Jul 27, 2004 12:48 PM
9780 Views
(Updated Jul 27, 2004 12:56 PM)
I am going to restrict my review on this topic to the COST factor only. Others have covered all the technical and environmental issues as I can see.
I have about 8 years of experience with Diesel vehicles in India. I have driven a Tata Sierra for 4 years and then a Mahindra Bolero GLX and a Bolero Sportz for another 4 years. In all, I have driven about 200, 000 kms in this diesel vehicles.
As I know, diesel version of the same vehicle cost about Rs. 1 - 1.5 lakhs more than the petrol version. Many potential buyers think that this cost differential can be made up easily because of the difference in cost between petrol and diesel. Let us do some math on the following assumptions:
Cost of Diesel Version: 8.5 Lakhs
Cost of Petrol Version: 7.5 Lakhs
Cost of Diesel/litre: Rs. 28.00
Cost of Petrol/litre: Rs. 41.00
Assume same fuel effficiency.
Let us assume that you drive the car for 100, 000 kms. So you would use about 10000 litres of fuel. Therefore, running cost of diesel car would be: 2, 80, 000 and cost of petrol car would be 4, 10, 000. So this would be an advantage of Rs. 1, 30, 000. With this math the fuel cost saving is largely a myth because you have paid more for the diesel car anyway.
Secondly, in my experience, the maintenance cost of a diesel car is about 5-10% more than a petrol car. Many others have told me that a diesel car is too expensive to maintain, but I have not seen it myself. The other thing to note is that the resale value for a diesel car is likely to be lower than a petrol car, but again not by much in my experience.
Put all this together and I come to the conclusion that a diesel car saves money only if you run a taxi service and expect to use the car for 200, 000+ kms. For most private individuals it makes very little difference.
So, if you are interested in high torque, higher payload and some rugged use - buy diesel car, else petrol. I am assuming here that you have a choice between petrol and diesel in the same model.
