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Time for a new car and I'm trying to work out if diesel or petrol will work out cheaper.
We get a list, no electric or hybrids on there unfortunately.
15,000 miles a year. Mix of urban and motorway.
We get a contribution towards the car but have to pay a chunk ourselves.
We get 15p per mile up to 1.5 litres and 18p a litre above that.
Tax/servicing/upfront cost/resale is not my concern, just what it costs per mile. Anyone with a crystal ball who knows what will happen to diesel prices? Can the government ramp up one fuel duty above another, or is fuel duty the same on diesel and petrol.
Get on https://comcar.co.uk and bang in the specific cars you’re looking at and compare. BIK tax should be a specific concern because it can make a huge difference in the effective running cost.
And this rates are a bit weird. They doesn’t seem to correlate to any of the current HMRC advisory fuel rates.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/advisory-fuel-rates/advisory-fuel-rates-from-1-march-2016. (Ignore the URL saying 2016, it’s the current rates on the page)
If they’re paying 15ppm for petrol up to 1.5l, for example, you should be paying BIK on the 3ppm difference to the current 12ppm rate if your car is less than 1.4l.
Chances are the answer will still be a diesel car anyway at the moment, given you have no hybrids or electrics. Petrol BIK rates are often a bit mental due to petrol engine’s naturally higher CO2 outputs.
Cheapest will still be diesel because of the co2/BIK (especially if you want a bigger car) on the car value, and of course the bit on the fuel.
2 factors in play that will effect driving fuel prices in the next few years.
1) The mass move back to petrol from diesel. Diesel currently costs more than petrol as demand is higher, as drivers flee from diesel it will become cheaper relative to petrol.
2) With current balance of diesel to petrol we don’t refine enough in the UK for demand so we’re a net importer of diesel and exporter of petrol. Another reason why diesel is so much more expensive than petrol is down the fact we import it from Europe... avoiding the ‘B’ word, the value of the pound v euro will effect the price difference between petrol and diesel, the value of the pound v the dollar will effect the cost of both over-all.
Diesels, will like-for-like get a greater mpg once warm and especially on long steady drives.
Diesel while they are still available ...
Some info here.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/12/electric-cars-already-cheaper-own-run-study
Great question, I am due a new company car in May and am also wondering what to get. I want to hold onto my Audi A3 1.6D for another 12 months ideally to see what hybrids/electric vehicles are around then
My A3 often does 70MPG and I claim back 10p per mile so I dont know what get next.
It's an odd one, there's no bik to consider. The scheme works by them paying us an allowance and then we have to top it up and lease a car from a third party that is owned by the umbrella company.
All a bit complicated for me, I just want to keep what I pay towards a car to do my job at an absolute minimum.
No BIK makes it a bit easier then, just do some sums on the equivalent petrol and diesel models of whatever you fancy. Base on combined mpg, whilst it won’t accurately reflect your actual driving costs exactly, it’ll be close enough for comparison.
In my own case, I worked out the petrol version of my car would cost 18ppm in fuel to run, and the diesel 15ppm. But we pay HMRC rates, 22ppm for petrol and 14ppm for diesel.
Thus buying a 400bhp 3l supercharged petrol v6 actually costs me less to run for work than a less powerful and noisier diesel 🙂
Petrol for me! I have to pay tax on the car but petrol is a fuel card which means its based on the pump price not a pence per mile. Worked out cheaper based on the tax on the Petrol vs Diesel version of my Skoda.
For you I would guess Diesel will work out better value.
Diesel fuel is quite a bit more expensive than petrol to buy these days.
A nice powerful diesel doesn’t really get any better mpg than a good petrol these days.
If you drive in any big cities potentially expect to be charged soon to go in in a diesel