The lady of the house wants a second hand small diesel. Easy I thought, back in the late 1980's we had a Peugeot 205 diesel which did many miles reliably averaging 55mpg. It was fast and quiet, cheap to service and was reliable because it had no electronics. It was a bit flimsy but otherwise great. A logical replacement would be a 206. We can't afford an HDI as they're too new, so started looking at the 1.9 diesel models. However I was amazed to see that the official mixed fuel consumption is only 48mpg! The 1.1 petrol does 44mpg so what's the point! I though the point of indirect injection was to make the engine more economical.
Think we (meaning I) might try and track down a late model 205 which has been looked after.
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1.9 diesel in the 206 is the same engine, more or less, as was in the 205, 15 years ago - the venerable XUD indirect injection unit. More emmisions control equipment to strangle it, though. Later engines (HDi) are direct injection, which is more efficient, but tends to be noisier - one of the reasons for the electronics is to provide pre-injection which helps to reduce the bang. 206 is, I would imagine, much heavier than a 205. I doubt the 1.1 used on short runs would make the 44 mpg, and it would need to scream to make anything like progress on the M-way - I'd imagine the diesel would be much more relaxed.
Imagine what sort of consumption a 15yr old design of petrol engine (carb etc!) would make in a heavy car like the 206 - which is effectively what the diesel is up against, as it wasn't really developed until the HDi came in, whereas petrol engines underwent huge changes.
Richard
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One word (and it's part of your name).
Cat. Catalytic converters (and other anti-pollution measures). Wonderful things that choke the life out of your engine to stop the engine doing the same to us.
Now if only we'd gone the route proposed by Toyota and gone lean-burn instead, we wouldn't have cats, fuel economy would be better and emissions wouldn't be noticably higher.
Mind you, we would all be driving carinas.
I don't know if similar technology was proposed for diesels, but you can bet your bottom dollar that a modern HDi or JTD would be a darn sight more economical if exhaust and emission rules were relaxed. I wonder whether the trade-off is actually worth it? Perhaps a less regulated engine would produce more pollution per litre used, but by using less litres would end up with a neutral whole-journey figure?
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I agree with you in terms of the pollution trade off.
Certain products, like CO and unburnt hydrocarbons, are massively reduced by the cat and provide short term health benefits to the immediate area. Against that, CO2 emissions are undoubtedly higher, thus contributing to global warming more in the long term, at least to the extent that car use is not regulated by fuel taxes. As these reductions can be 95%+, the effect of a cat is far greater on the local environment than the increased fuel consumption.
Personally, I think it's a trade off worth making as long as we believe that there will be alternative energy over the next 50 years or so.
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David
Very true.
However, what is the energy input and atmospheric emissions required to mine the platinum required in the cats? If you look at whole of life energy requirements, then the small reductions in vehicle emissions, pale into insignificance once you take into account the whole, mining, refining, processing of metals and plastics for each new car. The best way forward is likely to be fuel cells or similar.
If anyone really wanted to be 'green' they would run each and every car into the ground and then recycle it.
Jonathan
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If anyone really wanted to be 'green' they would run each and every car into the ground and then recycle it.
That'll be the Daewoo.
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No Dosh, I think Ford also went down the lean-burn route as I recall the 1.4 Escort engine from the mid-eighties was lean-burn [1].
And we *were* all driving Fords.
(I wasn't, I was cruising in my Mark 3 Spitfire; very lean-burn, I could lean off the twin SUs so that the pinking would de-coke the pistons without removing the head [1] ;-)
CMark
[1] someone will be along soon who knows what they are talking about.
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Ah, but do cats actually work where they are needed?
The need is in heavy, slow moving traffic where the engine is doing little more than idling.
And where the cat is below its designed working temperature and largely ineffective.
Whereas we MOT cars with the engine revving its guts out and the cat hot.
A fairer test and taxation basis would be grams of CO2 per minute when idling!
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Ok then, so what do we get? We have about 6k to spend, must be reliable, 206/fiesta size, capable of long motorway drives, diesel. Thought about the Rover 25 turbo diesel, seems fast and economical.
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I can't recommend that anyone spend £6k on an older model Rover. The 25 is getting near the end of it's life (as is the 45) and parts can take literally months to obtain.
A good example is my late shape 400, disposed of in December last year. I ordered an ignition part in September and the dealer still doesn't have it in stock today. (I rang to check before posting).
If you are buying a Rover at the lower end of the price scale and don't mind sourcing pattern parts or locating recon specialists / scrap yards, then fine, but I wouldn't advise looking at this particular car. HJ's Car by Car confirms this view in parts availability.
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