Time to get rid?

[I-S]

I fear it may be coming time to move on from my faithful GLS...

1) Engine starting to sound unhealthy. It's ticking much longer after start-up, and running a bit unevenly. £?
2) Cambelt change due soon. Change waterpump at same time, labour... £400?
3) Fuel filler pipe and breather pipe are heavily corroded. £100?
4) rear body panel has rust on OSR wheel arch and around fuel filler neck. £150?
5) Exhaust heavily corroded and will start blowing soon. £150?

Not looking at much change from £1k there....

/help

[bradc]

Sounds like you need to decide if you're going to do a big service on it, or move on to a V6 Galant :)

[I-S]

With the way petrol is going, a v6 is not happening. I'm looking at the toyota corolla 1.4 D4D. 4.8l/100km combined consumption...

[WildCards]

With the way petrol is going, a v6 is not happening. I'm looking at the toyota corolla 1.4 D4D. 4.8l/100km combined consumption...

I'd rather walk :evilgrin:

Can't WRD look at it for you, might not be as bad as you think mate. Or just get another GLS, they're cheap as chips these days.

[I-S]

Says you with an older, noisier, slower diesel...

As much as I like the GLS (and I do), the economy of it is not all that. I think we're currently on a small plateau in terms of fuel prices, but they'll go up again. £1.20-£1.40 a litre in three years I reckon. I hate diesel with a passion, but 60mpg is hard to ignore... it's that or LPG (I should have converted my GLS when I got it...).

[WildCards]

Says you with an older, noisier, slower diesel...

Tongue firmly in cheek mate :iloveyou:

Diesel will flop before too long I reckon, The new more economical petrol engines will rise to defeat all. It's all about being able to afford a new car though.

[I-S]

What new more economical petrols? GDI and IDE haven't exactly swept all before them, TFSI is interesting but doesn't match diesel economy... what else?

Hybrids are on a trip to nowhere... On a long motorway run they're only as good as the underlying engine, and the batteries degrade over time and have a lifetime of around 5 years.

[Robotnik123]

I reckon gas prices will go down again eventually. I bet we're decades off 'peak oil' and the price of oil has been artificially driven up by speculators. Get yourself a VR-4 now, whilst they're still seen as undesirable gas guzzlers and their prices are low.

[Nick Mann]

it's that or LPG (I should have converted my GLS when I got it...).

V6 LPG. All the fun of the fair with low running costs. I could get 30mpg in a manual V6, more if I worked at it. So with LPG you could be looking at an effective 60mpg.

One of my favourite quotes is 'I want to drive it, not plough fields with it!'

[Robotnik123]

Says you with an older, noisier, slower diesel...

As much as I like the GLS (and I do), the economy of it is not all that. I think we're currently on a small plateau in terms of fuel prices, but they'll go up again. £1.20-£1.40 a litre in three years I reckon. I hate diesel with a passion, but 60mpg is hard to ignore... it's that or LPG (I should have converted my GLS when I got it...).

What about a micro gasoline powered vehicle like a Ford Ka perhaps? Also have you considered a motorbike - there's plenty of fun to be had on a sports bike.

[I-S]

Most sports bikes don't even crack 30mpg. Ford Kas... well, there's three on my street. And you can't fit a mountain bike in one of them.

[flat spot]

There's a gas converted estate on autotrader.

[WildCards]

What new more economical petrols? GDI and IDE haven't exactly swept all before them, TFSI is interesting but doesn't match diesel economy... what else?

Hybrids are on a trip to nowhere... On a long motorway run they're only as good as the underlying engine, and the batteries degrade over time and have a lifetime of around 5 years.

Honda reckon they're new i-VTEC engines are very economical. They're talking about mid 40mpg combined figures in some of the new 1.8 Civics, bloody good I reckon.
Diseasel prices are continuing to rise at greater rates then petrol and I still think alot of people are put off by the 'dirty' fuel image it still has.

[Kieran]

Diesel will flop before too long I reckon, The new more economical petrol engines will rise to defeat all.

When you look at the strides being taken in Diesel development, I personally think that Petrol is on the retreat. As Isaac says, GDi, FSi and IDE haven't exactly delivered what they've promised. Turbocharging doesn't reap the rewards that it does on Diesel applications... etc.

