Petrol Vs. Diesel

[Arctra]

The government will be cracking down on all new diesel cars being imported or built within the country starting this year. The legislation hasn't been drawn up yet as far as I'm aware, but it seems they are just doing field testing at the moment....
...even if the government does crack down on emissions of new vehicles, the TDI Tiguan already meets EURO 5 ratings. Australian emissions standards are based off the Euro ones, but they are more closely related to the US and JAP ones. US and JAP ones are EURO 3 equivalent, so the Tiguan will far exceed the proposed legislation on emissions in the coming year.

Great response mate!

As you are so knowledgeable, perhaps you could clarify something. If and when the DPF Delete is available for the Tig TDI, getting it render the vehicle non-compliant with EURO3/new Aus standards? I'm working off the assumption that the DPF is necessary to be EURO5 complaint more than anything else here.

My thinking is, when the DPF finally gets clogged, considering how expensive they are to replace, getting the DPF Delete done would be the cheaper option and giv performance benefits. If the Tig will still be compliant with Aus regulations after the DPF delete then, other than for moral reasons, the DPF Dele will be a no-brainer.

Really interested to hear your response!

[team_v]

The government will be cracking down on all new diesel cars being imported or built within the country starting this year. The legislation hasn't been drawn up yet as far as I'm aware, but it seems they are just doing field testing at the moment. I would like to clarify one thing however, we have not reached peak oil as many environmental groups would have you believe it's just a scare tactic to make people aware of what's going on. Whether this is a postive or negative is all down to the consumer.

Also, in regards to thermal efficiency of petrol vs diesel engines, petrol still wins (if the engines have the same compression ration). However, practically speaking, diesel engines are anywhere up to 35% more efficient that petrol ones. It basically comes down to how much energy you can get out of the fuel you're using, government estimates that about 62% of energy is lost in ICE's due to heat, friction, etc. Diesels only lose about 30-35% of the energy in the fuel.

I remember reading an article on a petrol car vs a diesel car of the same make, model, engine capacity, accessories etc and as it turns out a petrol car is cheaper in the short term for servicing. Long term however, the diesel had a payback of 10 years. Admittedly this was done in the UK where diesel cars are the preferred mode of transport. I think it would be unfair to try and draw a correlation between the UK and AUS in terms of servicing and the like.

My old man has a 2005 model diesel Golf and it goes like a little rocket and is great fun to drive. Although not very practical at times. This is where the Tiguan has its advantages as far as I can see. In terms of practicality, the diesel will have give you a lot more for much less. You'll have the torque to get out of sticky situations if need be as well as the towing capacity to moving trailed loads around with, without affecting the fuel economy too much.

Getting back to emissions, even if the government does crack down on emissions of new vehicles, the TDI Tiguan already meets EURO 5 ratings. Australian emissions standards are based off the Euro ones, but they are more closely related to the US and JAP ones. US and JAP ones are EURO 3 equivalent, so the Tiguan will far exceed the proposed legislation on emissions in the coming year. Personally, you know where I stand on the subject of diesel vs petrol. What it will come down to is if you're willing to sacrifice fun for sensibility.

Thanks Nis.
Hadn't had a chance to talk to you about it.

Seems almost certain that i am going the petrol alternative now.
Getting some prices together as I type this.

In the end, the diesel isn't much different to the car i am driving now (apart form the large torque figures and an extra 40kw)
The petrol just stood out and will stand out even more with help from APR.

As i will mostly be doing city driving with highway drives maybe once a month or so, i figure the petrol will do well for what i need.

Looking at the servicing costs, the petrol is cheaper to service up to 180,000km becasue the big diesel services are more expensive than the big petrol services.

Thanks for the help guys, any more input would be appreciated.
So far i am sticking with the TSI though.

[Rocket36]

The problem with any "crack downs" that are implemented is they aren't retrospective. ANY new road car regardless of engine type, fuel type, etc is going to be more fuel efficient and cleaner for the environment than all the buckets of junk on the road that are pre-1990. Line up any brand new V8 next to a POS from 1988 and it will win on efficiency and environmental friendliness. Tax the crap out of old cars and even consider implementing a limit on how old a car can be before it's no longer allowed on the roads. You can have special permits etc for classics, historics, etc but just don't let them be daily drives.

Australia has it far too good. My Dad lives in Denmark and just had to get rid of a car because it became 20 years old. Not trade it in, not sell it, SCRAP it. His 2006 Citroen C5 wagon with 58,000km cost him the equiv. of $AUD65,000 to buy (drive away) because of car taxes and he has to pay the equiv. of about $AUD15,000 a year for rego, insurance and ROAD TAXES just to own it. Then on top of that, petrol costs the equiv. of about $2.50 a litre.

Bring that sort of system into Australia and you end up with cleaner cars, and less cars on the road. Both of which would be a GOOD thing. And I'd be more than happy to pay $3.00 a litre for fuel.

As with anything, the best way to change things quickly is to make them more expensive. Same goes for water. We should pay more than double what we pay for water to our homes than we do currently. We live in one of the driest countries in the world and pay only about $150 for a 3 month supply of water? WHAT THE?!

