Following a discussion down the pub with a mate looking to buy a newish used diesel, it kind of got me thinking as to whether state of the art modern diesel engined cars are just future financial liabilities and whether you are better off just buying a petrol engined car as it appears that modern diesels can give their owners some nasty surprises in terms of maintenance costs and reliability once they start getting past 80,000miles
In the not too distant past, diesel engined cars were simple things and as a result reliability was first class....ie a W210 E300TD is a fine example...bomb proof engine with very little to go wrong other than changing the glow plugs, which can be a bit of a pain. Whereas an equivalent petrol engined car could always be prone to ignition issues which clearly don't effect a diesel, thus making them less reliable.
However if you then look at the later E320CDi....you start getting injector seals failing, injectors packing up (very expensive) etc. Removal of injectors being problematical which could result in a new cylinder head being required.
Then you start reading about other manufacturer's diesel engines and you start getting tales of woe regarding sticking EGR valves...downside of a sticking EGR being that the engine can end up consuming its own engine oil and will do so until it goes pop. Turbo seal failures also crop up a lot and again can lead to engines going pop....the one name that fairs the worst on all of this is Renault!.
You then hear of BMW having problems with the inlet manifolds and turbo failures on their 4 cylinder diesels and the story goes on and on.
Its clear that modern diesels have a hard job to do in meeting ever increasing emission legislation and this has lead to injectors becoming ever more complex and working to even tighter tolerances, but this just makes me think that once a modern diesel has done 80,000+ and is, say, out of warranty, that its just a ticking time bomb in terms of maintenance costs and in terms of buying one you would be better off with a petrol engined car, which to be fair have taken some great strides forward in terms of fuel economy in recent years, but do not appear to be affected by the same sorts of reliability issues that higher mileage modern diesels have.
Any thoughts on this?.....and does anybody have anymore info on other manufacturer's diesel engines....for example I've not heard of Toyota diesels suffering the sort of problems that European manufacturers have, or is that because I'm just not aware of them?
Oh and by the way here's a tale of woe from another friend who had the misfortune of buying a Renault Laguna 2.2DCi, but had the fortune of having an extended warranty!
In the time he owned the car which was 3 years and 75,000 miles (purchased at a year old and 10,000 miles), he had a replacement ECU, Turbo, 1x Injector, Glow Plug, another failed injector/seal which caused such a mess that a new cylinder head was needed....total cost in warranty claims from memory over the 3 years was something like £6000
Or there's the other story of a business colleague who came running into the office like a mad man shouting help and pointing at his 2.2DCi Laguna in the car park belching out a huge amount of black smoke as the engine lunched on its own engine oil and didn't stop until it went pop....provided a bit of entertainment for the day!
