[Desi Dybuk]

Originally Posted by blacksport

Diesel buyers just hate to do the math.

Bingo. Example: My dad. He's a renowned engineer with double masters degrees & an intelligent guy in every aspect. But he bought a Diesel just for that 'feeling' of saving money.

This was even after I did an ROI of God driving habits.

[mrbaddy]

Who knows with the narrowing gap between petrol and diesel prices, manufacturers might be forced to reduce the price gap between petrol and diesel variants. That situation essentially becomes a preference of the customer then to choose the type of vehicle (performance, fuel efficiency etc.) he wants to drive, instead of worrying about the ROI between petrol and diesel variants.

[drmohitg]

Originally Posted by Desi Dybuk

Yours is an empirical data when you don't want to take ARAI figures and say that Petrol vehicles 'Struggle' to get 8-10 km/l & Diesel 'easily' gets 17-18 in city.

I drive in Bangalore & I consistently get 12-13 in City & get 17 out on the highway. It's because I drive sensibly.


In addition, what about the additional cost of maintenance/servicing of Diesel cars?

Buddy don't take offence but I would really want to praise your driving if you manage to extract 12 kmpl in your city in Bangalore. I drove a Santro there for 6 years and couldn't manage to cross 11 and rarely touched 12. My Honda City in delhi was driven for 65k kms before selling it off and it also never managed to give me 12 kmpl. Meanwhile my sunny diesel currently constantly returns 17+kmpl and my Altis returns me 18+ kmpl.

Regarding maintenance, I have spent Rs. 16000 till date on servicing for my D segment Altis diesel which has run 44k kms till now. So its only a myth these days that diesel cars are costly to maintain.

Anyways all this has been already debated at length in the previous pages. With the constant hikes in diesel prices and a cut back in petrol, there would surely be a shift in favour of petrol vehicles now. Cheers.

[SLK]

Originally Posted by blacksport

Buying diesel cars were rarely economical, even when it was 55 per liter. Diesel buyers just hate to do the math.

Offence taken! I have been driving 2 diesels and 2 petrol. There is a marked difference in fuel economy! My 2L Optra delivers same similar FE as my AltoK10, when driven similarly, while the Petrol Ertiga returns 30% less.

There is no extra maintenance for a Diesel car that I've experienced so far. Yes, all parts are expensive, but I haven't broken anything.

Diesels so far have saved a LOT of money, but no gain going forward. But driving that magnum is not even comparable to any similar costing petrol car.

[shekhar_gogoi]

I have a SRV that has done over 60K KM and still gives a good 11-12kmpl w/o AC in the city. And not a single part has been changed other than the regular maintenance. Whereas I cannot say the same about my swift. It may give me a better FE but I have spent much more on maintenance then the SRV. And both have done over 60K km. There is no doubt diesel is cheaper in the shorter run but in the long run I personally feel that what i save in diesel I spend in maintenance. And then again the compromise on the driving feel too.

[narayans80]

Originally Posted by Desi Dybuk

Only Taxi drivers would be able to recover the cost!

Was doing the Petrol vs Diesel calculation for XCent and Zest and ended up in pretty much the same ballpark break even figure of 80K. For me usage of about 20K ish a year. It still makes sense to go for a diesel, given that I am intending to own it on a long term. This is with Madras rates of 62.92 and 71.5. If the difference further comes down to about 3 or 4 Rs, where the break even gets to 1.5+ lakhs km the scales tilt more towards Petrol.

[Desi Dybuk]

Originally Posted by narayans80

Was doing the Petrol vs Diesel calculation for XCent and Zest and ended up in pretty much the same ballpark break even figure of 80K. For me usage of about 20K ish a year. It still makes sense to go for a diesel, given that I am intending to own it on a long term. This is with Madras rates of 62.92 and 71.5. If the difference further comes down to about 3 or 4 Rs, where the break even gets to 1.5+ lakhs km the scales tilt more towards Petrol.

I feel that even with your 20k kms per year, Diesel doesn't make economical sense. Even if you plan on keeping your car for 10 years, you'd still have to drive it for additional 4 years (80000/20000) to recover the initial premium! That means 14 years!!

If you bought Petrol & kept the money saved in FD, you'd have enough money to buy another one!

[lurker]

for someone doing regular highway runs, there is absolutely no comparison between cost-effectiveness of diesel and petrol. Don't think that crowd even bothers to read arguments between petrol & diesel.

For an exclusively in-city car, which does office runs, market runs, and mall hopping and other short point-to-point runs that don't exceed 40 kms. Petrol makes a lot of sense for that crowd, since petrol cars are more "abuse-able" in such conditions. They are not so lubricant thirsty, neither do the engines operate under such high pressure as diesel so wear and tear is also lower and can manage with a slight amount of neglect also.

[Mohan Mathew A]

Coming back to the topic of this thread, Brent crude has dropped by more than 2 dollars yesterday. So diesel under-recoveries would be nil now. Petrol should see another drop by sept 15th

It is time to rationalise the taxes now, i see no reason for taxing petrol more than diesel

[Desi Dybuk]

Originally Posted by Mohan Mathew A

It is time to rationalise the taxes now, i see no reason for taxing petrol more than diesel

The problem with fuel taxes is that in a state like Karnataka, the State Taxes form bulk of the total taxes imposed. And governments are loathe to give up taxes, especially mismanaged states like my fair state of Karnataka.

