintertree:

The best thing from an environmental perspective is probably to keep driving your current car until it dies. by far the biggest environmental impact comes from the production of the car, not the operation of it. I'm hoping to drive my 2005 diesel until EVs are an affordable option.

In reply to HakanT:

+1 for that!

CB

In reply to HakanT:

+2 for that

In reply to FrankBooth:
Part of the problem here is the ever-changing goalposts. First CO2 was the devil, then NOx. I'm now reading nano-particulates are the devil, and they don't show up in tests at all.

As a result - sorry - I'm going with what works for me until the government decides what its mind is and sticks with it. Given I drive 20k+ per year and I'm a fairly lazy driver who likes bags of torque, I'm staying with diesel until a better alternative presents itself.

What I'd quite like is a hybrid but sadly there's not one on the market that meets my basic specs.

In reply to HakanT:


Agreed; however if you sell and buy second hand and don't scrap and buy new, it's a different game. Consider a high mileage person driving a big diesel and a low mileage person with some sub litre petrol shoebox; if they sold each other their respective cars then total emissions would go down with no new cars made.

Normally people buy newer than the sell so somewhere in the chain there is a new car and a scrapped car, but if the OP is motivated by politico and not normal concerns that may not apply.

In reply to FrankBooth:

>Given the stuff that's coming out in the news about the real impact of diesel engines, I am wondering whether I should sell my current car

Scrap it

In reply to yorkshireman:

Isn't Lyon involved in the Crit'air scheme ? The Parisian version, at least in theory, should see diesels banned in the city centre when pollution levels are high but some petrol cars allowed. Its clear that something is needed as although the air is generally cleaner, the fine particles (presumably mostly from diesels) are worse - I had my first asthma attack in years just before Christmas after running maybe 10 m for a bus during the most recent episode of high pollution levels so have a personnel interest.

In reply to yorkshireman:

Interestingly a diesel car ban just came into effect in Oslo this morning. The main reason being NOx pollution levels during periods of cold stable weather.

In reply to GarethSL:

I think a number of progressive cities are going to follow suit over the next few years, with many more waiting in the wings ready to do the same. As a result, diesel car prices are going to plummet, so although I didn't spend a huge amount on mine, I'm wondering if I'm better off getting something back on it rather than nothing? On the flip side, the Exeo is effectively a re-badged Audi A4 (old design) - it's reliable, comfortable and very economical.

In reply to HakanT:


That's a claim that gets made a lot, but last time I actually looked into it, it wasn't even close to being true (certainly not from the point of view of CO2 emissions anyway) for most people. Obviously the exact figures vary depending on exactly which two cars you are comparing and how much you drive, but as I recall, for a someone who drives a lot, scrapping an old car and replacing it with a fuel efficient modern car could end up with a net saving of carbon in just a couple of years of driving.

It was quite an interesting exercise anyway, I'll try to find the sources I used...

In reply to FrankBooth:
Until they take into account the impact of buses in cities, banning diesel cars is pointless. A study a few years back showed that buses put out as much pollution as about 60 cars. Things have got a bit better but buses are still the worst. Also missed is that particulates from petrol engines are much smaller that from diesels.

In reply to FrankBooth:

Our diesel car uses AdBlue, which reduces NOx - it still leaves the particulate element but getting better

In reply to FrankBooth:

I'm in a similar quandary to you. Bought my diesel A3 just before my company decided to move premises, at which point my commute went from about 180 miles a week to about 45 - the car's done just over 10k miles in 3 years, as we mainly use my wife's company car as the family car.

I'm seriously thinking of selling it while it's still got some resale value, but holding out on whether I end up changing jobs this year and end up doing higher mileage again.

In reply to Doug:


I think so. I applied for my Crit'Air badge - it's a Land Rover Discovery Sport, so not exactly the most eco of cars but it's rated as a Class 2 vehicle (on a scale of 1 to 5 in ascending order of pollution output).

In Grenoble the other week they were only banning class 4 and 5 vehicles. From what I can tell of the scheme they're not banning diesels as such, just higher classes of vehicles so they're obviously assessing many factors (eg. a 20 year old petrol engine is maybe more polluting than a brand new diesel).

