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• Skoda Yeti - My Yeti(s) 25 Mar 2018 (Forum)
  I ran this for 2 years / 45k miles and barring zinc inclusions rated this car highly. Despite similar power / performance to the 1.,2 TSi the diesel was considerably more torquey and consistently delivered high 40's MPG. At this time I discovered both roof-boxes and winter tyres, which addressed the previous short-comings of the original car.
• A nice wet Thursday night at auction... 21 Oct 2017 (Forum)
  I watched the usual dodgy Joe's bid strongly for any heavy mileage stock with one next to zero history 58plate 120,000 mile Fiesta diesel make the guts of £2k including fees despite having an engine management light on and being three different colours, the only way he'll make out of that is if the mileage or history is fiddled. I'll be watching to see if it's reloaded, they often do with mysterious full histories being magically produced from thin air.
• Ford Focus Saloon 1.6 TDCI - Stumbling whilst accelerating or Cruising - Help 19 Aug 2015 (Forum)
      So, is there some sort of fuel pump that may be slipped when its belt gets warm and is losing a bit of friction on which makes the engine lose power and then pick back up again. Its a bit like its retarding and advancing but with only a faint belty plasticy very faint rubbing whooshing sound which wasn;t even loud enough to capture on my phone over the road noise.
• Ford Mondeo IV (2007 - ) - Three weeks with a 2.0 TDCi auto 15 Feb 2010 (Forum)
  For one of the cheaper models it is well appointed. Electric windows all round, cruise control, dual climate, heated screen, fuel computer, bluetooth, stereo controls on steering wheel, voice control for many functions, electric drivers seat height adjust. Very good on the motorway. Definately its natural home. A bright yellow dipstick - reading the oil level is easy.
• Ideas on an appropriate 4x4 6 Sep 2009 (Forum)
  My first thoughts were to spend about £5K on: Discovery/Range Rover/Land Cruiser/ Patrol/ Shogun/Jeep....all diesel and manual....and pick something up from an auction i.e. whatever was sensible at the time...but little bruv has vehemently advised against a Land Rover product, even though i'd have him go right through it first.
• Risks buying certain 3yr old cars 24 May 2007 (Forum)
  So IMHO, some particular `cult`models are a real risk these days, far more than in days gone by. Then there is the petrol into common rail diesel and running it 40 miles until it finally chugs to a halt, quietly part exchanged and coming soon as a nice " someone else has taken the initial depreciation 3 year old" to a dealer near you. As for me?
• Hyundai Santa Fe 2.2 diesel - First 5 months of ownership 25 Feb 2012 (Forum)
  List price just for the shock is over £800 apparently. The car has used about half a litre of oil. Fuel consumption varies enormously depending on driving style. On my once a week journey to the office I've seen 27 mpg but if I keep it at around 65 and 70mph it will show 45mpg. It doesn't seem at all fussy about what type of diesel I use unlike my previous Outback that much preferred BP Ultimate.
• My Toyota Prius Review 7 Sep 2011 (Forum)
  With £20 tax, congestion charge exemption (although i believe hybrids exemption will be withdrawn in 2013), excellent reliability, low insurance costs (i did a dummy quote and got quoted £284 to insure this car), excellent economy for this size of car (a diesel Fiesta will do better but thats a small car, manual, less room etc). I'd like to compare it one day to its most direct rival, the Honda Insight but with a good four year old Prius going for around 6k and the Insight only being out for a year or so if you want a big five door auto with cheap tax, insurance and fuel costs, with rock solid reliability for a reasonable price then it has to be one of these.
• Mazda 3 Saloon - Outcome of COURT case against Mazda dealer 27 Jun 2014 (Forum)
  --[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 I bought Mazda 3 Diesel pre-registered demo from a dealer, just a few months old. I liked the feel of the car, the shape (Saloon), the comfort and simplicity inside, albeit a bit noisy especially on motorways. The dealer assured me that Mazda vehicles were very reliable.
• Which car to choose....... 12 Dec 2009 (Forum)
  have known owners from new) Pros: VW build/reliability, should last another 100K, large boot for holidays, leather, 6 speed box, cruise, parking sensors, 130bhp, diesel performance delivery, heated sports seats, probably best crash protection here, high class image. Cons: Will it be rusting in another 5 years? long back doors in car parks, possibly higher insurance, staid looks and possibly equally staid handling, harder to keep clean because of dark colour and complex alloys, resale prospects of a 140K 10 year old car.