Case in point - BMW's 535d. 272bhp - 413lb/ft and 35mpg. Posted on the internet is a standing 1/4 of 14.4.... See this forum, and the scanned review from auto express at the bottom....

Petrol suddenly looks quite naff...

[ritch_w]

good point K, but how about the longevity of these new generation of high pressure turbo diesel engine? I bet most of them wont get past £150K without major expense, unlike the old school mercs of the 80s doing 500K+ easily.

chalk and cheese in terms of performance though.

one of my neighbours is a Merc diesel mechanic and he tells me that merc are loosing a fortune by doing so much warranty work on TD units - especially on the injection side of things as they are running such high pressure, i think he said 20000 bar!!!!

I also know (through experience) the renault Dci units were designed by a garlic muncher on a fag break and there all sorts of costly issues with them.
VAG TDi injections units also prone to failing around the 120K mark with great expense to fix.


so what i'm basically wittering on about is that new diesels are so advanced in terms of refinement, performance and economy, on paper they make petrol look second place, but they do come at a premium and they will be costly to fix, and they will need fixed.... so the money saved in fuel will be negated by repairs at some point.....

[amsoil]

This is all IMHO. Petrol gives an engine an easier time as the compression ratio is so much lower and hence the strain on rods and bearings (read this as oil) Diesel with its much higher compression ratio produces prodigious torque but it comes in very low down the rev range which leads to engineering and stress problems. I am a petrol nut but have seen the rise of diesel from smokey old lorries to gutless noisey foriegn cars to finally Jaguars and Le Mans winners. You simply cannot get as much power from a petrol engine as you can now get from diesel nor can you get as many MPG and it all comes back to the compression ratio and lean burn possibilities. The money thrown at the petrol engine for the last 100 years has only recently been going into the further developement of the diesel, I am sure the best is yet to come and is finally possible because of very much higher quality oil and engineering tolerances amongst other things.
The Merc diesel problems are generally around the need to service the injectors (cheap fuel lacking cleaners and cheap scate owners not putting in injector cleaner occasionally) but they shear off in the head necessitating head or even engine removal, yes it has cost them a fortune and serves them right for unleashing the product on the public without full and thorough testing. The renault problem is simply uneducated dealers selling to uneducated customer a product that demands modern high quality oil. The cheap stuff clogs up the EGR valve and ends with an owner being unable to turn the car off as it breathes not through the throttle but through the breathers / turbo seals running and burning the oil that is supposed to lubricate it as fuel. If you have a manual you can put it into gear and stall it, if its an auto then you walk away as the revs rise and it eventually goes bang. The key is oil and the advance of technology and finally the overdue pressure on the manufactures to produce a product that does more MPG.

[I-S]

and it all comes back to the compression ratio and lean burn possibilities.

That, and that diesel contains more energy in a gallon than petrol does, so even if both engines were equally efficient, you'd still get more mpg from the diesel.

A new petrol civic might get 40-odd mpg combined. So do petrol corollas. The diesel gets 58 though.

I hate diesel with a passion (the noise, the on/off power, the smell makes me sick, etc) but I've a feeling my wallet would love it.

However, I can't afford a worthwhile diesel. I can't afford anything really... /Grrr

[Kieran]

I hate diesel with a passion (the noise, the on/off power, the smell makes me sick, etc) but I've a feeling my wallet would love it.

I would go so far as to say that most modern diesels are much better for this. Admittedly, there are still some nasty units out there (like Rover's L-Series and the Ford Endura-DE) but the rest aren't that bad nowadays.... even the Vauxhall Astra DTI we have at work is quite surprisingly smooth and refined.

The noise thing I can understand, mind you this is getting better... Have you heard the 2.2I-CDTi Honda Accord?

Your wallet would love it though.

You could always consolidate, but as it's your only car, I think you'd soon miss the GLS and regret bailing out. I speak from experience on that one!! Probably best to ride it out I reckon...

[I-S]

I've driven a passat TDI, Volvo V40 1.9D and been a passenger in various others (Picasso HDI, 307SW HDI, Mondeo TDCI).

