Buying a diesel car

Afternoon fellow windies. My wife and I are test driving a nearly new BMW on Sunday. It’s a stunning motor with only 900 miles on the clock.

The one thing concerning me is that it’s a diesel.

We do very low mileage but it’s the deprecation value of it I’m concerned with when we exchange it in a few years time as nowadays diesels are frowned upon.

Any thoughts, anybody know a bit about this subject? Thanks ?

We didn't choose the diesel version of our car because we do 90% short trips and was told the particle filter would fill up adding an huge extra cost for cleaning it a few years from now.

As Nudel says, low mileage is a no-no, especially for new diesels. I think the crossover point is usually around 12k miles per year. IF the majority of your journeys are under 30mins long then get a petrol version.

Running costs wont be far off as the diesel is at its most efficient when warm, which it wont do on short journeys. Whereas the petrol engines heat up a lot faster and in the stop-start traffic wont be far off mpg wise.

What will be the main use for the car? As I assume there is a reason you went for diesel? If its the torquey punch, a new average sized turbo petrol will have a similar feel/torque level due to turbocharging.
As for depreciation, the two big jumps are 0-6 months and 6months-3 years. So you're doomed either way ??

Robt100 said:

As Nudel says, low mileage is a no-no, especially for new diesels. I think the crossover point is usually around 12k miles per year. IF the majority of your journeys are under 30mins long then get a petrol version.

Running costs wont be far off as the diesel is at its most efficient when warm, which it wont do on short journeys. Whereas the petrol engines heat up a lot faster and in the stop-start traffic wont be far off mpg wise.

What will be the main use for the car? As I assume there is a reason you went for diesel? If its the torquey punch, a new average sized turbo petrol will have a similar feel/torque level due to turbocharging.
As for depreciation, the two big jumps are 0-6 months and 6months-3 years. So you're doomed either way ??

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I’m not ‘choosing’ a diesel as such, it’s just a good offer on this particular car.

As for diesel vehicles not being good for low mileage, my van is diesel, 2 years old and just reached 9 thousand miles ??

The current deal for this car is so good because? they are trying to move diesel cars and struggling. In 3-5 years time when you go to sell it I would think that electric / hybrid cars will be far outselling diesels and getting rid of it will be like selling a Skoda 20 years ago. If you look at the difference between similar aged vans that are Euro 5 or Euro 6 the Euro 6 has held its price far better.

My van is 2 months old and has 2000 miles on it 

Is it just you and your other half @steve garwood you do you have kids? 

And i wouldnt part with my t5, for work and leisure. It's my workhorse for WFP and doubles as a somewhere to sleep. My fiancé loves it as much as I do!

You could always lease one, great deals on low mileage. You can put it through the business and hand it back in 2 or 3 years. 

I was talking to my local audi dealer and Audi are investing heavily in Diesel engine technology as are Bmw, Volvo and most other manufacturers, diesel fumes are far better for the environment that petrol fumes , if you don’t believe this look up the government web site the pollution rate in London has risen significantly since more people are  using petrol it’s the no2 that are very bad , all this about petrol being better is spin  by the government trying to get people to buy petrol hybrids , before I bought my Audi I looked at the Mitsubishi Outlander phev after talking to the salesman he admitted that the pollution from it was far worse than a diesel that was from the salesman !,,, , I have recently bought a brand new Audi and have no conserns about the emissions but do have concerns about how the government will affect it in the future with road tax , the way that hybrid or petrol cars are cheaper road tax isn’t sustainable as if we all went over to them how would they get revenue to repair the roads ? So when we do all end up driving them they will then introduce a new tax ??? 

They're investing far more into hybrid / electric vehicles. They should concentrate on hydrogen instead.