There is an interesting piece on the Honest John web site which compares the ownership costs of a range of petrol versus diesel cars. They come up with the astonishing conclusion that you need to drive a 1.4 diesel golf 316,000 miles before it reaches break-even with the 1.0 petrol turbo.
Petrol or diesel in 2016? | Motoring News | Honest JohnBefore I bought my latest Venga - being an anorak - I did a an overall cost comparison of the 1.6 diesel and the 1.6 petrol Venga 3 manuals.
Inspired by Honest John I have just updated it with the latest fuel prices in my area, the lowest new car costs I found on the web and the latest insurance quotes I recently obtained for myself and wife driving 11,000 miles/year.
For fuel economy I used 53 mpg for the diesel car listed on the KIA forum
I used 42 mpg for the manual petrol car (which was my experience with my first Venga accurately calculated from total fuel added during a total miles covered of 17,864 miles).
My current auto Venga has averaged 38 mpg over its first 18870 miles
This is the data.
Venga 3 1.6 Petrol manual OTR Price £ 13870 VED £130 Insurance £264 Economy 42 mpg
Venga 3 1.6 Diesel manual OTR Price £14945 VED £30 Insurance £292 Economy 53 mpg
Venga 3 1.6 Petrol Auto OTR price £14,990 VED £145 Insurance £249 Economy 38 mpg
Current fuel prices in my area: Petrol £4.55/gall Diesel £4.77/gall
To save you doing the maths, using the above figures :-
You need to do 40,443 miles before you reach a break-even point when you buy a manual diesel rather than a manual petrol Venga 3.
In my case - I bought an auto Venga and the manual diesel would have worked out cheaper from the word go. There is not a Venga auto diesel for me to make a comparison with - but if there were - it's a safe bet that the £1000 higher price would result in a similar break-even calculation
I do about 11,000 miles/year - hence it would take me almost 4 years before the diesel car started to pay for itself in terms of running costs. I normally change my cars every 2 years - I don't need loads of grunt because I don't tow a trailer or caravan and a manual petrol for me is a no brainer.
Finally - I stress that the above figures are based upon my situation and the current local costs. People in other areas will have a different comparison.