The passat was the worst. Awful on/off power delivery, and pulling out of junctions it was off until you'd said your prayers and accepted that that lorry that was 200yds away when you started off is going to t-bone you, at which point there is a brief moment when the horizon heads toward you, the wheels unhook themselves, and then there's nothing again as the gearbox shifts up...

The volvo was surprisingly acceptable. Much more linear, petrol-like power deliver, but less power on paper. Real world, it was about as quick as the GLS (although the volvo was manual).

The picasso and mondeo (TDCI, which is the new common rail, not the old TDDI endura-DE) were unpleasant as a passenger, the 307 was quieter and more refined than most (yes, I know it is the same engine as the picasso. It was still better in the 307).

A guy at work has an accord ictdi, I've only heard it from the outside.

I prefer the sound of the Cummins turbodiesels used in the Dodge RAMs to european diesels mostly. Say, there's an idea....

[WildCards]

Even Honda's 2.2 i-CTDi effort sounds like a bag of nails until it's warmed up though. I was told by an importer chap I was talking to last year that japan had banned all diesel vehicles due to the Tokyo agreement, (too dirty). Any truth in this?

Anyone hear about Ford shoving £1 billion into it's hybrid development program this week.

I think to benefit from diesel economy you've got to be racking up the miles, it's so bloody expensive, it's more than BPU here in Leicester.

[psbarham]

my dad has a Mazda six , with a 2.0 tdi lump in it , and well easy way to describe it , erm , oh sod it its fecking awesome , i would even go as far as saying that overtaking another car at 50 it would make all but the most tuned vr4's look silly , i drove it the other month and had the air con on , head lights on and cruising along in a Que of traffic at 50 mph and the trip computer was showing 100mpg consistently , when doing 70 it still shows 65 mpg , since he brought the car 2 years ago it has averaged 56 mpg , that includes towing a caravan to Belgium , France etc several times at naughty speeds , motorway runs , back road humbling of boy racers and quite a bit of town work , so you were saying about a rattly old diesel ???????

[Wodjno]

my dad has a Mazda six , with a 2.0 tdi lump in it , and well easy way to describe it , erm , oh sod it its fecking awesome , i would even go as far as saying that overtaking another car at 50 it would make all but the most tuned vr4's look silly , i drove it the other month and had the air con on , head lights on and cruising along in a Que of traffic at 50 mph and the trip computer was showing 100mpg consistently , when doing 70 it still shows 65 mpg , since he brought the car 2 years ago it has averaged 56 mpg , that includes towing a caravan to Belgium , France etc several times at naughty speeds , motorway runs , back road humbling of boy racers and quite a bit of town work , so you were saying about a rattly old diesel ???????

Anyone remember a couple of years ago :thinking: Vauxhall were in the process of producing a 1.8 Twin Turbo Diesel Engine that they claimed would propel a Vectra to 60mph in 6 secs dead and would be limited to 155mph:speechles

Now that would be impressive /help

[Kieran]

I think to benefit from diesel economy you've got to be racking up the miles, it's so bloody expensive, it's more than BPU here in Leicester.

Personally, I Disagree with that. Doesn't matter what mileage you do.

There's only about 5p tops between DERV and SUL, and think of it like this.... Diesel is a bit more expensive, but think of the percentage extra cost of DERV per fill up, versus the extra mileage you get out of a diesel (again as a percentage).

Let me illustrate.... 97p/litre for SUL, the same for Diesel around here. so no saving there, but my golf does 48mpg - which is about 70%ish more economical than my old GLS (which did 29mpg average). No matter how many miles you do, that's a considerable wedge.

[I-S]

My GLS is somewhere between 30 and 31mpg (Ok, ok, 30.28382814mpg if you really MUST know) over the 37000 miles I've had it. The official figure is 29mpg. The toyota corolla's official figure is 58mpg, so I could probably get a similar margin on it, giving 60mpg. So, it would use half as much fuel. Yes, as of today diesel is 2p/litre more expensive in my neck of the woods (96.9 vs 94.9 for regular unleaded), but that's inconsequential compared to the economy of the thing.

The only issue here is I can not afford the corolla either.

The reality is that i'll probably run the galant into the ground on as little money as I can get away with. There's no point in spending £150/month on a finance deal to buy a car to save £50/month on petrol. I just have to get the GLS not to fall to bits in the meantime...