I have company 2.2l diesel accord. From October will buy my own car. I went to look at a new diesel accord and compare with Mazda 6 (better price, not quite so refined). Both dealers offered me better deals on 2 litre petrol models. Obviously cost more in petrol, about £400/yr for me but about £3k cheaper to buy. Have I missed something because for private driver doing about 10k miles petrol looks better deal.
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Have you thought about the relative depreciation of the diesel and petrol engines and factored in the servicing costs ? I have similar dilemma about my next car.
Slightly at a tangent, last time I checked the Accord diesel wasn't available with auto transmission. Shame, would be a great package.
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Doing 10,000 a year I think you're better off financially with a petrol car, as you suggest, unless you prefer a diesel to drive.
Some petrol engines are stronger in torque than others, and you ought to try a petrol Accord and see what you think. SWMBO used to have a 2-litre Civic which was a good car in many ways, but the best performance was at the top end of the rev range where it was less use in everyday driving.
As an example of the opposite, the VW Golf GTI / Skoda Octavia vRS 2.0 petrol engine has bags of torque all through the rev range.
It's annoying that the 0-60 mph time is so often quoted, whereas the 30-70 time is much more use. You can normally find this in road tests - although HJ presumably disagrees as it's not in his.
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Personally I much prefer a smooth-revving petrol engine with a 7000+rpm redline to any Diesel - I think most 'petrolheads' are like this. Diesels also have the disadvantage of having a lot more expensive bits and pieces to go wrong (expensive injection system, plus a turbo and dual mass flywheel). The ONLY reason I could be persuaded into a Diesel car would be on the grounds of substantial fuel cost savings. At 10k miles per annum you are a long long way from that. Stick with a petrol.
At 10k miles per annum I would consider a Subaru Legacy 2.0R or RE - they have the new DOHC engine with AVCS and I reckon its probably the best engine (in terms of smoothness) Subaru have ever made (I know a few STi owners will disagree!). They are not particularly economical, but at your mileage PA its not going to be an issue.
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Just in case you didn't know the Mazda 6 is being replaced at the year end with a new model.
worth bearing in mind
If it helps I've got a Mazda 6 2.0 petrol and it averages 30 mpg on mixed use
j
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>>I would consider a Subaru Legacy 2.0R or RE <<
Do Subaru still dominate in terms of relaibility.
If I read the CBCB - it suggest not.
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