Undecided Diesel Virgin

[Dunkelmann]

After a lifetime of petrol cars, latterly a Carina E and an Avensis 1.8GS I'm looking for a new Avensis II. My choice is the trusty 1.8 I know and love or the new 2 litre D4-D. The car is used either for short commuting runs (10mins each way), shopping, the occasional longer run and holidays (Scotland to Portsmouth then Northern France touring). Total annual mileage is 7 to 8000 miles per year.

I test drove the old 2 litre and was not impressed. It could be me but it could be the car. Admittedly I was "forced" through a 15 minute test drive route with a salesman - not my choice.

BTW I'm excluding the 2.2L for budget reasons.

I plan to visit a few more local dealers and test drive more cars but no-one seems to have the new 2L :( .

I also plan to buy from an Internet broker (lowest is newregcars.co.uk but they seem a bit less keen than the other brokers I've contacted).

Any comments on going for the diesel (esp. the 2L) or buying from an internet broker (esp. newregcars).

Glad to meet you all from a newbie.

Hamish

[uumode]

7000-8000 seems quite low miles, and the savings on the lower MPG won't be as great, especially as unleaded fuel is also cheaper at the pumps. So if you are undecided and still fond of the petrol, then economically the petrol isn't too bad, using very, very roughly about 40 gallons a year extra = £156 a year extra in fuel costs.

Usually diesels cost about 1500-2000 more than the petrol new so you would have to keep the car a number of years to break even at low mileages. Though helpfully in the Avensis' case the diesel is about the same price because Toyota have stripped out some features like stability and traction control (I think) to make the cars about the same price.

[Dunkelmann]

Though helpfully in the Avensis' case the diesel is about the same price because Toyota have stripped out some features like stability and traction control (I think) to make the cars about the same price.

Diesel has cruise control. I wasn't aware it had no stability and traction control. I thought the brochure said all models have it but I may be wrong - I'll have to check.

EDIT: Brochure says "VSC, TRC, ABS, EBD and BA are standard on all models"

Here are some figures I knocked up - sorry about the formatting.

-----------------Diesel-----Petrol--100km->miles

Fuel-------------0.899-----0.849--62.14

Consumption-----7.1-------9.5-----urban--l/100km

Consumption-----5.5-------7.2-----overall

Consumption-----4.6-------5.8-----extra

Yearly--Miles----Cost------Cost-----Diesel-Saving

Urban---4000----£410.87--£519.18--£108.31

Other---1000----£79.57---£98.37----£18.80

Extra---2500----£166.37--£198.11---£31.73

--------7500------------------------£158.85

RFLic------------£110-----£150-----£40.00

Years---5-------------------Saving--£994.23

Trade-In-

(5yrs-old)-------£3,850----£3,110

Broker-(new)----£13,706---£13,341

Loss------------£9,856-----£10,231

-------------------Saving--£375.00

Total Saving Diesel over Petrol for 5 years £1,369.23

[chrisstyles]

Having just been through it all, I know where you are coming from. Dealers can beat internet quotes, don't let them tell you otherwise.

There are no stripped out features regardless of engine. Pickup a brochure it goes through it all.

[Dunkelmann]

Having just been through it all, I know where you are coming from. Dealers can beat internet quotes, don't let them tell you otherwise.

My local dealer quoted £13,750 including trade in (after starting at list price and me telling them my broker quotes and the sites to check).

Two Internet broker quotes are around £14,400 and £15,000 without trade-in. I reckon I can get £2,000 at auction and £2,500 perhaps from a broker, giving at worst £12,400 and £13,000.

[uumode]

Though helpfully in the Avensis' case the diesel is about the same price because Toyota have stripped out some features like stability and traction control (I think) to make the cars about the same price.

Diesel has cruise control. I wasn't aware it had no stability and traction control. I thought the brochure said all models have it but I may be wrong - I'll have to check.

EDIT: Brochure says "VSC, TRC, ABS, EBD and BA are standard on all models"

Here are some figures I knocked up - sorry about the formatting.

-----------------Diesel-----Petrol--100km->miles

Fuel-------------0.899-----0.849--62.14

Consumption-----7.1-------9.5-----urban--l/100km

Consumption-----5.5-------7.2-----overall

Consumption-----4.6-------5.8-----extra

Yearly--Miles----Cost------Cost-----Diesel-Saving

Urban---4000----£410.87--£519.18--£108.31

Other---1000----£79.57---£98.37----£18.80

Extra---2500----£166.37--£198.11---£31.73

--------7500------------------------£158.85

RFLic------------£110-----£150-----£40.00

Years---5-------------------Saving--£994.23

Trade-In-

(5yrs-old)-------£3,850----£3,110

Broker-(new)----£13,706---£13,341

Loss------------£9,856-----£10,231

-------------------Saving--£375.00

Total Saving Diesel over Petrol for 5 years £1,369.23

Well diesel has it :) , especially as New Avensis diesel is virtually the same price as the petrol (about £500 difference, but with 6 gears) and all fully kitted out like the petrols.

