Petrol vs Diesel dilemma - GTI or GTD in 2017?

[seonhughes]

^ The government certainly will be making more when almost everyone is in a car that will cost £140 a year after year 1. Is the showroom tax on a performance model really going to be that big a hit though? The R and manual Audi S3 attract £500 tax, the S-Tronic S3 sneaks into the lower band (£220?), but will be £45 a year cheaper to tax than it was before. In the grand scheme of things, an additional £225 in tax over 3 years (£500 + £140 + £140 vs 3 × £185) is hardly a deal breaker - it is less than a month's depreciation on a performance Golf.

I would rather have a new car and cop for the £225 extra than buy a nearly new one at almost the same price as a well discounted new one.

True, when saying i would steer away from brand new buys after april of this year with the VED changes coming into effect i meant that as in I would rather be in my current situation of buying a 3 year old model (say buying a 2017 reg in 2020) then it would be preferable to pay just the £140 p/a than buying brand new and taking the larger hit, although as you say it doesn't really amount to much extra over the 3 year term.

However my government money making point was more towards this change being a killer is for people buying cars like my Swift, currently only £30 p/a to tax but in the example i mentioned of buying a 2017 car in 2020 i would be forking out £140 to tax a car that would have been £110 less if it had been registered the year before.

Where this will certainly be beneficial is to the drivers of the big Range Rover types - currently paying £515 a year this will reduce down also to the £140 after the big initial hit is taken by the buyer who gets it brand new. Then again, there are less of these cars on the road than the ones like mine falling into the lower bands so the government is still obviously going to be making more money across the board than they are now.

[seonhughes]

The OP raises an interesting question: are petrols more future-proof than diesels?  My hunch is that we'll see increasing VED on diesels because the politicians won't be able to resist the opportunity to do so.  They will claim that it's to protect air quality.
Also, local authorities (especially car hating ones - I'm looking at you, Southampton) might impose entry charges for diesels.  Buses and taxis will be exempt of course because public transport is good, apparently.

Generally, if there's a policy to switch from diesels, the only way it'll work is if they make diesels more expensive to run than is currently the case.  Just my musings, you understand.

Bubba.

This was my original thinking too, it might well be easier to play it safe and go for the petrol just to be on the safe side. We'll just have to wait a few weeks and see what is announced in the Chancellor's budget next month to be sure what way the government wants to play it.

[Watts]

The OP raises an interesting question: are petrols more future-proof than diesels?  My hunch is that we'll see increasing VED on diesels because the politicians won't be able to resist the opportunity to do so.  They will claim that it's to protect air quality.
Also, local authorities (especially car hating ones - I'm looking at you, Southampton) might impose entry charges for diesels.  Buses and taxis will be exempt of course because public transport is good, apparently.

Generally, if there's a policy to switch from diesels, the only way it'll work is if they make diesels more expensive to run than is currently the case.  Just my musings, you understand.

Bubba.

I suspect it'll be higher fuel duty on diesel and possibly a small drop on petrol. If you increase VED a high miler may still find diesel cheaper but increasing the price differential at the pump will hurt all diesel users. Plus as you say charges or even exemptions on diesels entering cities.

[p3asa]

You won't be disappointed in either. I had the GTD for nearly 3 years and my commute was 11 miles and never once had any DPF issues. I think that would only really rear its head if someone was literally just popping to the local shops and never going anywhere else.

The GTD is only really just warming up at that mileage so you don't get the best 60+mpg out of it but I would easily see 50mpg regularly but I could also see 30+mpg depending on how I drove it. On long journeys it would achieve 60+mpg if sensible.

My wife has the GTI and I would regularly take her car to work. Again at 11 miles you won't see the best of its mileage as it excels in longer mileage. It would hit low 30s and sometimes high 20's on the same journey.

In terms of acceleration I had the DTUK box on mine so took it up on par with the BHP of the GTI. So I had the acceleration and the MPG in my favour on the GTD. The power delivery on both is totally different though. Having drove my GTD for a couple of years before the GTI came along, I found when I had the GTI,  Nissan Micras and Hyundai i10's were belting away from me at the lights  all because I was driving it like a diesel. If you are coming from a petrol you won't find that though.

Although I loved my GTD and really bonded with the car, there was something I liked about driving the petrol GTI. It just felt more nimble and livelier. A bit like having 2 puppies, one always jumping about full of energy and the other always sleeping  However wake the sleeping one up and away it goes

Interestingly I gave my GTD to my son who was driving a Swift like yourself. The step up in quality is 50 fold. He loves it. Although he was getting 34mpg in his swift I don't think he's getting much more than that in the GTD 

[seonhughes]

You won't be disappointed in either. I had the GTD for nearly 3 years and my commute was 11 miles and never once had any DPF issues. I think that would only really rear its head if someone was literally just popping to the local shops and never going anywhere else.

