Current E250CDI (2014) vs 2010

[jaymanek]

Hopefully that will get people buying petrol again.

I am getting sick with this diesel obsession, and even more annoyed when people who only do 15k miles a year buy it 'to save money'.

Do people actually do the maths?

dont you have a diesel?

I agree though, most people only buy diesels because they think its cheaper and its often not.

 

[gIzzE]

dont you have a diesel?

I agree though, most people only buy diesels because they think its cheaper and its often not.

Yeah, my ML is diesel.
My E350 estate was diesel before and the E320 estate before that was diesel.
Before that was a 335i and an E320 V6 petrol.

When looking for my S212 there were no petrols around and I didn't want to pay for a new one, or couldn't afford to buy a new one, I hung on for around 5 months waiting for a petrol to arrive but not one showed up.
Same with the S211 before it, waited 3 months for a nice E350 or E500 to show up and only 3 hit the market, the day they hit when I called they were sold by the time I had spotted them.

I bought the ML off Rich on here while deciding what car I wanted, I had sold the E350cdi as I didn't get on with it and needed something, this was the right price to waft around in while deciding what next, that was a year ago and still in it now.

I don't have anything against diesels, you sort of get used to the roughness of a diesel after a while, it almost becomes refined in your head, but the other day I did 200 miles in the ML350cdi to pick something up after spending the previous week in our BMW straight six petrol and it really does remind you how unrefined diesels are.

Plus with diesel you get that big shove at the lower rev range and then linear, where as in the petrol in the lower rev range you get very smooth delivery so it is so much more elegant and refined to drive, and then as you hit 3500rpm (where the diesel is running out of puff) all hell brakes loose and you get that constant pull up to 7000rpm.


330d...

330i...

Our bodies can sense a change in acceleration rather than speed, the petrol that keeps pulling and pulling will always feel faster, as long as you don't try and drive it like a diesel and keep it above 3000rpm.

The diesel has around 1000rpm where it feels fast, kicks in at around 2000rpm and then it starts dropping off by 3000rpm, this is where the petrol starts to do its thing.


I don't actually think this is a petrol vs diesel debate in many ways, it is more NA vs forced induction, on what makes a car really fun anyway.
But they are geting there with turboed cars, my 335i was dull, but the new 328i which is a 4cyl turbo petrol seems more like a NA engine to drive and therefore more enjoyable.
380bhp in the 335i was nice, but after a week or two once the novelty had worn off it all got a bit dull. It was being lent a 330i NA petrol when my 335i was in for a service that made me realise how bored of it I really was, it was sold a week later.

The smoothness when pottering about combined with the way you have to work a na petrol and the soundtrack it supplies simply gets me in a way a diesel never will, never can. You can pump artificial sounds into the cabin to help with one aspect, and I am sure over time diesel will be nearly as smooth as petrol, but you will never get the same power curves as petrol and to me that is what makes the car a true pleasure to drive.

I went out at 11pm last week and went on a 160 mile drive around the North Norfolk coastal roads in the little 2.8i Z3, that is something I haven't done for over 6 years, last did it in my M3 CSL. I had seriously forgotten how much I love a high revving petrol car. I love driving anyway so would always look for an excuse to go somewhere whatever the car is I own, but I have yet to own a diesel that makes me go out at midnight for a 3 hour blast and that tells me a lot.

I have had a few cars in both diesel and petrol varients, 535d vs 335i, 330i vs 330d, E320 vs E320cdi, A6 3.2fsi vs 3.0tdi and the petrol uses around 15-20% more fuel than the diesel on average, a little bit less on sub 10 mile journeys and a little bit more on longer runs, but over the course of my 30k miles a year in them they have all averaged around 15-20% less in the petrol, and with petrol being around 10% less at the pumps cost just isn't a consideration.

My father had an ML500 when his ML350cdi was in for a service and over the two days it averaged 22mpg, his car is showing 25.2mpg. He loved that ML500 so I suggested swapping his over, he would probably get a 500 for no more money than his 350, but his reply was "I can't, I know it is not costing me any more to run the V8 in real terms, but I find it hard to live with seeing 25mpg on the dash of the diesel, seeing 22mpg would ruin the experience for me"
If you stop and think about that comment it doesn't make sense, but then if I were in his position deciding between an ML500 and an ML350cdi what I hand on heart choose the V8? I'm not sure that I would, I am as brainwashed about diesel as the rest of the UK. You now almost feel stupid for choosing a petrol, even if in real terms it might be the cheaper option.
I'm sure this will change over the next few years, I certainly hope so.

 

[V12]

I'm glad we all have preferences. I dislike cars that have to be revved but love it on 2 wheels.

Petrol here is 6% cheaper than diesel, not the 10% that you mention a couple of times.

The only 2 things that I dislike about diesels are the exterior sound and actually filling the tank, the smell and the feel of diesel if they don't have gloves!

 

[ima poster]

I like the extra torque of my diesel and as I do long motorway drives, once sticking to 70mph, there isn't a lot of difference except for a quick squirt of acceleration to change lanes. I also find that with an auto transmission disadvantages of a low rev range also become less relevant. What I do miss though is the sound track from 2 of my previous cars: An Alfa GTV where the main nose was the sound of it sucking air in through 2 twin choke dell'ortos and a BMW530V8 near the red line.

 

[billy21]

There are now a couple of well spec'd E350 cgi estates on the Mercedes website - both around the £24k mark.