PETROL v DIESEL SHOOTOUT! Should you buy a petrol or a diesel 4WD?

right oh it's time to answer that age-old question should you buy a diesel or a petrol oil drive let's take a detailed look at the pros and cons of each boil it down to the dollars you'll spend on each over their lifetime and talk about the real-world benefits and limitations of both types of fuel in a foil drive that's actually used as a four-wheel drive whether you're looking for a new or a newer vehicle right now or you're wondering about your next upgrade this is essential info that everyone should have tucked away in the memory bank because the answer isn't just as simple as pie of diesel let's look at the topic from all different angles and then at the end I'll help you decide on what's right for you so I've got the white board here that will just help us tell you things up as we go [Music] so let's address the most obvious difference between the two fuel types first and that's fuel economy everyone buys our diesel because it's the more economical choice right and that's true assuming that the vehicles are relatively standard and haven't had big engine power ups painting with broad strokes here but the typical four-cylinder common-rail dual cab is capable of averaging somewhere around 10 litres per 100 kilometres for a combined city/highway fuel economy rating whereas a typical petrol four-wheel drive the roughly the same size and weight would expect to return somewhere around 14 litres to the hundred kilometres so let's put that into perspective fuel prices obviously vary but let's say you bought either diesel or petrol for a dollar 50 or later that's gonna cost you about six dollars extra every hundred kilometres to run a petrol as opposed to a diesel like that up to the national average of 20,000 kilometers a year and you'll shell out an extra twelve hundred dollars in fuel to keep a petrol 4dr running every year compared to a diesel and that's not a small amount either so diesel definitely wins the fuel economy stakes staying on the fuel economy subject for a moment it's when you load up a diesel four-wheel drive that it really shines compared to its petrol equivalent because Diesel's produce the majority of their power down low in the rev range you generally don't have to sink your foot in as hard to get moving when you're loaded up towing a trailer that sort of stuff petrol motors on the other hand produce their power higher up in the rev range so to access that power you've really got a sink in the video practically speaking if it's our old one and a half time camper trailer or a two ton caravan on an equivalent petrol and diesel four-wheel drive the diesel will probably use about 15 to 20 percent more fuel compared to when it isn't telling anything whereas you're likely to use somewhere in the realm of thirty to forty percent more fuel towing with a petrol as opposed to not towing okay so parking fueled for a moment let's talk servicing where petrol vehicles win over diesels in the servicing department particularly when talking about older or larger capacity motors like 4.2 diesels in patrols and cruisers typically older mechanically injected diesel service intervals there are only 5,000 kilometers and when you consider a TD 40 to 4.2 liter patrol diesel engine needs a whopping 10.5 liters of oil and not one but two oil filters that can easily run to a hundred and sixty dollars per service and that's assuming you've doing it yourself so working off that twenty thousand kilometer a year average that's six hundred and forty dollars a year in servicing if you're doing it in your driveway my way of comparison a four point five liter patrol petrol engine needs seven point six liters of oil per change a single oil filter and only two old changes in the same time period for a rough total cost of around a hundred dollars of service that's a difference of four hundred and forty dollars every year so when it comes to servicing petrels went out [Music] okay so let's talk cost of purchasing a vehicle because cost to purchase is a huge part of the total cost of ownership because Diesel's are generally thought to be longer-lasting than their petrol counterparts they attract a premium when it comes to purchase for us generally speaking anywhere between 3,000 to 5,000 dollars compared to an identical petrol four-wheel drive now you will of course in generally speaking get that same 3,000 to 5,000 dollars back when you sell the vehicle so the initial outlay isn't really a negative you've got to delve a bit further down into it to understand the hip to the hip pocket let's say you're looking at the car classifieds online and you find comparative four-wheel drives is a diesel for twenty five thousand dollars and there's a petrol for twenty thousand dollars let's use the current average industry secured car loan rate of about eight point five percent and figure out how much interest you'll pay on both of those loans over say a five year period on that twenty thousand dollar loan you'll pay about forty six hundred dollars of interest over five years and on the twenty five thousand dollar loan that jumps up to almost fifty eight hundred dollars of interest over that same five year period and that works out to about two hundred and thirty five dollars extra interest that you're paying on the diesel every year okay so that's two hundred and thirty five dollars difference it's not a whole lot but it's still a good long weekends camping food fuel and grog so that's definitely better in your pocket than the banks now all things being equal vehicle financing costs petrels do win out okay so let's put the master side now what are the real-world benefits and drawbacks to owning each type of fall Drive especially if you use it offroad first let's talk petrol benefits now petrol engines as we said a moment ago love to Rev and they produce heaps of power in top of the rev range that means they're sensational on the sand so if you love to hit the beach so I've gone for a surf or a fish then there are a few better ways to do it than in a petrol vehicle so the other benefit that petrol motors have especially if you love head and bush or going on big four-wheel-drive adventures is that generally speaking they're much less fussy about quality of fuel if you pick up a bit of watery low quality petrol somewhere all you need to do generally is throw a liter of Cairo in the fuel tank change the filter and you're probably pretty good to go again okay so petrol drawbacks doubt well the obvious one is substantially increased fuel usage whenever you're offroad about 40% more on average than when you're on road in a petrol the other issue traditionally with petrels was always ignition systems hiding water particularly older distributor driven systems now that can be guarded against by water proofing the motor check out these photos of my old Tesla Land Cruiser saucing bonus to deep rivers in Cape York but here's the thing the new of the vehicle gets that you're talking about the better both Petros and diesels get when it comes to dealing with water both petrol and diesel modern fault drives have somewhat similar amounts of under bonnet electrics but are both generally speaking equally good when it comes to water proofing okay so petrol drawbacks definitely