Petrol or diesel; which is best for my needs?

[LemonDrop]

i keep going round and round with this. Any help from those more knowledgeable please.

I had decided on a diesel DSG but is this heart over head? I want to make sure this is the right choice for my needs, will the particulate filter clog up with my type of driving?

Day to day short drives around town.

Once a week 30 Miles mostly at (max) 50mph (for now but will end at some point)

Once every 2 weeks (approx) 25 Miles mostly motorway.

Summer - drive to South of France and back.

 

[2into1]

Are you only planing on using it (as a camper) once a year to France? No weekends away etc?

 

[LemonDrop]

Are you only planing on using it (as a camper) once a year to France? No weekends away etc?

Yes there'll be loads of that, just trying to give an idea of the baseline way the vehicle will be used to help decide on petrol or diesel.

 

[Max-Felix]

It's not exactly the ideal use for what is in effect a van engine best designed to do day in day out driving 20-30k a year round motorways, A roads and non stop city use.

I'd buy a small city car and hire the Cali when needed.

 

[kp64zl]

Petrol versions are no longer available when ordering new.

I've been looking at second-hand Californias now for about 3 months (Autotrader, here, Das Welt Auto) and I have not seen any petrol Californias advertised.

 

[LemonDrop]

Petrol versions are no longer available when ordering new.

I've been looking at second-hand Californias now for about 3 months (Autotrader, here, Das Welt Auto) and no petrol versions have been advertised.

I believe they are available again from 1st November.

 

[kp64zl]

Ok - thanks - I didn't know that.

 

[MattBW]

i keep going round and round with this. Any help from those more knowledgeable please.

I had decided on a diesel DSG but is this heart over head? I want to make sure this is the right choice for my needs, will the particulate filter clog up with my type of driving?

Day to day short drives around town.

Once a week 30 Miles mostly at (max) 50mph (for now but will end at some point)

Once every 2 weeks (approx) 25 Miles mostly motorway.

Summer - drive to South of France and back.

Short around town trips are not idea for a modern diesel as the DPF will quickly get clogged without some good runs. That said my commute to work is now less than 5 miles and I ensure I drive a good distance at least once a week at the right speeds/rev range to clean it out. 3.5years without the light coming on so far and all running well.

The motorway trip may be enough to clear the dpf if its at the right rev range and at a constant speed (crawling in traffic wouldn't work).

 

[kp64zl]

@LemonDrop -- do you think you might be doing more miles and more trips in the new van? That might tip the balance.

 

[WelshGas]

Petrol.

If Diesel, more, longer trips.

 

[westfalia]

Once a week 30 Miles mostly at (max) 50mph (for now but will end at some point)

Once every 2 weeks (approx) 25 Miles mostly motorway.

Petrol, if you can get one.

 

[LemonDrop]

I believe they are available again from 1st November.

Or maybe not. Just spoken to SMG Tonbridge and they think the petrols have been discontinued. 2 dealers, 2 opinions! I guess we'll find out in a week or so.

Anyway, according to the SMG tech guy, 20 miles a week at 60mph/19-2100 revs will be fine as a minimum so if I have to do the odd scenic drive so be it. We do approx 8k miles a year so I have probably been a tad cautious with my estimates.

 

[2into1]

Yes there'll be loads of that, just trying to give an idea of the baseline way the vehicle will be used to help decide on petrol or diesel.

That's why I asked, because your leisure use has to be quantified before anyone can answer sensibly.

It's the total mix of use that determines the answer.

 

[2into1]

Anyway, according to the SMG tech guy, 20 miles a week at 60mph/19-2100 revs will be fine as a minimum

I'm not sure this advice is still current (owning a T6). I believe the t5s only burnt off the collected soot when revs exceed 2k (?) and engine was hot etc. That's where the 'drive it like you stole it once a month' came from. If it never met those conditions the dpf became over full and gave up.
My T6 is happy to start a regen half way through a 1 mile drive to the supermarket, even though it had plenty of opportunity the day previous on a long hard drive.
Im not arguing that short runs are good for diesels (far from it) - just with the premise that it won't for a dpf regeneration until it thinks 'it has been stolen'.

 

[Popthetop]

We have a similar driving profile, my wife uses our 180 diesel as a daily drive. Two miles to work either way, once every couple of weeks it has a run of 20 miles plus, more when we’re using it as a camper and so on. No DPF lights or any other issues. Always use vpower or similar. Not sure if that’s made a difference or not.

 

[Tompoole]

i keep going round and round with this. Any help from those more knowledgeable please.

I had decided on a diesel DSG but is this heart over head? I want to make sure this is the right choice for my needs, will the particulate filter clog up with my type of driving?

Day to day short drives around town.

Once a week 30 Miles mostly at (max) 50mph (for now but will end at some point)

Once every 2 weeks (approx) 25 Miles mostly motorway.

Summer - drive to South of France and back.

Hi
We’ve had our Cali ocean since Jan 18, we had same dilemma... we eventually went for a 150ps derv manual .
It’s been superb , the diesel is really good on long runs and Dpf hasn’t been an issue but we have clocked up 6000 miles so plenty of long runs .
The Dpf takes a while to regenerate and have to say unless you do an hour hi speed journey regularly it will be best to get petrol Cali or city car for local driving, as it will be an issue for Dpf .
Our diesel does 40-45mpg on a run but only 28-32 around town especially if Dpf keeps trying to regenerate.
We love our diesel and definitely the right choice for us but we have a landrover for local transport, if we only had the Cali I would have bought the petrol.
Hope this helps

 

[DavidofHook]

i keep going round and round with this. Any help from those more knowledgeable please.

I had decided on a diesel DSG but is this heart over head? I want to make sure this is the right choice for my needs, will the particulate filter clog up with my type of driving?

Day to day short drives around town.

Once a week 30 Miles mostly at (max) 50mph (for now but will end at some point)

Once every 2 weeks (approx) 25 Miles mostly motorway.

R only vehicleSummer - drive to South of France and back.

Our driving is similar to yours Lemon drop. We do 6 to 7000 miles a year with one or maybe two European trips and some in the U.K. but most of our driving is short distance, between 5 to 20 miles. It is our only vehicle, we have had it since 2012 and never had a problem with the dpf. I have always had tucked in the back of my mind that if it does light up a hammer down the motorway will sort it.

 

[LemonDrop]

Thanks All

Your opinions and experience are very much appreciated. We have taken the leap and placed an order for a diesel 150 DSG. This is the only spec. available right now for a beach and the dealer we ended up using seems pretty sure there will be no more petrol versions in the near future.

Spring - Autumn should be fine in terms of the long-enough-at-high-speeds drives it's just the winter months when it's cold and wet that we might not use it "enough". So I might possibly need to take it for the odd scenic tour of the M3 but I've got a feeling I'll be itching to get out in it at every opportunity anyway!