• 16 important OIL questions answered! 8 Jan 2013 (Forum)
  is distilled into light and heavy fractions, with several intermediate ones. (The evil left-overs are used to fuel the 15 million cc/40RPM diesels in the giant oil tankers that bring the crude to the refinery.) The lighter fractions, usually more than 90% of the original crude, are converted into petrol and diesel.
• My 1st month, 3300 miles, with an S-Max 1 Aug 2007 (Forum)
  I looked at a lot of cars, including the Touran, Grand Picasso, Verso, Grand Scenic, Mercedes B Class, as well as other estate cars. I drive 40,000 miles per year so comfort is important as well as fuel economy. I pay for all my own fuel and therefore economy is something I couldn?t overlook. I also needed a practical car to carry all my photo gear and baby ?stuff?. I didn?t need 7 seats, just 5 seats and a huge boot.
• Honda Jazz - Honda Jazz 2007 - to sc*** or attempt fix? 12 Jul 2025 (Forum)
  I've said maybe consider a Venga (I have one of these) or ix20, as apart from the magic seats they have similar space and aren't notorious for rust on the petrols (admittedly the diesel fuel tanks do suffer rust). We did look at Vauxhall Zafira Tourer with the 1.4 Turbo engine and 6 speed torque converter auto but it appears they love eating head gaskets so reliability is questionable.
• Nissan Leaf - Leafing my wallet alone! 18 Apr 2025 (Forum)
  A good used Nissan Leaf at under £15,000 can make for an excellent commuter car or taxi. It costs buttons to run, the fuel is (currently) free and there’s hardly any moving parts to go wrong. The only service item listed by Nissan is the brake fluid which should be changed every 3yrs according to the schedule. What they’re asking £150-£300 for when they “service” it I don’t know and I (I know John will appreciated this) won’t be partaking in this either.
• Volvo V60 - The first 10,000 miles 25 Jul 2017 (Forum)
  Good things:  - It's safe and solid, and seems built to last.  - Reasonably quiet diesel engine which is loosening up nicely with pulling away from rest getting gradually livelier.    - Very smooth gearchanges, and an easy shift of the selector to the left bringing in sport mode and a useful immediate downchange.
• BMW, Audi, Lexus - What to Choose??? 27 Jan 2016 (Forum)
    The cons, more expensive running costs been a 2.5l petrol and much higher Tax bracket and a lifeless driving experience.  I know the IS300h is also a prety decent car with better fuel economy but not really seen many people comment on how it is to drive where as the is250 has alot of people saying it's very refined. Audi A3 Saloon 2.0l Diesel Auto This car is around the same initial cost as the BMW but not as good looking for me and as far as I can tell has pretty much all the same pros and cons as the BMW but maybe just not quite as good a drive.
• Fiat Panda 1.1 Review - "slower than a cockroach" 18 May 2010 (Forum)
  The high driving position is liked, along with light controls and a heater that is hotter than the one in the old, 1.9D Punto - which it replaced. The first - out of the box- fuel consumption figures on that multi stop-start home care running was 47mpg - contasted with 51/53mpg on the old diesel. I was amazed the Panda did so well, at temperatures down to -6c too, at the time of measurement.
• DPF Q&A -- sheds some light 1 Aug 2009 (Forum)
  Question: How does regeneration affect the oil life? Answer: On each regeneration or attempted regeneration, a certain diesel fuel amount is injected into the engine oil which reduces the oil life. If the "INSP" light in the instrument cluster comes on, the engine oil is exhausted and must be changed. Failure to do so could damage the engine.
• More efficient propulsion 6 Jun 2008 (Forum)
  This works more or less the same as a kerosene fridge and would remove significant loads from the engine e.g. a Range Rover has a 14kW (19Hp) air conditioning pump and a 100A (say 5Hp) alternator. Now imagine how much less fuel said car would use when not consuming a "base load" of 24Hp before even moving. We should start on the bigger cars too because there is more potential benefit here. We can do much with gearing too if the motoring press and motorist can get over the idea that they would have to shift down or the transmission would have to shift down to accelerate.
• VW Touran - A user review 16 May 2004 (Forum)
  At higher speeds, the engine is more pronounced, and so is the tyre rumble, but no real wind noise. Fully loaded, the torque of a diesel would be nice, and to get any sort of performance you have to get the engine into ?normal? mode above 3000rpm. However the transition between ?lean? and ?normal? is not as pronounced as a 1.6VTEC Civic.