fuel consumption off-road the X there and they don't like water crossings so diesel benefits off-road will fuel economy is the obvious massive one especially if you load it up and doing a big touring trip like fraser island cape york or the simpson desert owning a diesel for drive could very realistically knock a thousand bucks off a cape york or simpson desert total trip cost diesels are also generally more resistant to water off-road for that time on an assumption that a diesel can run underwater as long as the air intake and the exhaust are able to breathe isn't really the case anymore as i said a moment ago modern diesels have just as many electronic components and sensors as petrels do so then the big benefit to diesels offroad is the reduced fuel usage the double tick there and that leads to reduced touring costs okay so diesel drawbacks off-road well the main one is diesel injection systems be them old or new being very susceptible to poor quality fuel in fact one bad batch of watery diesel just one tank is enough to destroy a 2,000 dollar set of injectors and a $3,500 injector pump and that is pretty damn scary that is why a secondary fuel filter is so vital on a diesel motor so unfortunately for diesels fuel quality is definitely a negative and we can't talk Diesel's without talking about the biggest problem facing modern diesel owners these days and that's diesel particulate filters or DPS so what is a DPF well in an effort to get diesel exhaust emissions down to make regulations it was discovered that the particulates of the soot in the diesel exhaust was much more environmentally friendly it was burped a second time a DPF is a device in the exhaust that catches that soot which is then ignited with more diesel being injected into the exhaust to burn the soot off unfortunately it is a bit of a problematic system particularly for vehicles that don't see long highway kilometres or tow heavy loads where the exhaust gets hot enough to help with the burn off process problems can be anything from a vehicle that goes atomic mode restricting you to 30 or 40 corners an hour max right up to a DPF that gets so hot that literally melts its two pieces so if the vehicles in warranty will then the general idea is you're supposed to take it back to the manufacturer put it on them to fix it however heaps of full drive owners know all too well that right now there are a lot of manufacturers just wiping their hands of the problems pretending that they don't exist and if it's out of warranty well that it's definitely on the vehicle owner to bear the cost of repair and that can get up to easily three or four thousand dollars if the systems massively damaged now we are all for cleaner greener forward rise it's a great thing long-term but it is one thing for governments to set emission standards manufacturers to implement emission systems into vehicles when their problematic it ends up being on us the owners to bear those costs so unfortunate when it comes to Diesel's DPS are a massive negative okay so let's talk long-term cost of ownership when a vehicle gets up higher in the kilometers cost of ownership and repair costs plays a massive part in the economy of petrol versus diesel motors this is mainly apparent in the repair cost of fuel systems petrol injectors for instance generally lasts anywhere between 300,000 and 500,000 corners and cost about 50 dollars an injector plus remove and refit labor to rebuild plus about 20 bucks a spark plug spark plugs will last about a hundred thousand kilometers not a whole lot you have diesel injectors on the other hand generally last somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 kilometers and can cost anywhere from $200 for an older-style one to $2,000 plus for a modern common rail injector depending on the age of the vehicle in tank petrol pumps can be replaced at home by an average DIY for anything between $50 to about $200 whereas diesel injector pumps are highly specialized in complex bits of gear that could cost anywhere north of three thousand dollars to be rebuilt by a specialist shop all other long-term servicing costs are generally fairly similar for petrels and diesels things like timing belts cylinder heads if they have to be done that sort of thing so when it comes to long-term cost of ownership Diesel's definitely lose out here [Music] okay so the big question is a diesel or a petrol forward Drive the right choice for you will all depends on what you're gonna use the vehicle for if you realistically don't see yourself doing a lot of big bull driving trips in the foreseeable future and especially if you're on a tight budget then a petrol full drive is a brilliant way to get out on weekend camping adventures without spending the earth and if you love hitting the local beaches for a surf or a fish you love the pure sand spitting ability that a bachelor for the drive has if your budget means that you're looking at a high kilometer vehicle well again it's way easier and cheaper to keep a petrol vehicle running at home in your driveway however there's no doubting that Diesel's rule supreme when it comes to full drives and for good reason they're economical to run they're great at dealing with heavy loads including towing used to do lots of kilometres per year than the saving seriously start to add up unfortunately the only thing that I can do is suggest this be realistic with your expectations of your vehicle it's one thing to think yes I would love to go and do a Cape York or the simpson desert but realistically most of us will get to do that maybe once every five years by four-wheel-drive to suit what you're doing now not what you hope you'll be doing in five years time and I guarantee it will serve you well hi and one last parting thought availability of fuel when you're out bush now as you can see I might not be very good at writing on a whiteboard but I've been lucky enough to spend a heap of time in Australia's most remote places including a 42000 kilometer trip around Australia in an old four-and-a-half litre petrol 80 series save for a few extremely remote cattle stations that only the most avid adventurers would visit you're able to get petrol anywhere that you can get diesel yes it might only be 91 and it might even be idle it's open which means that it won't be suitable for modern high-performance petrels but for most of us you can definitely get unleaded which was lucky considering my worst ever fuel economy figure came in at 46 liters to the hundred kilometres tongue a camper trailer over the old coach roads 150 kilometres of sanity yep 46 liters to the hundred Columbus just let that one sink in for a moment well there you go petrol verse diesel what do you reckon have I missed any crucial bits got any other thoughts drop them in the comments below and remember hit the subscribe button and of course a notification button stay in touch with us for more camping and full driving tips and tricks [Music]

Channel: 4WD Supacentre

Views: 51,025

Rating: 4.7279234 out of 5

Keywords: air compressors, awnings, awning tents, camping gear, exhausts, led light bars, Titan rear drawers, recovery gear, 4wd action, 4x4, 4wd, camping tents

Id: OuggsHiMDi4

Length: 14min 14sec (854 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 19 2020