[Tim]

The flow on effects of high fuel costs in Australia are far further reaching than just the environment.

We are currently at an interesting point where the cost of living has sky rocketed over the past 10 years and wages have not really kept up for the "average" person. The problem is that higher wages would fuel inflation and then inflation fuels inflation! Before you know it we are all living in cardboard boxes.

Anyways back to the original topic.
Id go the diesel over the TSI. Not that they arent both great cars to drive. Just seems to be more people whinging about TSI problems than any other car at the minute. Ive even heard of a few engine failures.

[team_v]

Id go the diesel over the TSI. Not that they arent both great cars to drive. Just seems to be more people whinging about TSI problems than any other car at the minute. Ive even heard of a few engine failures.

Thanks for the input Tim.
I will be getting a stubby antenna from you when i get the car.

I have only heard of 1 failure in a tig so far and it re-started again after 20 minutes.
Not sure if it was the TSI of TDI though.

Guess i need to do some more thinking on it.

[Tim]

aahhh oops! sorry im not reading the thread properly. different TSI engine. I was thinking golfs.
I'll change my vote! Id go the TSI!

[Mr.B]

Great response mate!

As you are so knowledgeable, perhaps you could clarify something. If and when the DPF Delete is available for the Tig TDI, getting it render the vehicle non-compliant with EURO3/new Aus standards? I'm working off the assumption that the DPF is necessary to be EURO5 complaint more than anything else here.

My thinking is, when the DPF finally gets clogged, considering how expensive they are to replace, getting the DPF Delete done would be the cheaper option and giv performance benefits. If the Tig will still be compliant with Aus regulations after the DPF delete then, other than for moral reasons, the DPF Dele will be a no-brainer.

Really interested to hear your response!

The way it will probably work is the legislation will get drawn into new revisions of the ADR's and NCOP (Which is where the DPF delete will fall into). Now if you get the DPF delete done by a service centre (Which they probably won't do) they will be up for fines if ever caught or found out. If you do it yourself, you have lesser chance. However, if you're a police officer and see some diesel car cruising around with big bellowing plumes of black exhaust fumes coming out you're probably going to get pulled over and asked to get an emissions test done, which means you will get caught. And in QLD, it's a hefty $10,000 fine. It varies from state to state.

The legislation will provide a guideline, and individual states will probably make changes based on that legislation.

Admittedly, I'm not too sure how adversely the DPF delete affects emissions, so the above is just a general outline.

The problem with any "crack downs" that are implemented is they aren't retrospective. ANY new road car regardless of engine type, fuel type, etc is going to be more fuel efficient and cleaner for the environment than all the buckets of junk on the road that are pre-1990. Line up any brand new V8 next to a POS from 1988 and it will win on efficiency and environmental friendliness. Tax the crap out of old cars and even consider implementing a limit on how old a car can be before it's no longer allowed on the roads. You can have special permits etc for classics, historics, etc but just don't let them be daily drives.

Australia has it far too good. My Dad lives in Denmark and just had to get rid of a car because it became 20 years old. Not trade it in, not sell it, SCRAP it. His 2006 Citroen C5 wagon with 58,000km cost him the equiv. of $AUD65,000 to buy (drive away) because of car taxes and he has to pay the equiv. of about $AUD15,000 a year for rego, insurance and ROAD TAXES just to own it. Then on top of that, petrol costs the equiv. of about $2.50 a litre.

Bring that sort of system into Australia and you end up with cleaner cars, and less cars on the road. Both of which would be a GOOD thing. And I'd be more than happy to pay $3.00 a litre for fuel.

As with anything, the best way to change things quickly is to make them more expensive. Same goes for water. We should pay more than double what we pay for water to our homes than we do currently. We live in one of the driest countries in the world and pay only about $150 for a 3 month supply of water? WHAT THE?!

Another Dane I see. Hvordan har du det?

The other thing with Denmark is your registration is based on the emissions the car actually make, as opposed to here where it's based off engine capacity and cylinders. Personally, if the Australian government went with the Danish system, there would be a lot fewer and greener cars on the road than what there is now (as you've said).

The problem in that situation however is the population in Denmark has been relatively stable for the past 50 years, it hasn't had any noticeable deviations in mean population for the country so it's much easier to monitor this sort of thing. In Australian however, we've experienced population increase over the past 50 years, monitoring ever single person within the country is near next to impossible. Given that some residents can live up to 3 hours from a transport facility capable of testing emissions and even then it's not exactly within fiscal limits to continually monitor this special group of people. So they would be given a special permit for agricultural purposes (as you've said).

On the topic of water. Australia isn't as water scarce as people might think, we have quite a stable infrastructure and are relatively water conscious when it comes to using it.

http://www.wri.org/map/physical-and-economic-water-scarcity

However, you are quite right. Australia should be (realistically) paying more for essentials such as energy, water and food. If you removed a lot of the subsidies in place, you would get a true cost of living.