Jul 06, 2006 06:45 PM
39196 Views
I went thro this when I had to buy a car .now-a-days these questions are being asked more due to entry for INDICA according to me this is a good package as a diesel platform and lots of people are opting for this due to high mileage.
I had the following points when I decided to buy my car(petrol or diesel).
1) MILAGE.
2) Ease of driving.
3) Cabin Noise.
4) Vibrations.
5) On road price.
6) Distance traveled each day.
I am comparing tow very similar cars.
Tata indica XETA(my car).
Tata indica diesel(which my friend has).
I guess the comparison cannot be closer than this. I am not talking about neutral points like built quality, suspension, etc.
1) Mileage: this is where the diesel car beats the petrol car hands down(I would have softened my sentence if I was in some other country like UK where petrol and diesel prices are almost the same.).
Let us do some math.
If I have to travel around 40 kms per day say 20 towards office and 20 backwards and I will calculate the same for seven days as we might be doing an outing on weekends.
DIESEL
Total kms traversed=40*30=1200
Say my expected price of diesel is 40 per liter(as prices are going up every day) and as per my knowledge(confirmed by my friend) indica diesel gives around 15 with AC
Cost per km=40/15=2.67
Cost of running per month=1200*2.67=INR 3204 say 3500
PETROL
Total kms traversed=40*30=1200
Say my expected price of petrol is 60 per liter(as prices are going up every day) and as per my knowledge indica Xeta gives around 12.5 with AC
Cost per km=60/12.5=4.8
Cost of running per month=1200*4.8=INR 5760
We see from the above calculation that we save around 2200 INR every month with diesel .Even if I offset say 200 INR for excess maintaining charges we end up saving 2000 INR.(roughly)
2) Ease of driving: Petrol vehicles are much easier to drive than diesel of course I am excluding Skoda and benz as these vehicles are highly refined.
just to give example in indica diesel when you are starting fresh you need to rev up the engine and bring it to life before you take off. Which might be a bit difficult to drive when you are returning home from office. Throttle might not be as responsive as in petrol.
3&4) cabin noise and vibrations: this is where the petrol vehicles beat the diesel ones hands down. the nose is very high in cabin of diesel vehicles and might be difficult to digest on long runs. Where as the same in petrol engine is very smooth and less noisy. Vibrations of diesel vehicle is any ways higher say when you start indica diesel the whole vehicle shivers as if a dog is shaking it body to remove water from it. How ever it is not the same with higher end vehicles.
5) On road price: If you are comparing indica diesel and petrol roughly they are having a price difference of 1 lac one more set of calculations which we can do here if you are buying thro loan.
Diesel:
EMI=8010 for 5yrs(cote from Bangalore for max finance)
Diesel cost per month=3500
Down payment cost offset=500
Total cost=12, 010 INR
Petrol:
EMI=5546 for 5yrs(which I am paying for max finance in Hyderabad)
Petrol cost per month=5760
Down Payment cost offset=500
Total cost=11, 806 INR
Now if you I look at it this way then petrol becomes a more viable option. Because the monthly cost of ownership and running for petrol xeta works out cheaper.
6) Now having said all this, the advantage of owning diesel car increases with increase of distance traversed so if you are a person who makes more than 40 kms or more per day and worried about the raising fuel prices then diesel is the best option however if you are looking for drive comfort, reduced engine noise and so on then petrol is a better option.
Hope my calculations and analysis helps you people to decide which is the best option for you.
Notional Value for calculation