The GTD is only really just warming up at that mileage so you don't get the best 60+mpg out of it but I would easily see 50mpg regularly but I could also see 30+mpg depending on how I drove it. On long journeys it would achieve 60+mpg if sensible.

My wife has the GTI and I would regularly take her car to work. Again at 11 miles you won't see the best of its mileage as it excels in longer mileage. It would hit low 30s and sometimes high 20's on the same journey.

In terms of acceleration I had the DTUK box on mine so took it up on par with the BHP of the GTI. So I had the acceleration and the MPG in my favour on the GTD. The power delivery on both is totally different though. Having drove my GTD for a couple of years before the GTI came along, I found when I had the GTI,  Nissan Micras and Hyundai i10's were belting away from me at the lights  all because I was driving it like a diesel. If you are coming from a petrol you won't find that though.

Although I loved my GTD and really bonded with the car, there was something I liked about driving the petrol GTI. It just felt more nimble and livelier. A bit like having 2 puppies, one always jumping about full of energy and the other always sleeping  However wake the sleeping one up and away it goes

Interestingly I gave my GTD to my son who was driving a Swift like yourself. The step up in quality is 50 fold. He loves it. Although he was getting 34mpg in his swift I don't think he's getting much more than that in the GTD 

Honestly fuel economy isn't really much of a concern as I am happy enough with the 35mpg i get currently from the swift so a GTI that would match that or a GTD that would better that would be fine for me. I think if the forthcoming punishment if you will for diesel drivers isn't so bad and maybe just a few extra pence of fuel duty then i reckon just in terms of the cost of running the car not factoring payments or depreciation will even out - GTD cheaper to buy used, slightly more expensive to fuel but does better MPG; GTI more expensive to buy used, slightly cheaper to fuel but worse MPG they might just break even in terms of ownership costs over the 3 years - however what i need to pay most attention to is the largest difference being the cost of the car itself as doing 10kish miles per year i doubt the cheaper fuel on the GTI would ever make up the difference of around a £2k premium for choosing GTI over GTD, not to mention the big difference in annual tax but then this may well change to hurt the GTD with it's current low band. Then again as mentioned before although the GTI is more expensive on the used market, this might help with keeping the monthly payments around the same for both cars as the residuals may well be better - whether they will be £2k better however is very unlikely

[fredgroves]

The VED changes from April on new vehicles is simply because the incentive for low pollution petrol and diesel cars is hurting them.  We've all followed the incentive as per their plan and tax revenues are unsustainable.  I don't agree with over turning that personally,  I think the pollution problem is more important and that the shortfall in tax take should be made up elsewhere than from green motorists.  Particularly I find it somewhat disappointing that someone with something like a golf r get a tax cut and a Toyota iq gets a massive rise.  By all means raise one,  but don't cut the other you idiots!

[Watts]

OP - you can over think these things. Unless you have a specific need that will draw you to a particular car, buy what you really want. A few hundred or even £1k or so over 3 or 4 years won't make much difference but putting up with second best after a few months will annoy you every time you go for a drive.

[Poached]

Seon

10k a year difference between petrol and diesel isn't going to be that great, depreciation over the period you own the car will be much greater than the difference in fuel costs/VED etc

The only reason to buy a GTD is if you want save money on fuel and if you really wanted to save money you wouldn't ideally be looking at purchasing a new car anyway?

Go for the GTI, you needn't over rationalise a car purchase like this otherwise we would all be driving round in a banger or Toyota Pious .

[seonhughes]

Seon

10k a year difference between petrol and diesel isn't going to be that great, depreciation over the period you own the car will be much greater than the difference in fuel costs/VED etc

The only reason to buy a GTD is if you want save money on fuel and if you really wanted to save money you wouldn't ideally be looking at purchasing a new car anyway?

Go for the GTI, you needn't over rationalise a car purchase like this otherwise we would all be driving round in a banger or Toyota Pious .

The reason for my dilemma was that there are a good few more GTD's up for sale over here than there are GTI's and they were also quite a bit cheaper - wasn't so much worried about running costs it was to do with if I did in the end go for the cheaper GTD than the GTI then would i end up regretting the decision because whatever the government do to drive people away from diesel could well end up costing me that difference so I may as well have just bought the more expensive GTI in the first place. I am leaning more towards the GTI anyways as a lot of you have said I'd be happier with it and i suppose the satisfaction and happiness in the car is worth the extra 20 quid a month or whatever it may be for the dearer car.

A trip across the water may be in order, a cheap flight and a ferry home will be a lot cheaper than paying the premium for buying in NI - just need to find a dealer offering a good APR on the used finance

[davyk31]

Don't shop with your dealer for finance on a used car. You will get much much better deals from other banks and finance houses.