I don't have hopes of taxes being rationalized for fuels. Dirty fuel will still be cheaper & our air will continue to be clogged with Diesel soot.

[bsdbsd]

Originally Posted by drmohitg

Buddy don't take offence but I would really want to praise your driving if you manage to extract 12 kmpl in your city in Bangalore. I drove a Santro there for 6 years and couldn't manage to cross 11 and rarely touched 12. ...

Just providing another data point here. My Honda City AT (1 year old) is returning around 11.5 kms in daily Bangalore traffic (South to CBD drive). I am a light footed driver, but I am not taking any extraordinary measures to improve FE. My Santro AT (10 year old) returns around 10-10.5 kms even today, consistently, all in our Bangalore traffic. Santro manual returning 11-12 shouldn't be a big deal.

EDIT: The Honda City FE figures are from MID. It may be lower than what is being shown.

[rajshenoy]

Originally Posted by Desi Dybuk

The problem with fuel taxes is that in a state like Karnataka, the State Taxes form bulk of the total taxes imposed. And governments are loathe to give up taxes, especially mismanaged states like my fair state of Karnataka.

I don't have hopes of taxes being rationalized for fuels. Dirty fuel will still be cheaper & our air will continue to be clogged with Diesel soot.

Now with diesel prices de-regulated, now we deserve the cleaner diesel isnt it ?

Coming back to dirty part of it. Petrol emits Carbon monoxide too.. Colorless, odorless !! You wont even know how dirty it is

I used to drive a petrol car before. My running goes to 20K per year. In a city like Bangalore I hardly got above 12 kmpl. Even on highways my car used to return me 14-15 kmpl max.

Now my diesel gives me 15-16 kmpl in city and 19+ on highways. Even if we assume both fuels cost the same, we can do a math on how many liters of fuel i am saving !!

[Desi Dybuk]

Originally Posted by rajshenoy

Now with diesel prices de-regulated, now we deserve the cleaner diesel isnt it ?

I surely hope so! Only Ultra Low Sulphur Diesel can save our cities from Diesel soot. As it is, our cities are being choked by countless unmaintained Buses & Trucks using Diesel. For far too long, our lungs have been clogged up with these noxious fumes.

Originally Posted by rajshenoy

I used to drive a petrol car before. My running goes to 20K per year. In a city like Bangalore I hardly got above 12 kmpl. Even on highways my car used to return me 14-15 kmpl max.

Now my diesel gives me 15-16 kmpl in city and 19+ on highways. Even if we assume both fuels cost the same, we can do a math on how many liters of fuel i am saving !!

Happy to oblige!!

I don't know what you drive, so I'm assuming that the Price Difference between Petrol & Diesel variants is about 1 lakh for you.

So, assuming for city driving, you'd get 12kmpl for Petrol & 16 kmpl for Diesel.

Then, per km running cost would be:

Petrol = 75.13/12 = ₹ 6.26 kmpl

Diesel = 64.07/16 = ₹ 4.00 kmpl

Saving for driving Diesel = ₹ 2.26 kmpl



So, to recover 1 lakh premium you paid for Diesel, you'd have to drive an additional 1,00,000/2.26 = 44,247 kms.

Since you drive about 20,000 kms per year, you'd have to keep your car for 2 additional years!

Mind you, I have not included the additional financing cost, lost interest on money saved if you go for Petrol, possibility of Diesel & Petrol prices coming even closer due to Diesel deregulation.

[rajshenoy]

Originally Posted by Desi Dybuk

Happy to oblige!!

I don't know what you drive, so I'm assuming that the Price Difference between Petrol & Diesel variants is about 1 lakh for you.

So, assuming for city driving, you'd get 12kmpl for Petrol & 16 kmpl for Diesel.

Then, per km running cost would be:

Petrol = 75.13/12 = ₹ 6.26 kmpl

Diesel = 64.07/16 = ₹ 4.00 kmpl

Saving for driving Diesel = ₹ 2.26 kmpl



So, to recover 1 lakh premium you paid for Diesel, you'd have to drive an additional 1,00,000/2.26 = 44,247 kms.

Since you drive about 20,000 kms per year, you'd have to keep your car for 2 additional years!

Yes, Which is why i have posted in couple of places already that Ideal thing to do now is save money and go for petrol or use that money for an Automatic petrol.

I am sure vast majority of the Private car owners wont run beyond 10-12000 kms . I have personally seen the mad rush for diesels way back in 2010-12 and some of those did not even run the car 5000-6000 kms per year !! Things were different till say end of 2012. Now its Tilted towards Petrol for sure.

And personally, If i had not sold my Swift last year to buy Diesel Ertiga. By now I might have put my money on a City Automatic or new Ciaz petrol

[batterylow]

I was glancing through the IOC website and saw some figures.(Effective from midnight of 31st August 2014)

Non branded petrol
Delhi 68.51
Kolkata 76.14
Mumbai 76.41
Chennai 71.55

Non branded diesel
Delhi 58.97
Kolkata 63.81
Mumbai 67.26
Chennai 62.92

The difference is only 8 rupees in Chennai.