Just a refinement issue Vs cost saving comparison.

You might find the diesel at lower revs on the motorway is quieter than the petrol especially with a sixth gear.

Also servicing charges which are probably quite similar. (I 'think' the diesel has a timing belt which needs changing, where the petrol engine doesn't, so there is a small saving there at 60k miles, but that's probably when you dispose of the car at year 5 anyway)

Good luck in your 'brokering' deals. In the past I found http://drivethedeal.com the cheapest for the UK sourced cars I were looking for, but each broker I found tends to be cheaper for particular brands.

[Dunkelmann]

Just a refinement issue Vs cost saving comparison.

I agree - diesel looks best on paper. So, given my poor experience on my test drive, how should I drive a diesel? For example with petrol I use the rev counter (sound of the engine) and run up and down the gears keeping the revs say between 2500 and 3500, changing down to get a bit more oomph.

The diesel I drove seemed to have almost no accelerator travel distance to the floor and I had to go half way before the revs picked up enough to move off.

I suppose I'm expecting people to say you don't need to rev a diesel so much and you drive within a lower rev band. Any tips would be helpful as I'm going to test drive another tomorrow.

[chrisstyles]

Just try the 180 for a feel of it if they have one. After about 1.5K RPM it really kicks in.

If you look at the brochure in the dealer, it shows you the power and torque bands vs Revs for each engine. This should give you an idea where the engine is going to perform. If you are starting off from stationary then it's the torque curve you are interested in.

Going off these graphs pertrols have a fairly smooth power and torque curve, where as the diesels have a narrower band.

As for getting the best deal, it's always going to be best to sell the car privately unless it has something seriously wrong with it where a private buyer is going to invest more time in checking the car out. With this in mind you can do a better haggling job with the dealer, ie cash deal no part ex give me your best price!

I think my dealer was worried about sales figures in November as they are registering the car this month even thought I am picking it up next month. Having said that December is supposed to be one of the quietest so nows the time to do some serious barganing.

Good luck.

[bjw]

I used carfile and found them very good ! carfile contacted the dealer who phoned me back within 15 minutes I told them what car I wanted they gave me the quoted car broker price and also discounted any accessories I required !they also took my car as a trade in and gave me a part exchange value of what my local dealer had offered me.

No money was paid until the car was collected from the dealer and this was paid to the dealer.

fortunately the dealer was only 50 miles away

regarding the diesel vs petrol debate I picked diesel for two reasons resale value and I found the torque to the engine is more usable in the 30 to 70 speed range

unless you do a high mileage I do not think there will be any financial savings

[JAHill]

I used carfile and found them very good ! carfile contacted the dealer who phoned me back within 15 minutes I told them what car I wanted they gave me the quoted car broker price and also discounted any accessories I required !they also took my car as a trade in and gave me a part exchange value of what my local dealer had offered me.

No money was paid until the car was collected from the dealer and this was paid to the dealer.

fortunately the dealer was only 50 miles away

regarding the diesel vs petrol debate I picked diesel for two reasons resale value and I found the torque to the engine is more usable in the 30 to 70 speed range

unless you do a high mileage I do not think there will be any financial savings

I got my Avensis D4D CC from Carfile too. Got the same sort of good experience.

With regards to the car, I would say that the drive is good. There can be a bit of lag sometimes when pulling away so it's best to get some revs up when you pull off then change into 2nd as soon as. If you hit it right, the car pulls away nicely. The engine is relatively quiet too. Obviously a diesel at first but it quietens down once it's been going. The 2.0l seems to kick off at about 2k revs.

That's with a 114bhp, not the new one so it should be better - plus you'll get an extra gear over mine.

All that said, I only did 4500 miles in the first year as our company restructured and I ended up doing a lot of work from home instead of bombing up and down the mway every day.

[Dunkelmann]

Well I drove a year old 2.2L Avensis today with 15K on the clock. It was a much better second experience. The clutch was better than my Avensis and very forgiving. The engine had plenty of power. I kept it below 3000rpm where it seemed very happy. I couldn't believe I was doing 80 in 6th gear at about 1500rpm.

It wasn't a quiet car inside - I was aware of some engine noise but noticed it being "diesel noisy" when I put the foot down hard.

So the 2.2 ticks the boxes but is about £377 more expensive than the 2. I'm trying to arrange a drive in another old style 2 and newstyle 2 before I decide.

However, at least I have a fallback position in that I Shell out the extra and go for the 2.2.