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At the risk of outing myself as 'not much of a driver' (passed test 3 years ago at 31, after about 5 hours of lessons having never driven before and the urgency of a new baby spurring me on - since then done about 15000 miles a year in my wife's 2008 kia ceed, which I recently killed) what's the difference between petrol and diesel?
My understanding is:
diesel is (currently) more expensive, but can be more economical to run?
it provides or is associated with more torque for quicker bursts of power when needed
it emits less CO2 (but has other emissions associated with lung problems like asthma)
diesel cars tend to cost more to buy and more to get serviced/repaired
depending on model may be unable to go into certain ULEZs - which could be an issue for me.it'll be largely a work expense so if there are costs, there are costs. That said if a diesel is black hole, maybe I should avoid it.
I feel (the non driver in me) that I'd rather get a new fully electric van (was looking at a Nissan e-nv200 combi) but I don't have 30 grand sitting around and don't want to get sucked into credit (even a couple of hundred quid a month) when I'm self employed / the sole earner in house and in a relatively precarious line of work which covid hasn't helped and brexit won't either.
When I do get paid, I do get paid, so I could cobble together between 5 and 10 grand in cash for a car without too much stomach churning (lower half of that figure would be nicer). I usually carry 200-300kg of kit to a job, sometimes double that. I live in Devon and usually drive to jobs in London, Milton Keynes and Southampton. The kit is typically heavy, flat and boxy but with some long things (so the 2.8m internal space the Berlingo offers sounds great).
I remember seeing this:
get turned into this:
which is frankly the dream - but I'd still need to fit a child seat in there somewhere because I'm not having two vehicles. Have contemplated ratchet strapping him to the roof but was vetoed.
CYOA-
depending on model may be unable to go into certain ULEZs - which could be an issue for me.
The London ULEZ charge is for petrols pre-2005 (ish) and diesels pre-2015. ish because some vehicles built earlier are compliant. The London charge is just a £12.50 charge per day, not a ban, so if you're an occasional visitor it might not be worth worrying about.
The CO2 based road tax regime we had/have on cars built 2001-17 means larger vans with petrol engines don't exist from that time period. Anything bigger than a Berlingo was too expensive to tax so manufacturers didn't bother selling them here.
OTOH diesel engines are fucking terrible for humans and no one should drive one in a built-up area unless it has fully functioning emissions gear, which many don't, especially older ones where it's gunked up or been deliberately disabled.
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I usually carry 200-300kg of kit to a job, sometimes double that.
A VW Passat estate has a max carrying load of 670kg. I assume a Skoda Superb is similar.
Have you had a look at those to see if they'd fit the bill dimensions wise?
They are pretty big.
A builder mate uses one as his work car. He also has access to a pickup, but can do the majority of what he needs with a Passat estate and roof rack.
Someone else might be able to comment if it would be worth upgrading springs if you're running close to the max weight on the regular. But if the majority of the time it's half the max weight I'd have thought it would be fine.
The other advantages are; the great comfort, mod cons, high safety rating to protect your child, and it doesn't look like a works van so if people look in the back they're more likely to think you're just moving house not moving tens of thousands of camera kit (that is what you do right?).
In fact that last point is a large reason my mate has stuck with VW estates over a van or pickup for his main vehicle.
grams
hugo7
The issue will be finding a non diesel. I looked for one and euro 4 petrol were hard to find