The cost of changing your car far outweighs any saving in VED which is small in comparison to all your other motoring costs.

Except for the new £400+ car tax upper band from 2006 the cost of car tax is usually the lower of all the other running costs so I wouldn't get too hung up on this.

Spending 2.5k on a diesel could simply buy you a whole load of trouble. At this price they will be well past their best, some of the potential repair costs could way outstrip the purchase price. You may still be better with a newer, cheaper and usually lower mileage petrol car.

If you really must have a diesel stick to earlier technologies. I personally am a great fan of the VW/AUDI/SKODA 1.9 (not 2.0!)Pump Deuse diesels circa 2002-2005 and have a 2003 Skoda Superb 1.9 PD 100(117k) - car tax now £130 - 50mpg on a run.

I also have a Skoda Octavia 1.4 - for a small engine quite nippy, huge boot - car tax now £165 and 45mpg on a run. Still going strong at 100k. Insurance (gp 5) and tyres very cheap. It has proved better than expected as a touring car and has been driven to France, Spain and Italy on numerous occasions. The only problems being that Petrol is more expensive in Europe!

Your true purchase cost (including repairs!) can quickly cancel out savings from tax and fuel costs. Sometimes better the devil you know!

Edited by Big John on 12/09/2011 at 23:28

I agree with practically everything said above, in fact pop over to my Petrol v Diesel study for an illustration of how diesel sometimes will not save you money. What i didnt do was a test of cars in this price bracket, for £2500, as another member said, you're looking at older diesels with probably quite alot of miles on it and maybe nearing the end of its shelf life. You'll need to be canny, investigate thoroughly and bargain hard.

However, if your Scenic has done nothing but cause you problems then i would recommend getting rid. Its a petrol car in a mid-range tax band, now is the time to ditch it and cut your losses before it gets any worse. You definately need to replace, that much i think we'd all agree on.

You are generally right in that diesels are less to tax, if they're post April 2001 cars then they are taxed according to co2 emissions in 13 bands from A to M as im sure you know. Typically the diesel model will be one or two tax bands lower (but not always, see Vauxhall Zafira!) But i'd forget about the tax, its a very small part of your motoring costs, if you do an average mileage a year im betting your spending around £1800 on petrol for the Scenic, am i right? The tax disc pales into insignificance.

There are still cars to choose from though if you insist on having a diesel, i had a Peugeot 406 HDi Saloon which was bulletproof on reliability and if driven on motorways/dual carraigeways could return 45-50 to the gallon on a good day (mine was an automatic which dented it a bit) and theres a few going for under 2,5 (just seen one on AT for 1400 with 88k on it) but thoroughly inspect the service history and dont buy lightly. Other than that i'd say to avoid anything else French. Theres the VW options as mentioned earlier, i'd probably avoid Ford's as their older diesels were no more economical than petrols. Go on AT and look for diesels with under 80k on them for less than 3k and its slim pickings mostly.

Consider a lower mileage, smaller engined petrol car as well. Quite often the extra you pay to buy the diesel outweighs the day-to-day saving. How big does the car need to be? You say family car but does it require 7 seats?

At your price level diesels are getting old and are susceptible to expensive failure, despite holding their value better and thus being more expensive to buy, new or used. The best exception to that is the VW/Skoda PD 1.9 rightly praised by Big John above.

I'd go for a Mazda 6 (1.8 or 2.0 petrol) or Skoda Octavia (1.6 or 1.8 petrol or 1.9 diesel).

Hi,

I just wanted to thank you all for your detailed responses! We haven't made a decision yet about what to get, but are still doing research and some maths at the same time.

Thanks,

Delilah.x