In reply to FrankBooth:

In a number of complex ways the biggest problems are not the engines but the fuels. You can change the emissions of both petrol and diesel engines drastically by using different fuels. At the moment there is no ideal solution available that provides a proven viable emissions pattern and is economically viable. That could change in ten or twenty years.

The combustion efficiency of the diesel engine makes it a very serious loss if it is pushed out of the market by the current emission scare. Politicians and civil servants tend to be people who weren't listening in the science class at school so I am expecting another panic solution that we have to reverse in a few years.

In reply to MarkJH:

You also need to take into account that in the UK there are now very few old cars on the roads. Certainly when you compare with Europe. You only have to drive round the continent a bit and you notice that the UK's fleet of cars is if you like is far more upto date than in Europe.

This is being "driven" by the growth in new car sales via Personal Contract Plans, where its far cheaper to finance the purchase of the car using this method. And lo and behold you get a new car every couple of years.

The organisation which runs Motor Traders has also pointed this out.

Compared with a few years ago, you rarely drive behind a car in the Uk belching out all sorts of fumes from the exhaust.

Irrespective of this. if I lived in one of the major cities in the UK, I would not now have a diseal car. I reckon it is almost inevitable that In London, Birmingham, Manchester etc, they will be " banned". The writing on the wall is there.

In reply to HakanT:

Do you have any evidence for that? It is often said but I am sceptical. A 50% increase in fuel economy from a new car over say two years is a lot of energy saved, and increasingly car bits can be recycled so the CO2 "cost" of getting rid of old cars may not be that high.

Edit: Something here http://sierraclub.typepad.com/greenlife/2013/10/hey-mr-green-how-much-energ...

In reply to neilh:

I'm not sure how true this is. Looking out my window currently (Southampton) there are far more cars at least 10 years old than modern things. I'm not sure what you define as very old though. With how insurance prices are going for younger drivers we're going to be pushed more toward older cars too.

I drive a £750 2002 Focus Estate which produces quite a lot of CO2, however having to pay more than the car is worth in insurance premiums (£900 for my first year, £672 this year) means I can't afford a more expensive, and more economical car and it appears that isn't going to change for several years. My premiums are also lower than pretty much anyone I know who is my age and they seem unique to this car.

In reply to MG:

Here is the original paper from ANL. At least I assume it is, the link in the article is broken: https://greet.es.anl.gov/publication-vehicle_and_components_manufacturing

It appears that the production accounts for less of the lifecycle energy consumption and emissions than I thought. I've only read the abstract and conclusions, so it's not clear to me how they have accounted for raw material extraction and refinery.

In reply to HakanT:


This is quite an interesting paper too. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1530-9290.2012.00532.x/full
Particularly fig-1 which shows the lifetime CO2 impact of internal combustion vs electric for different electricity generation sources. I guess it probably isn't surprising to anyone who has given it much thought, but it was interesting to me.

In reply to FrankBooth:

I switched from Diesel to Petrol in 2012. Got shot of my old Octy Estate 1.9tdi 90ps, and got a new Octy estate 1.4tsi 122ps as I only do around 6-8K miles per year

Quieter, Quicker, Better acceleration, and still gives 47mpg on a long run ( mostly motorway at 70+)
Only downside is less low range torque.

I'd not go back to diesel in a hurry.

In reply to FrankBooth:Confirmed petrol head here, expecting a flaming! I've only ever had one diesel and even though it was meant to be one of the best out there (BMW 335d) I couldn't wait to get back to petrol. Surprisingly my next car which was petrol was both faster and more economical. I think diesels days are numbered, especially since petrol hybrids have moved the game on.

In reply to MG:

Considering hybrids have been about for 12+ years it's not a given that a modern car will vastly outperform an older car.

The prius I've been driving recently was written off with relatively minor damage, and half the reason I was so annoyed was what a waste of a working car for a bit of damage to bodywork.

In reply to FrankBooth:


Don't worry, you're doing the right thing - selling contributes to the price falling, less diesel cars being made and so on.