The Diesel Conundrum

[5cilinder]

That balancing is another headache im talking about massive amounts of extra tera watts
That needs to be generated green? solarpanels? and distributed ? garanteed baseload?
Hydropower is such a small percentage and the balancing part even smaller

[Oil Burner]

Many thanks for the replies and a Happy New Year to all.

Some very interesting points have been raised in this discussion, especially regarding hydro lakes. Never knew that.

I personally was just concerned with new car choice. I will leave 'brand' out of this and just keep to the 'technology'.

It seems that Diesel is the 'in thing' with car manufacturers and I have no real preference to Diesel or Petrol. The car gets me from A to B and thats all I care about.
I know that modern Petrol cars have their issues, but Diesels are leading the tables with their amount of 'problems' notably DPF's, DMF's

People seem to be sold these cars on poor advise, from the dealers and also with the notion of 'cheap motoring' i.e. more mpg and less road tax and to be honest thats all the modern 'consumeristic' society is after, something for nothing or as cheap as possible.

But they are oblivious to the 'potential' costs involved. People buy cars for their own reasons, mainly as a means of transport, but more so today it is 'brand image' and not what I actually 'need' the car to do i.e. a practical choice on vehicle size, specification and usage.

Anyway, I am rambling off topic now.

I was just trying to gauge opinion on taking the Diesel Risk, or go back to Petrol.

A nice V40 T2 would suit me perfectly, but I also have reservations about the engines. The older V40 petrols will be variations on the Ford EcoBoost I believe and the new ones will be Volvo's in house new power unit, of which little has been written reliability wise as they are so new.

My next MOT test will be in August this year, and I have no reason to expect my S60 to fail on anything significant, but this does leave me with several months to gather more information on the subject in order to make the right choice of newer car.

[5cilinder]

But why change cars if this one is good? changing cars always costs money

[SwissXC90]

Originally Posted by 5cilinder

Hydropower is such a small percentage and the balancing part even smaller

Depends on where you are.

In my current country of residence hydro is 56% and nuclear is 54%

I laugh at all the greenies driving around in their 54% nuclear-powered electric vehicles

[5cilinder]

Yes locally hydro can be very big and its a good thing its being used . but globally its a very small percentage

[Desperate]

Originally Posted by 5cilinder

Yes locally hydro can be very big and its a good thing its being used . but globally its a very small percentage

Think of V2G though, now that is a huge amount of storage to balance the grid, decarbonize transport and improve city air quality, win win win.

I think it will happen faster than a lot of us expect.

Desp

[Scooser]

I have a 58 plate MY09 V70 D5 with only 48k miles

I've driven it from new and average 5-6k miles per year.

I don't have DPF problems and in 8 years had the soot filter warning messsage up twice, which was sorted by a subsequent blast along the motorway.

So no problems with DPF and low mileage for me

[Scooser]

Originally Posted by Clan

I would try the new petrol turbo engines , With just about all new engines being GDI now Mpg is not too far from Diesels . GDI injects petrol directly into the combustion chamber just like a diesel and compression ratios 13:1 very close to modern Diesels .

Amazing really as diesel has an unfair advantage, as the energy density of diesel is 15% greater than petrol

[xco]

Seems the only crime our diesels commit chaps is emissions. ....surely some bright spark can come up with a better idea than the dpf or at least a more efficient version of it.

My 185 D5 falls in the £500.00 road tax band and only gives me 32 mpg average on a run and having come from an MY04 V70 D5 163 which returned 52 mpg average on a run is nearly half....but I would be very upset to have to get rid of it as it has been very good in the 2 years I've owned it and I like it very much.

[skyship007]

If you have dosh to spare, get a diesel hybrid. They do have a DPF, but are a lot less problematic in terms of oil contamination. Some stop-start diesels are also OK, IF they have a more modern DPF that uses a seperate injector or cleaner fluid. Also make sure you get a good extended warranty that includes a new DPF.
If you do have the sense to buy another diesel, the pre heat burner option is a good one, as it heats the engine up, which is good in main block wear terms AND keeps the DPF clean.

I don't like driving around with a fuel tank that has flammable petrol in it, as cars can catch fire in a bad crash.